Taxes, Hard Babies, ThredUp, and Energy Balls
It's a miscellany Thursday today. Ready?
I finished my taxes.
Since I'm self-employed, I almost always end up owing money, which means I'm never in a super big hurry to do my taxes.
Tax-filing just gives me varying degrees of bad news. 😉
But, I always funnel more than enough blogging money away to cover taxes and blog expenses, so paying the tax bill is not an actual problem.
Instead of being all, "Oooh, how big will my refund be??" I'm more like, "Oooh, how much money will I have left in my account after I pay taxes?"
I used TurboTax, as usual, although I bought a physical copy this year at Costco. The Turbo Tax online price seems to be getting higher and higher each year, and the Costco price beat it handily (and included a state filing and free federal e-filing.)
I felt a little silly buying a program on a disc (it's 2016, for heaven's sake!) but I did save a lot of money by going that route.
(Incidentally, I noticed that Amazon has a good price for Turbo Tax too. I'll remember to check there next year and compare to Costco.)
Some babies are hard.
This NY Times article has been making the rounds (probably mostly shared by exhausted parents!)
I'm no longer an exhausted parent of a baby, but the article made me think of my early days with Joshua, who was what people would call a "high-needs" baby.
I went into pregnancy and motherhood with chock-full of confidence, and both pretty much knocked me flat. I had a hard pregnancy (followed by three more hard pregnancies) and Joshua gave me a rough introduction to motherhood once he was born.
I tried EVERYTHING to get my baby to sleep, and nothing worked. We won't talk about the nights. And nothing would make him take more than two 45-minute snoozes in the daytime either.
While it was kind of terrible at the time, in retrospect I feel grateful that my first baby was hard. If he'd been easy, I would have wrongly chalked it up to my mothering capabilities, and I would have been an obnoxiously self-assured new mom.
He saved me. 😉
While I do think that parenting has some effect on baby sleep habits, the factor of the matter is that this is a thing that is largely outside our control, especially when we're talking about babies vs. toddlers/preschoolers.
So, we shouldn't be too proud of ourselves if our babies are easy, and we shouldn't be too quick to blame ourselves if our babies are hard.
(Side note: If you are an exhausted new parent, hear this: things get better. In the midst of those hard months with Joshua, I thought I would my life would never approach a semblance of normal again, but it did. Hang in there! There will be light at the end of this sleepless tunnel.)
I tried ThredUp.
ThredUp is an online consignment store that's been around for a pretty long time. I'll write a little more about the experience in another post (not sponsored!), but I feel very positive about it thus far.
One great thing: they accept returns. This is pretty fabulous, especially when it comes to buying clothes for Lisey or for me (it seems like adult/teen-sized clothes have a less forgiving fit, whereas most of what I buy for Sonia and Zoe works).
You can get $10 off your first order through this link. (That's how I placed my first order! I love introductory discounts.)
(Speaking of introductory discounts....remember back in the early 2000s when e-commerce was just getting started and companies were all sending out codes for $10 off a $10 purchase or $25 off a $25 purchase, just to get people to try online shopping? Those were some good days for bargain hunters.)
We are digging Energy Balls.
Since Joshua is off to college classes a few times a week, he needs to regularly pack a lunch for the first time in his life.
So, portable foods have been a bit more of a priority at our house, and these no-bake energy balls are fitting the bill pretty nicely.
They're really easy to make, they're gluten free (as long as your oats are compliant), and egg-free, and they can be modified to be nut-free as well if you use sun butter.
Plus, they taste kind of like chocolate chip peanut butter cookie dough, which is pretty awesome.
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And that wraps up this week's edition of miscellany.
I ended up buying turbo tax online too instead of using the free version because I forgot to print out a return a few years ago and had to pay to get back copies. Doh! We always owe a bit because we changed our withholding so we have more cash flow during the year. We have the federal just right but the state taxes always get us.
My two toddlers, were hard indifferent ways.(they are 7 & 9 now) My first was physically hard to keep up to. He ran every where and climbed every thing. All with a big grin on his face. He only stopped to sleep and eat. When not eating or sleeping he only had one mode, move move move! I knew he was sick if he cuddled me.
My second was mentally exhausting. I always had to out think him. He is, though I didn't realize it at the time, speech delayed and ASD. I still have to think more when I interact with him. You could not distract or bribe him. He was sure his course of action was the only one for him. My favorite word of his is "ok" (he started saying it about age 5). I get a thrill when he agrees with me.
They both have taught me so much. In hindsight they were easy in some ways too. They both were good sleepers to different degrees. Both of them play well independently.
I'm one of the ones that was lucky (?) to have my first baby be a breeze. She is 2.5 now but was never a problem sleeper and is just overall so well behaved. We are afraid to have another one because we are spoiled with her! Haha!
On a totally unrelated note, there is an Aldi opening today less than 4 miles from my home!!!!!! What's even better....they are having a huge grand opening event with prizes AND sent coupons in the mail! I ended up with three $10 off a $40 purchase -- in Aldi prices, that is like hitting the jackpot! I am so excited.
Oh wow! I'm so jealous of your coupons. Enjoy!
I enjoy keeping up with your blog and your children's progress.
I sent the NY Times article to my daughter in Edinburgh because her baby (4 months old on the 29th) is one of the hard ones. It was v. timely, since there was a mother of a 5-month-old informing her earlier in the week that her baby was sleeping well and she was teaching it to self-soothe. My daughter and I agreed that the woman just needs to experience the second child that is NOTHING like the first one! Hold the self-congratulations. =)
Haha, yeah. There's NOTHING helpful about sharing your great sleep experience with an exhausted new parent. =O And if you're self-congratulatory about it, that makes it even worse!
I enjoyed this post so much. My first child was very difficult for me too. He absolutely refused to sleep, no matter what we did. And we were almost at the breaking point with it. You can only lose so much sleep. And it was always so hard to hear other people brag about their baby sleeping for hours at night while still a newborn. Sometimes we have difficult babies, and sometimes we have easy ones. But if they're difficult, it shouldn't automatically be blamed on something the parent is doing/isn't doing. Very good points, Kristin. 🙂
Yeah. Enough sleepless nights in a row will bring pretty much anyone to a breaking point! It's really rough.
Through it ALL, you help us remember to smile 🙂 You have a very addictive smile 🙂 🙂
I did learn NOT to overburden myself... Or place too many things on my plate, next to all the high demands our little children have. I had a huge migraine that hit outta no where, landed me in the ER! In those hard* times, there is light after the tunnel.....and waiting for children to be a little more dependent.... Until then smile on 🙂 We will miss these little toes and running around the floor... Momma's take care of yourself, sleep when you can and the work will always wait for you.......
Aww, thank you. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this article. My 20 month old still struggles (understatement of the year) going to sleep. What did you find to be the most effective method to help teach your little ones, especially Joshua, to go to sleep on their own?
Well (and I KNOW this is controversial), with all four of our kiddos, we eventually had to let them just cry themselves back to sleep. I didn't ever do this when they were infants or even small babies, but when they were fat, well-fed 10-12 month olds, I felt like it just wasn't necessary to get up multiple times at night to nurse them anymore! I knew they were safe and warm and clean and weren't starving. 😉 I know not every parent feels comfortable doing that, but it worked out well for us, and the whole household was happier once the baby wasn't getting up a bunch of times at night.
Will your 20 month old go down for naps ok? My kids almost always cried when it was naptime, but I just hugged them, put them in their cribs, made sure they had their stuffed animal or blanket, and shut the door. They didn't usually cry very long, but they did put up a protest nearly every time.
And it wasn't terribly uncommon for there to be a little fussing at bedtime even after they'd stopped nursing to sleep.
(I always thought that hope springs ever new in the heart of a toddler. "Maybe this time she'll take me out if I fuss!" Heh.)
I'm so sorry that sleep is hard for you guys. 20 months is a long time, and my heart goes out to you! One day, I promise, you'll be rousing your teenager out of bed in the morning.
Thanks. He is great during the night, it's just going to sleep initially that's a loooong battle. Naps are also a nightmare. If I simply sit beside the crib instead of standing over it patting his back he cries until he makes himself sick and tries to (and could) climb out 🙁 Falling asleep is an important life skill he needs as much for himself as for me!
I know one kid who didn't sleep well till ze moved from a crib to a real bed. That wasn't a strategy, btw, just that the parents wanted the crib for the next child.
Kristen, did all your info from the on-line turbo tax auto populate onto the disc? Probably not. My husband has given me a few "free" tax programs but the ease of the auto population of all my info keeps me paying too much for the online version of turbo tax. Sigh. Time is definitely money.
Nope, I had to manually put the info in again. But if I do a hard copy again next year, it'll pull all the info from the saved 2015 tax return on my computer. So next year will be super easy.
My daughter is 5.5 months and she hates sleeping for some reason. I guess she gets that from Dad because before joining the rat race I would love to stay up all hours watching TV.
What frustrates me as a father is that 9 times out of 10 I can do everything to try to calm my daughter and then my wife will come in and instantly our girl is calmed and soothed.
Through it all, I've noticed the people around me tend to be mostly unsympathetic and you tend to suffer alone when you have a fussy baby. People at work have told me to "buck up" or have laughed with a smug "I told you so" attitude. I don't know why but people seem to enjoy a huge sense of schadenfreude when they discover that I only got a couple hours of sleep or that I'm frustrated beyond belief that my daughter is back to square one with sleep training.
People are strange.
Oh and per buying programs on disc: I am a big fan of physical media for things like movies, games and other products like that but ephemeral things like tax software should be left in the digital only domain.
Well, I have lots of sympathy for you! It's a rough stage for sure, and when you're in the midst of it, it can feel like there's a dark cloud over your life. And when it's your first kid, you're also going through the huge adjustment of becoming a parent, which just adds to the difficulties.
Anyway. Feel the sympathy from over here!
Thanks I really appreciate it!
To be fair, I do have had a couple people in my life (my family for one) who have been sympathetic about the whole ordeal. One woman at work (who has an 18 month old, and normally never talks to me) sought me out to tell me that it does get better. I just don't understand why some people think it's so funny. Oh well. To each their own.
Good thing a lot of my TV watching involves subtitles. 🙂
Yeah, when we were in the throes of sleep-deprivation with Joshua, I really, really wanted some older parent to say, "Hang in there! It's going to get better. This will not last forever, even though it feels like it. There's hope!"
I just felt so hopeless, like my life would go on like this forever.
The good thing about subsequent babies is that even when they weren't sleeping very well, I had way more perspective and hope than I did my first go-round. Experience gave me hope, I think. I understood that things would get better eventually!
Hang in there! One day in the not-so-crazy-far future you'll get to put her in bed at night and not see her again until the morning. And your life won't revolve around her sleep habits.
Your daughter may be too interested in what is going on around her to sleep. That's a sign of intelligence (or so I told myself when going through a similar experience ... ).
Joshua IS a pretty smart kid, so, based on my sample size of one, I'll go with what you said. 😉
I love your Miscellany posts! I had an easy baby first and a not so easy baby second. Though I wouldn't change them I do think I thought my 'parenting' was responsible for my first being so easy. I probably wouldn't have admitted it at the time though. Having my second gave me more humility and empathy for all types of babies and moms. Brazelton really helped me understand baby's early years. Now my boys are 12 and 9 and there personalities haven't changed, but I do appreciate my younger son's differences more.
Where was that article 12 years ago???? I am blessed with two healthy children who have hit all their developmental milestones. But ... my oldest, my son, was much like April's. At 8 months of age, when we had gotten minimal sleep, we did do the "cry it out" technique. Four hours of screaming the first night, 1 1/2 hours the second night, and by the third night he finally slept. What the "experts" didn't tell us was that we would have to repeat this process every time he was sick, was cutting teeth, etc. We didn't have family living close by who could help us out so we were pretty much on our own. The blessing in this? My husband and I learned to work together with our parenting. I was breastfeeding--I would pump enough milk so that my husband could take some of the night feeding shifts. I learned that if I got 4 hours of consecutive sleep, I could make it through the day with intermittent (short!) naps and not go crazy. Less than 4 hours and I was an emotional mess. Another blessing is that I am sympathetic to the frustrations of parents with babies, especially if it's their first.
My daughter was a better sleeper than my son but she might win the award for stubbornness. I laughed out loud at Dr. Perri Klass' description of his daughter--sounds familiar!
To any parents out there who are going through similar struggles, I echo Kristen's comment--it does get better! Toddler-hood was challenging for me. The Love And Logic books were helpful. Developing a support network was helpful. Having my kids get old enough to reason with (school age) made all the difference in the world and that's when I fell in love with parenting. And those annoying self-assured parents of babies who are good sleepers? Wait 10 years and check in with them then ...
Hi Kristen,
The energy balls look really good.
And I was wondering how your pregnancies were hard. Just curious.
Thanks, Elena
While my babies were all healthy, I had hyperemesis with all four of my pregnancies, and it was progressively worse each time. By the time I got to Zoe's pregnancy, I was on the max dose of anti-nausea meds and still throwing up multiple times a day and losing weight, and though I was able to reduce my dose and start eating again eventually, I was on the meds until she was born.
I'm grateful to not have had any serious pregnancy issues like preterm labor or preeclampsia, but my pregnancies were definitely miserable times for me, and I'm really glad to be past that stage of life!
You are such a trooper to go through it 4 times. I remember when there was all the media attention about Kate Middleton's hyperemesis and one interviewed expert said it hadn't been studied well in subsequent pregnancies...because there usually weren't subsequent pregnancies. It really is that bad.
It is pretty darned awful. The memory of it has faded some now, but I remember in the throes of it during my fourth pregnancy, I said that if there were no hope of ever feeling better than this, I would want to die. What kept me going was knowing that it was going to end eventually...if I hadn't had that hope, I would have been in serious despair.
This gives me great sympathy for people who live with chronic pain, and no hope of improvement. So hard!
True words! My first baby was a very hard one too..... She wouldn't sleep/nap no matter what we did! Plus she had to be held constantly. I felt so horrible because I figured we must be doing something wrong... 🙁 But then I read a book about high-need babies and I realized she fit the bill! So I felt better... and then we had a second baby who is nothing like our first. We have done things the same way and she is just way easier!
"It too shall pass" I kept saying this to myself when the going got tough, a friend had told me it was what kept her going..and it worked for me too. In fairness it does always pass and the sleep deprivation does come to an end.
My first baby was a good sleeper nothing to do with me or my husband he just slept. I didn't go round shouting it from the rooftop and have great compassion for the next Mom who s baby didn't sleep- what I'm trying to say is "it is as it is" and there really isn't a lot we can do about it. But getting bitter and begrudging over it is not going to help..and with babies we are all just trying to do our best as best we can and if our baby is sleeping- great and if they are not - they eventually will! Live and let live:-)
My first was difficult because of eczema disrupting his sleep... Breastfeeding and cosleeping saved my sanity to a great degree. Our first and second are wonderful sleepers now, starting from around the age of two (around the time they were weaned and a new baby emerged the scene)
My best advice would be do NOT look at clocks when you are up!!!!! Not looking at the time when baby wakes up has helped me be so much more relaxed! Take care of the baby and get back to sleep!!!
Here I am, another one with a difficult first baby. She wouldn't sleep unless I held her, and so, since I could not hold her 24/7, she was always sleepy, but wouldn't even cry herself to sleep -- we tried it a few times, but she was still so young I couldn't stand to do it anymore.. I nursed her, but she would fall asleep after 2 or 3 minutes of nursing and so became underweight, even though she tried to nurse every half hour. I did every trick the La Leche league could give me to keep her awake to nurse fully and fill up, to no avail. To top it off, she wouldn't let anyone but me -- not even her daddy -- hold her without screaming bloody murder, and the "drive her around in the car" routine was a total failure. I did everything with one hand, or, when I had to lie her down, did things to the tune of her screams, which magically stopped as soon as I picked her up again. Then, around four months, she fell asleep one day in a baby swing and slept 10 minutes without me, a first. And the doctor told me to give her a tiny dab of rice cereal at night and she slept for a couple of hours in a stretch after that for the first time, without me holding her. By the time she was six months old, she was calm, nursed very well and gained rapidly, sat happily with anyone who would hold her, and was happy to play in the floor on a blanket or take a nap in her crib while I did housework. It was like night and day. It was with some trepidation that I had the next one, who, of course, was a much easier baby, although she would wake up four times a night to fuss for a few minutes and get a drink, until she was seven months old. I am absolutely in the camp of sympathy, not smirking, at new parents who are sleep deprived and desperate.
I do Turbo Tax online, too, but we have a simple return, so it's cheap. It beats paying the accountant $300!
When my oldest was a baby he slept like a dream . . . If I was holding him. Otherwise he screamed bloody murder. My husband and I were both were exhausted beyond anything we had ever experienced. Then our pediatrician told me to just lay him down and pat his back gently until he fell asleep. Lucky for her I was too tired and stressed out to punch her in the face. Now that she has three kids she seems less willing to offer such helpful advice.
My neighbor told me, when my youngest was a baby, not to expect my kids to sleep until they were "useful," that is, they could actually do work around the house! It always made me chuckle and realize that we are just going through a season that will pass!
Oh dear, this post brings back the memories. My first was the easiest baby ever. Slept well, always happy. Then came my second, never slept more than 1/2 hour nap if he even took one at all. Nights were even worse. he is now 23 and still has sleep issues. But we both survived.
And that in and of itself is encouraging, you know? When you're in the midst of something hard and you see that someone else made it through alive, it gives you hope.
Hi Kristen! I look forward to making these energy balls- they look yummy! Just an FYI in case someone else hasn't gotten to this already - when measuring honey, peanut butter, or other sticky stuff, first spray the measuring cup with baking/cooking spray (i.e. Pam) to make the ingredients super easy to remove. No more messy scraping out of measuring cups or having to use your measuring-cup-with-water trick. Enjoy!
We have 7 week old twins and are right in the middle of the craziness. The sleep deprivation is no joke, and we are in a constant cycle of diaper changes and feedings. One of our boys is colicky and cries constantly. Yesterday he cried for 8 hours only stopping briefly to eat. We have tried everything we can possibly think of to soothe him. Like someone else mentioned, the reactions of others drive us crazy. People either laugh and say oh, that's parenthood, or give advice to try the most obvious thing like have you tried rocking him. People keep telling us it will get better and I really really hope that is true!
To Moms of Exasperating Babies - A Tale of Hope:
Our first baby was crowned "the most difficult baby in the hospital's newborn unit." Even the pediatrician called my son (at two days old) "a fussbudget."
Benny, who had both colic and reflux, was extremely difficult to put down to sleep. After several months, we tried the "cry it out method" but baby Ben fought tooth and nail - repeatedly working himself into such a frenzy he would puke. He would scream for hours - literally, night after night.
We consulted our pediatrician who told us the method doesn't work for all babies, and we were to just help soothe Ben to sleep "in any creative ways we could." We ended up putting Ben in his car seat for safety and he slept between us in bed for his first year.
His reflux and colic got better - his sleep problems did not.
When Benny was a toddler, my husband and I took turns laying down with him until he went to sleep (our shifts were 30 minutes each.)
Mercifully, our second baby (yes, we managed to have one ) was a textbook sleeper; a poster child for the cry-it-out method. While baby Gracie was in dreamland, Benny still required a good 45 minutes of soothing time Every. Single. Night.
And what happened to our pint-sized, screaming dictator? He eventually became a dream of a sleeper, never fighting bedtime, ever. With God's help, Ben has learned to channel his strong will and is now a great student and state-ranked high school debater. He volunteers in our Sunday School each week.
There is hope.