Monthly Archives: February 2012

Spring Consignment and Yard Sales–Tips and Tricks for Getting the Best Deals

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Spring is around the corner and this is the most exciting time of the year for my frugal family–consignment sale and yard sale season! I have been faithfully consignment shopping and yard sale-ing for my family for over 8 years now (my husband calls it an addiction) and have come up with some tips and tricks that might help you find the best deals.
Before shopping, think ahead to what your children might need for the upcoming year: rain boots, jackets, snow boots, hats, mittens, sunhats, and items that could be put together for Halloween costumes all make great deals.
Other ideas to consider: You may have an infant now, but will you or your child want to play with Trains, Legos, Duplos, Puzzles, Board Games or other “classic” toys down the road? If you see them at a consignment sale or yard sale for a great price, buy it now to put away for later. Sometimes you can find toys and games still in the original packaging that you can put away for gifts.
Now is the time to Plan for Consignment Sales and Yard Sales
Most Parents of Multiples clubs will be having a consignment sale which is a great way to make a quick bit of cash on last year’s outgrown clothes and those toys that were holiday “misses.” Check with your local group for information on how to participate in their next sale. Often you can volunteer in exchange for shopping before the sale opens to the public, and/or receive a better rate of return on the items you are selling. Because they sell only infant or children’s items and sometimes maternity clothes, they are usually well organized and target what you might need with young children.
Some cities host consignment sales that are open to the public, but be prepared to pay to sell or pay to shop. There is a wide variety of children’s merchandise, but I often find (in my area) that sellers overprice items to recoup the costs involved.
Yard sales are a great way to find toys, clothes, sports equipment and other odds and ends that your children need without breaking the bank. However, there is a little bit of skill, as well as a lot of luck needed to be successful:

  • Search multiple sources for listings. Craigslist is a great resource, as well as your local paper. However, some of the best yard sales I have found have been just driving up and down the main residential roadways looking for signs.
  • Look for multi-family or neighborhood sales to get the most variety in items for very little time and effort.
  • If you are shopping for kids clothing, know your brands. If you know an Old Navy 4T shirt costs between $7-9 in the store on sale, and as low as 3.99 on clearance, then don’t pay $4 for it at a yard sale! Shoot for between .50 cents to $1 a piece for baby/toddler clothes and $5-8 a pair for shoes. Be ready to bargain, especially if you are buying more than one item. Name brand clothes will command higher prices, but still less than the consignment sales.
  • When at a yard sale, have a price in your head that you are willing to pay and walk away if the item is priced too high and the seller won’t bargain. Things to keep in mind: Wood toddler beds generally go for around $40. Dollhouses sets complete with furniture and dolls–$25. Hannah Anderson play dresses between $10-15. Anything Playmobil is a bargain if it is less than $20. Thomas, Brio and other train sets range from $10-25. Books and videos are one of the best bargains at a yard sale with books ranging from $.25-1.00 and DVD’s for $1.00-5.00.

Do you use consignment sales or yard sales to save money with multiples?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer and parent to three children who grow like weeds–justifying the hours spent yard sale-ing each spring. It is a sport.

RSV

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To parents in the know, there are few acronyms that make one’s heart sink faster than “RSV.”

Respiratory syncytial virus is an everyday virus that gives adults and most children no more than the sniffles. When it comes to young infants, especially preemies, the disease can ravage their lungs, and even prove fatal. I’ve heard that many parents of triplets and more put their infants on complete lock-down to protect them during their first flu season. In order to keep their home RSV-free, they keep family and friends alike away until the weather warms up.

We were fortunate to have health insurance that covered Synagis, the RSV shot, our daughters’ first year. Decision-makers in the military health care system deemed that RSV was a high enough risk for our daughters, 7 weeks premature, to cover the monthly thousand-dollar shot. Every month for 7 months, I took our tiny daughters to the one clinic in Central Texas that carried the antibody shot. They learned to start screaming at the sight of Candy, the lovely nurse who innoculated what seemed to be all the multiples in town.

J and M contracted RSV their second winter. They were relatively sturdy at 18 months of age, and didn’t require hospitalization. Still, I was out of work caring for them for nearly a month. I have documented the rest of the girls’ lives in excruciating detail, but I have no photos or blog posts from that time. Even my memories are minimal, just hazy impressions of fear even deeper than I usually felt during the months my husband was at war. The one clear memory I had was of calling my neighbour Heidi over. She was our only neighbour who was neither elderly nor a parent. I asked her to monitor the girls’ breathing so I could take my first shower in a week; J had thrown up on me. I will never be able to repay her for not only giving me peace of mind during those moments alone under the hot water, but also cleaning J’s vomit off the floor. Her husband was also in Iraq at the time.

M and J continued to suffer aftereffects of RSV for another 3 years. Only recently were we able to permanently (we hope) retire their nebulizer and put breathing treatments behind us.

This week, I learned that a coworker’s 3-month-old was on a ventilator because of complications from RSV. The last update I received was that she had been extubated and is tolerating a nasal cannula. She has been weaned off the meds that were keeping her sedated and is now moving and crying. If all goes well, she should be home from the hospital in a couple of weeks.

What can one say to a parent whose child is in the pediatric intensive care unit? The only words of comfort I had were of sympathy. It seemed out of place to tell her that M and J, after 3 long years, had finally overcome the setback of RSV.

Update, 9:36 am CST

My friend emailed to say, “Good news today!  She’s off of both oxygen and pain meds.  They want to watch her today to ensure that she continues to do all right without them.  If so, we get to go home tomorrow!”

Have you dealt with RSV? Do you have words of comfort for my coworker and her husband?

Wintertime Parenting

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I don’t know about you, but winter is not my best parenting season. Wintertime brings longs nights and little sleep as my children suffer from colds, or are feeling cold and need help covering up with blankets. Winter brings short days with little sunshine, no recess due to the weather, and lots of sibling bickering. In winter we try to recover our pre-holiday routines, start our goals for the new year, and no one is interested–not even me. It is a struggle.

Each year I seem to forget this sluggish season in my parenting life and am surprised when it returns. I am tired, I have no new ideas, I am not patient. I’ve forgotten everything in my bag of tricks. It is hard to find ways to fill up my bucket, and renew myself, so I can give the kids the time and attention and love that we all need. I long for warm weather, time outside, the next season.

So we muddle through. I schedule one-one-one activities with each child. Pulling one child aside to go to the grocery store counts. Even going so far as to get one twin a playdate so I can have lunch at McDonald’s with the other. Going to the park and freezing, I mean, playing. Giving my undivided attention.

I am a big believer in the theory of “floor time”. When the after school bickering is too much I drop what I am doing–usually cooking the next meal for hungry children–to facilitate a quick game of Zingo Bingo, to sit on the floor with a wronged child and listen to a litany of complaints, to separate the older girl from the boys for a few minutes breather before joining her to brush American Girl hair and listen to her day. We all have the wintertime blues.

We try to cope. We make plans for the spring. We look at gardening books from the library and catalogs in the mail. We buy a few houseplants and make a bird feeder from a milk carton. We take quick bike rides around the block looking for the first flowers and trees to bud. We count down the days until spring.

Do you parent differently in the winter than you do in the warmer months?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer and parent to a spunky eight-year-old girl and two adventurous four-year old boys.

Not Their Friend

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We’ve been having some discipline issues around here recently. The girls have been talking back to me in a way that is not appropriate for 5-year-olds. Both M and J have had emotional outbursts that can be described only as tantrums. Age 4 and the first half of age 5 were nearly tantrum-free, so this flashback to age 3 was unexpected and unpleasant. I’d say something innocuous, and see one child or the other go rigid, rise on her toes, and clench her jaw before letting out a shriek. Despite my efforts not to, I would feel my own muscles tense and my blood pressure rise in response.

During the Reign of Tantrum Terror, also known as the Terrible Threes, I prided myself for being unflappable in the face of the girls’ outbursts, trying to show them how calm thought can work in one’s favour. I used to count slowly to 3, using both my speaking voice and my fingers, refusing the temptation to try to raise my voice over theirs. At 3, off the culprit went to time out, sitting on the floor facing a wall for a minute per year of their age. It didn’t matter if we were home or out in the world. If there wasn’t a wall available, a tree would serve just as well for a time out location.

I’ll confess that I had allowed the thick skin I developed during the Terrible Threes to melt away. At the same time, my children had learned to say, “No.” The first time that one of my daughters said “No,” when ordered to time out, I lost it. I yelled at her to go to time out, and this time she followed my instructions. I immediately knew that throwing a tantrum of my own wasn’t going to help things. All I was doing was validating the effectiveness of their unacceptable behaviour.

My relationships with both M and J became increasingly charged over a couple of months. My husband finally had to step in with some very constructive, but painful, criticism. He pointed out that the girls had learned that they could argue with me, and I was failing to rise above. I needed to remind them that “because Mom said so” carried weight.

He was right, of course.  I had been so enjoying the recent explosion of both girls’ critical thinking that I had been inviting them to offer their own opinions, and trying to show them, whenever I could, how I reached the conclusions and decisions that I did. In my attempts to encourage them to question the status quo, I had put myself in the position of their friend, not their mother.

I shed a few tears, and slept on it. Once I’d marshalled my thoughts, I sat M and J down at the dining table for a conversation. I told them that I appreciated their ideas, and loved our discussions, but I was the mother. When I asked them to do something, I meant that they should do it immediately. If they had questions about the why of things, they could ask them later, and I would decide whether or not they were open to discussion. I would also be the one to decide when they could be discussed. The girls would go to time out when I told them to, and they would listen to me. Period.

After a week of maintaining my icy calm, and an average of 3 time outs per child per day, we’ve settled back into solid mother-daughter relationships. Much as I hope to be a friend to M and J when they are grown, I am exclusively their mother in the here and now.

Do you find yourself becoming complacent and compromising your parental authority? How do you fix it?

Sadia is a Bangladeshi and British working mother of twins and American army wife living on the Texas-Mexico border. Her thoughts on matters of parenting, twins, and parenting twins can be found at Double the Fun.

Inoculation Time Made Easier

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I have discovered the parenting equivalent of the New World. Our daughters got flu shots recently, and neither kids nor mom walked away from the experience in abject terror. We didn’t need to resort to blankie time or heavy doses of chocolate.

Sorry, folks. My discovery isn’t one that I could have taken advantage of before now. You’ll need to wait it out too. My repertoire of vaccination-related pain minimization strategies is the usual, the list your doctor and other parents told you about in preparation for your kids’ first well baby visit:

  • Don’t schedule your appointments anywhere near nap time.
  • Give your child Tylenol, or whatever the safest kid-approved pain reliever and fever reducer is where you live, 30 minutes before your appointment. This minimizes pain and the chance of a fever over the next day or so.
  • If your child is old enough, promise a treat after the visit, and follow through on your promise. Give yourself a nice big reward too.
  • If your child has a lovey, a toy or blanket–my sister had a washcloth–bring it with you
  • Use  all your limbs and available personnel to hold your children down during the act of vaccination.
  • Ask your medical service provider what formulations they have available to minimize the number of pricks your children must endure. A lot of vaccines now come packaged in a single vial.
  • Seriously consider investing in earplugs for yourself.

The new information I have to offer is the observation that inoculation is crazy easy at age 5. This year, we walked into the clinic, and I filled out the requisite paperwork while the girls read Alice in Wonderland. When they started to express some concern, I told them that the flu shot would hurt, but only for a second. It would feel like like a brief bug bite. I illustrated by quickly tapping their skin with my nail. When we saw the nurse, the girls clambered onto the examination table in turn, selected a bandaid, got her shot, said “That didn’t hurt so much,” picked a sticker, and jumped down. No tears. No flailing. No new bruises for me from trying to hold them still.

I’m usually the very first in line to get my girls their shots. Having grown up in a developing country and being allergic to the eggs in which many vaccines are grown, I am all too painfully aware of the risks of foregoing vaccination. This year, however, navigating the medical system in our new town has been fraught with challenges. It has taken me until just recently to figure out when and where to take J and M for their flu shots.

My husband has been deployed during all but two flu seasons since our daughters were born. In addition to the regular vaccines pediatricians recommend for all children, the girls got monthly RSV shots for 7 months in a row as infants. I consider myself well-versed in the ways of solo parent/double child vaccination.

I’d hold both children in my lap, one on each knee, and thank my lucky stars that my children did not outnumber my knees. The nurse would make smalltalk, but as soon as she reached for the syringe and vials, the thrashing, kicking and screaming would start. M suffers from more anxiety than J, but it never mattered who went first.  M would scream in anticipation as soon as we reached the exam room, and J would sob in sympathy. I would set the phrase “This too shall pass” on repeat in my head. The tragic response would last until the girls cried themselves asleep or, once they were old enough to appreciate them, they could select stickers at the front desk of the office.

Sound familiar? It did eventually pass, after all.

Sadia, her husband and their 5-year-old daughters moved to El Paso by order of Uncle Sam last year, after having done all their child-rearing in the Austin area before that.

Mid-(School) Year Review

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Well, we made it. We are half-way through the preschool year with my boys in separate classrooms. Remember how nervous I was in the beginning? (If not, you can read my earlier post here.) And those of you who have been through this experience and shared your words of wisdom were so kind with your reassurances–thank you!

My boys have just blossomed in separate classrooms. My more reserved boy has gained new self-confidence and new friends. He was the one I was most worried about academically and felt he needed extra help in in all the kindergarten social and academic skills. I knew my more outgoing boy would be fine. He went into school knowing his numbers, letters, and most letter sounds. He know benefits from having his own set of friends and space from his sibling. Although the boys share playground times several days a week, they more often than not choose to play independently with their own classmates.

When they return home they are happy enough to be together for some moments of mommy bliss–peaceful play and cooperation–before the sibling rivalry starts. They are meanest to each other and love one another deeply. I am amazed at how strong their relationship is to withstand the fighting and hurt feelings to always come back to love.

 

Rainy Day

There have been some sticky situations–sometimes one boy is asked on a playdate and I can not find the other boy a playdate at the same time. We have had a couple of cases where only one boy was asked to a class birthday party and the other was not. Although tough on the afternoon of the party, this is a good learning experience for the upcoming kindergarten year. Special mommy dates help ease these growing pains.

So really, it was mostly my issues with separation (my babies!) than their issues. Separating them during the 4s year of preschool, at their loving cooperative nursery school was the right choice for our family. Yes, they had to hug each other goodbye at the beginning, but now they run off to class with barely a concern for what the other brother is doing. I even have asked for them to be apart in extracurricular activities, when we can. I am so excited that separate classes worked for my twins and hope that we can continue this success for kindergarten in the fall.

Leslie H. is a freelance writer and mom to a spunky eight-year-old girl and two very independent four-year-old boys.

Time out for Mommy

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I decided my theme for 2012 is going to be New Year, New Me. Original, I know. Doesn’t everyone try to reinvent themselves at the first of the year and peter out about two weeks later? Not me. Not this time. Toward the end of last year I was feeling burned out. The day to day detritus of chores and child-wrangling was wearing me down. I was feeling bad about myself, my parenting, my health and my weight. I didn’t want to take my boys anywhere because they were testing their boundaries and making outings really difficult.  Our house was a mess, and I didn’t have the energy or desire to remedy it. I know I indulged in way too many cookies and sweets around the holidays, and my too-tight jeans told that tale loud.

Last summer, I quit my job to stay home with my twin boys full time. They turned two in November and are curious, energetic, enthusiastic, smart little boys. Which is to say they can be exhausting. (In the most wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime experience with 2-year-old twins kind of way.) So I made an Epic To Do List, which included the regular things I wanted to accomplish with the kids, around the house, etc. But also included lots of “Take care of Mommy” items as well.

Now we are a month into the new year, and my plans for New Year, New Me are still going strong. I am making a conscious effort to do more things for myself, even if that means the dishes sit in the sink or the laundry remains unfolded. The thing is, though, I am doing my own things and find that I am still getting the chores done too. I have renewed energy and enthusiasm for my family and our home when I take a break from them. I am eating better and exercising regularly. Since the end of December, I have lost 11 lbs, and completely quit eating sugar, bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, fried food, fast food. I joined the MYFA contest Liz at Goddess in Progress set up. (I am sure I am a long shot since I just started exercising in the past three weeks, but I am motivated to get up and do it so I can report my weekly stats and be proud. This week I logged 195 minutes of exercise, impressive only in that I have not exercised regularly in years.)

For Christmas, my husband bought me a new sewing machine and starting in January, I signed up for a sewing class at a local fabric store, six weeks, start-to-finish quilting. I am happy to say that I just finished the binding on one of the two toddler-bed quilts I am making simultaneously for my boys in the class. I really enjoying sewing, can’t wait to start my next project, and I use nap time to unwind and clear my mind in front of the sewing machine. Plus, super cute quilts!

My boys are newly potty trained (as in we are in week three and I still wear shoes around the house just in case). But I did take them out to a playdate recently. When they were not listening to my directions and insisted on playing in the public restroom, we packed up and left. But at least we went. We don’t go far or for long, and if we go out to eat as a family we can expect at least 5 or 6 trips to the potty.

This is all to say I am giving myself some time outs now, taking much-needed breaks that help me refresh and be the best me. Is it perfect? Far from it. I have found that staying at home has just as many challenges in balance as working, they are just different. I was struggling to find time for me and not taking breaks. I was always on duty, and wasn’t taking care of myself. I still struggle to fit my needs into our day. I had been getting up before the kids to work out and shower. They started waking up earlier. So I got up earlier, and so did they. And now we’re at an insane still-dark wakeup time that is two full hours before the time they have woken up for more than a year. I have tried to do a workout video while they eat their breakfast, but they protest and beg to watch something else. I know I don’t spend enough quality time with my wonderful, amazing, supportive husband. I would love to do things one-on-one with each kid. At least I have a to-do list for the life I want us to have, and I am checking off things gradually.

 

Jen Wood is a stay-at-home-Mom to adorable, wonderful, amazing, newly potty trained 2-year-old twin boys who exhaust her indescribably. While she is attempting to achieve the perfect balance of home and family and her own sanity, she enjoys spending time together as a family, photography and new-found love of quilt-making You can follow along with their adventures at http://goteamwood.com.

 

Sister's Protector

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J is grieving, an emotion too big for one so small. The dog next door succumbed to breast cancer today, and J is heartbroken.

“I’m mad because I’m sad,” she told me. “I’m mad at you and I’m mad at M and I’m mad at the neighbour and I’m mad at God. It’s not fair. Our cat is alive and she is old and Chloe is dead and she is old and it’s not fair.”

According to the pop psychology I know, J’s expression of her pain, while hard to watch, is healthy. We talked about how much pain Chloe was in toward the end, and how her pain was now over. We talked about how the combination of sadness and anger that fills J right now is called grief. J asked if I would sleep in her bed tonight so she could feel snuggled. I agreed. She wanted me to go to bed when she did, she clarified. I agreed. Dishes can wait, and I can make up my workout.

J’s grief extends beyond Chloe’s death to another dog’s cancer. A close friend’s dog, Pumpkin, is also suffering from cancer. This friend, however, lives some distance away, and it’s unlikely that we’ll have a chance to see Pumpkin again. Wrapped up in J’s feelings about Chloe’s death are also the grief of Pumpkin’s illness and pain of the vast distances between us and the friends we left behind when we moved last year.

I’ve been holding J, listening to her, and acknowledging her feelings as best I know how. In the intensity of J’s grief, I’ll admit that I was glad that M was holding her own. As J moved from anger towards a quieter sadness, however, I began to worry at M’s complete lack of emotional response to the news of Chloe’s death. Instead of prodding her about it, I decided to let her deal with it in her own way, in her own time.

Over dinner I began to see what was going on. M was too busy caring for J to deal with her own emotions. She made fart joke after fart joke in an effort to get J to laugh. She got up, unprompted, to throw herself over the back of J’s chair. Her silly action turned into a long and heartfelt hug.

They’re only 5, but they shared a womb and every step since. They have a far deeper understanding of how to give one another comfort than I have at 32 years old, with 9 years of talk therapy under my belt.

Addendum

I had the opportunity to speak briefly with M at bedtime. She told me that she, too, was sad and worried.

“Who are you worried about?” I asked her. “Chloe or J or Emily or …?” (Let’s call Chloe’s elderly owner Emily.)

“I’m worried about Emily’s sister. I didn’t think life would let this happen.”

Emily inherited both Chloe the dog and the house next door when her sister died of cancer this summer. She had promised to care for Chloe. It had been clear to me, and apparently also to M, that her fresh grief was as much from the loss of her sister as of the dog.

“I have a picture in my mind of Emily’s sister. She looks like Emily, but younger. In my picture she is beautiful.”

In the flood of emotion surrounding her, M empathizes, in her own way, with the story of the sisters next door, one still here and one gone but in her sister’s heart and the picture in my daughter’s mind.

Sadia is the mother of identical twins M and J, aged 5. She comes, in part, from Bangladesh, where death is discussed with children as a matter of course. She has shared her past neuroses at Double the Fun, although she has since taken her personal blog private.

Traveling Memories

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Traveling with small children is tough for every family. Oh how I have dreaded flying with twinfants–you know what I mean!

Our family recently made a two day January car trip through flat prairies land as far as the eye can see, and we have more travel coming up this spring. While we prefer to drive over fly with three kids (and their stuff, and their carseats), and our kids are older, it doesn’t get any easier. We have tried everything to entertain the kids: new books and toys; games and candy; lots of stops at McDonald’s. In the end, we fall back on handheld game devices and DVD players–all three kids playing on watching with headphones means peace for the driver. Extremely bad parenting according to the experts in the books, magazines and websites. But I’m want to absolve you of all the guilt and tell you to do what you need to do to get to your destination safely–with your sanity intact!

As my kids get older, it becomes almost as much about the journey as the destination. At the end of the trip, while we all emerge from the crumb encrusted car tired and frazzled and sick of each other’s company, I can’t help but notice that there has been some bonding between siblings–some good has come from the hours on the road. An “we’ve been through this together” camaraderie. A “remember when we saw the giant airplane wings on the back of the truck…” reminiscence that continue to be discussed for hours as we drive. My husband and I join in with our memories of long car trips as kids: when there were no DVD players or ipods or carseats(!), when you could ride backwards in a station wagon or sleep on the floor of a sedan, where stopping for a bite to eat was not convenient as it is today and was always an adventure.

I think these trips form the foundation of our children’s lives and become part of our family history together. I end up being grateful for the excuse to to travel, grateful for the hours on the road, grateful for the whining, and the bad food, and the “he’s looking at me” and the “are we there yet” statements. I’m grateful once we are all out of the car!

How does your family handle car trips?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer to a spunky eight-year-old girl and two adventurous four-year-old boys.