Business This Week: $23.56/hr - Cool Numbers & Cool Stuff

It's been a great week for Burrage Mining Company, so I wanted to share some cool numbers & cool stuff!

First, just a TL;DR numbers summary for the week:
ESTIMATED $ PER HOUR FOR THIS WEEK: $23.56

(NUMBER OF ITEMS PURCHASED: 42
MONEY SPENT ON NEW INVENTORY: $67.5
MONEY SPENT DRIVING: $57.69 (cost to operate the Cube is approx 0.185 per mile)
FOOD MONEY: $20.34
so, TOTAL COST OF SOURCING: $145.53
[PER ITEM: $3.46 (ouch)]

but, EXPECTED PROFIT: $754 (approx, after eBay fees)
HOURS WORKED + TO BE WORKED: 32)

Inventory has been one of my biggest costs in this business. I knew that cost needed to come down if I was to be successful. So, I did my first major experiment with one of the cheapest ways to get manageable amounts of inventory: the Goodwill Outlet, or the "weigh & pay." You dig through gigantic bins of items, filling literal trashbags with your finds, and are charged by the pound at checkout; my nearest outlet charges $1.39/lb. (Someday I want to buy my first storage unit, but that's not for a while.)

After an hour and a half's drive - grand total of $29.60 in vehicle operating costs, pretty painful - and three hours of digging, I picked up about 27 items with an average value of approx $8.77/item. Now, this is a truly abysmal average profit, but each of the items I picked up is easy to research, photograph, list, and ship; relatively small time investment for small profit. Fine with me; I knew going into the Weigh & Pay Experiment that I'd be getting a bunch of cheap items with a bunch of low profits. And there's always the chance of finding something actually valuable. I'll definitely go again some time, but it will be on a day when I have time to stop at other area thrifts to try to bring up the numbers a bit more.

The most valuable item I picked up there (a new with tags Christmas stocking) should bring $40.

Today's "yard saling" was unusually successful; found two items which should bring in $100 and $125 - $200. The first was a Fisher Price new in box castle toy from 2014. I grabbed it for $5 because it was new, didn't even check the value while I was at the yard sale. Later I found out its value and was pleasantly surprised. The second valuable item I found was an "ultrasound bone healing" device (I LOVE to sell questionable medical devices) I paid $20 for at an estate sale. I was very hesitant to make such an investment, even though eBay solds were showing a solid $100+ value, because the sale of certain medical devices is restricted on eBay, but I did it anyway. Worst case scenario, I sell it locally for half of what it's worth.

Craziest find of the day: I've been picking up every sealed cross stitch kit I run across. They're usually priced very low, and some are worth a LOT. I'd been planning to just buy a whole bunch of them at $.50 - $1.00 each and bundle them for one large sale. I got like 8 or 10 kits today and was researching to see if any were particularly valuable on their own and found that one had recently sold for $45! Not bad for a $.50 investment! The rest turned out to be worth more than expected, too, so that was nice.

And I found this guy. I had two brass animals on my mantel. Now I have three. As of today, I collect brass animals. Congratulations to me!!!!!

The past week was also unusually successful; I happened to find a painting valued at between $150 and $250. I am in love with it - seriously - but it's being listed tomorrow.

Cool sale this week - I paid $5 for an ancient (1966 is really old for a toy set with liquid components) item-making kit with plastic "goop" that had leaked all over the container. I purchased this item MONTHS ago and it sat around because I did not want to mess with listing it. When I finally got it off the "Unlisted Shelf," I was going to set a price of around $40, but saw that it was actually in great condition compared to others of its type. Put it up for $83, received an offer for $70, and it was out the door within 12 hours of me finally listing it.

All in all, a lucky week for Burrage Mining Co!

Another SUPERRRRRR HIGHLIGHT of the week is that I finally FINALLY got my pile of unlisted items listed! Some of this stuff had been sitting around since LAST JANUARY. These were things that required a lot of research and/or a lot of work, so they'd been put off and put off. The evolution of my ability to take quality photos due to figuring out my lighting was also a big factor in getting caught up. It feels fantastic to not have 40 stupid unlisted (read: HOARDED) items hanging over my head anymore!

It's been a lot of work and effort and waking up early, but this has been a great and super interesting week - just wanted to snapshot it here! :)

To Raleigh, On Your Discovery of "No"

It was probably the dog's water, left down while I wasn't paying attention, then you playing in it (the one unwinnable war) while I was trying to cook dinner, frustration into "Raleigh, NO. You KNOW you're not supposed to do that. That's YUCKY." You had been smiling and happy. I wiped your hands, and you ran into the living room, and I followed. From the other side of the couch, you looked up at me and said "NO!" Your lips turned down, hard. "NO!"

Not "no," like "stop it," but "no," like "noooOOOOOOOOOOooooo!!!" as if you'd just discovered that everything dies. And that is how you say no. Like it's the most painful thing in the world, every time.

I guess it is, for you. Everything you see is amazing, and at least 1/8th of it is removed from your little hands with a "no," and you have no way to understand or cope with that. Multiple times a day, the only thing you care about in the whole entire world (whatever it happens to be at that moment) is taken away.

I just took away the shriveled piece of carrot with black around the edges that you were trying to eat: "noooOOOOOOoooooo!!!!" And yesterday, when we were all sitting at the table, and you caught sight of the bag of bird food on the windowsill. You wanted it, because (I guess) it looked like a bag of Raleigh food. I picked it up and said "This is yucky, it's bird food," and put some on your tray for you to see or play with or eat. You pointed at the bag again, and I said "That tastes yucky" again, and pointed at the bird food I'd put on your tray. "NoooooOOOOOOOOOOoooooo!!!!!!" you said. It wasn't even exactly a valid response to the situation - you HAD some right there, and no one had even said "no" to you. "That was a weird time for him to say that," I said. "'No' is more of a feeling than a word," Joe said. 10% funny, 90% exactly true.

This is difficult. You're so awesome and precious and wonderful and smart and happy and adorable and YOUR SADNESS IS AN EMERGENCY. You want that black-edged carrot? I'm sure it can't hurt you! You want to splash in the dog's disgusting saliva-water? We have antibacterial handwipes and I can mop it up! (No. Just..no. He EATS POOP. I have boundaries.) Whatever you want, I'm sure I can deal with the consequences of you having it!

But - I know, I know - that's just not how it works. I know. I can't give you everything. I can't fix everything. Everyone knows what happens to the kids whose parents give too much, fix too much.

Another But: The important thing, one of the most important things so far, I think...

That "NooooOOOOOOOoooo" feeling, that huge emotion in your tiny body - we'll be there for you when you're experiencing it. Kitchen floor, at the park, in the car, Chik-Fil-A floor, Target floor - if you're overwhelmed, we'll try our absolute hardest not to be.

[On the days I don't fail you,]

You will not be punished for "tantrums."

[When I am who I want to be for you,]

I will help with your problems instead of reacting to your behavior.

When you're screaming because I asked you to put the dinosaur back on the shelf, I won't squeeze your arm and hiss "STOP IT," - I'll stay next to you and say "You were having fun, and I said we had to go. That is hard. You're very upset right now. I understand, and I'm here if you need a hug." I mean, picking you up and gently removing you from the situation causing your upset is probably what will happen next, but all the yelling and hitting and lashing out in frustration will be on your end.

Guiding you through your overwhelming emotions when I'm overwhelmed, too, will be the biggest challenge I've ever faced, but I will do everything in my power to give that to you.

"Burrage Mining Company" Year One, wow

I am ALL ABOUT significant dates. Like, "One year ago today we painted the kitchen, wow," or "Three years ago today, I took a picture of all the orange juice for sale at Wal-Mart, wow." And like yesterday. It marked the official one year anniversary of the start of Burrage Mining Company. December 17th last year, 2014, was the day I listed for auction a babies' RealTree camo jacket that I'd gotten in a bag of clothes I'd bought for tiny 4-month-old Raleigh. I hadn't planned to start an eBay business; I just thought, "Hmm, I bet this jacket is worth more than I paid for it, and I might be able to get some money back on these clothes if I sell as a lot the rest of the ones I don't want." And then I found out that some people do this for a living. And I started buying stuff.

That little (damaged) jacket brought me a fantastic profit of......$2.18. (But my worst flip? I lost $13.34 on the sale of a lamp made out of a bowling pin, because I accidentally listed the lamp with free shipping...and it cost a LOT to ship.)

The business sprouted right when I needed it. My sweet baby was no longer sleeping all the time, leaving me with very few long uninterrupted chunks to play video games or just stare at my phone for hours like I used to. With the loss of that free time came the loss of my life before Raleigh. I felt like I had nothing of myself left; I couldn't do any of the activities I used to enjoy, because I couldn't become unavailable. That feeling when you're in an office waiting for them to call your number or name, and you might be watching something interesting on TV, or reading something cool, and you might even get immersed, but at any moment they're going to call you away from what you're doing? That became the feeling of my whole life. Even now, I'm typing in the middle of the mess of something else I should be doing, listening for sounds of Raleigh waking.

So, I couldn't do anything that required my attention for long periods of time...but I could photograph an item. I could give something else its pre-photo-shoot clean & polish. Write a listing. Pack a box. My newfound fun required only that I have 3 or 5 or 10 minutes available at a time. And it was a blissfully, surprisingly, amazingly easy answer to the question of every mom: "How do I stay at home and make enough money to significantly contribute to my family's income?" (My best flip? $200 for a curriculum I sold for over $750. Profit was $517.)

It's flexible, profitable, AND fun; the items that come through my office are so diverse. And the amount people will pay for some things just blows my mind. Like, I found this straw hat at Goodwill for $2.25, and some lady bought it for $69.95 and was REALLY happy about it. Before that, there was this vintage oscillating plasticky fan from like the 80's that looked like absolutely nothing special. In fact, we had one growing up.

it was just one of these.............

I'd bought it at a thrift store for $6. Someone paID EIGHTY DOLLARS FOR IT. PLUS SHIPPING.

One of the coolest things I sold was a really neat vintage sewing machine I paid $19.91 at Goodwill for and sold for $114, plus shipping. Yeah, it was great to pack, it was a giant chunk of metal that weighed...34? lbs once everything was done.

it just looked cool

BUT! If you really want to feel like you're in Crazy Town: I purchased for $4.04 a Littlest Pet Shop Monopoly from Goodwill. Inside were four dumb tiny little plastic bobblehead animals. I trashed the game (incomplete) and sold the dumb little animals for $28.99.

?????????????????????????????/

I'm always learning more about what is valuable, always researching so I don't miss an opportunity. It's paid off; I picked up a necklace a few days ago for $4 I expect at least $100-$200 from. It's made of an obscure vintage plastic. It's so cool to be able to walk into a thrift store and know that I might find hundreds of dollars that day, just lying around. The thrill of the hunt!

Soooo, it's 2 in the morning and I'm ready to go to bed. There are probably too many semicolons in this post, but I have too much to worry about to add semicolons to the list. I just wanted to commemorate this occasion. And add a mention that yesterday, on Burrage Mining Co's first anniversary, we had an anniversary/First Annual BurrageCo Christmas Party at a local steak & seafood place we'd never been to (like Goodfellas in Gloucester) even after having lived 5 minutes away from it for 2 years. It was a perfect experience, from the great Christmas decor and the ambiance to Raleigh throwing pieces of french fry and hush puppy on the floor then getting restless and needing to be walked around the restaurant while our check was prepared.

This is to commemorate the accomplishment, the learning and the fun and the profits and the Frankenbox creations when I didn't have a box of the right size. I've gotten so much better and faster at all of it, and I still have a whole world full of items to learn about. Honestly, I continue to surprise myself. I'm happy.

And super tired.

1

I have 46 minutes to sum up 1. It's August 10th, but soon it will be August 11th and the magic of today will be gone.

42 minutes to sum up the joy of being with you every day. How all over the neglected hairy floors of our house are your little clothes, because you keep getting into water and dirt and leaves, and because when you try to drink out of straws, you forget to swallow sometimes, but you never forget to open your mouth and let the tea or Mountain Dew fall all over you.

The way you're learning so, so very quickly. Just today you learned how to blow kisses. Well, kind of: you put your palm on your cheek, or over your eye, then fling your hand from your face and go MMMMMMMMMMMUH! (To be fair, you put your hand over your mouth at least half of the time.) And how have you already figured out that shaking your head means "no"? How do you even know the CONCEPT of "no?"

You point at things. Just since last week; that's you seeing something cool and sharing it with us. Trucks, ceiling fans, televisions, dogs, everything amazing to you, and you're like, hey mom and dad, isn't that so cool over there? And we get genuinely excited, like YEAH RALEIGH WOW LOOK AT THAT LAMP, THAT IS AMAYYYYYZINNNNG!, but what's really amazing is you.

What's amazing is the curve of the back of your head, still so babyish. The way your hair curls - we call you "Little Mad Scientist Head." It's amazing how fast and confident you crawl around your world, scared only of stuffed animals with eyes.

1 evolved quickly from 1 day, speeding up exponentially as time went on. Were you always learning and growing so quickly, just quietly? One day you had a vocabulary of four words, and two days later you had eight or nine. Was your brain always doing that?

I couldn't stop thinking about you today. Woke up next to you like every day, our first interaction, smiles. Just this past weekend, we cleared out the storage room that was to be yours - back when we thought you were going to be sleeping in there - because you got so many birthday presents that we couldn't keep all your toys in the living room anymore. That's where we went first thing this morning, to play, because you're the birthday boy and even though you don't have a clue what that is, I wanted this day to be special for you.

Your dada drove home for lunch to see you, and the second he walked in the door he dropped his groceries on the floor of the foyer because you were reaching out for him to pick you up from my arms. We took him back to work after lunch, and I had to get some groceries too, and as I wheeled you through Food Lion asleep in your carseat I wanted to tell everyone I saw that you were 1 today. You make us so proud.

We got home and you played TrayWater while I made cupcakes, then we picked up dada again and the last hours of your day went about as usual, except messier. There was your baaAAAAaaaaaf, and dada and me trying to imitate the way you point, the way we always imitate you doing things - we always laugh so hard that way.

So now it's 33 minutes past the magical day where the minute of your birth went by. I constantly thought in awe of how you were just a baby this day last year, and now I don't even want to go into the baby sections in stores anymore because none of the toys there would keep your interest and most of the clothes there look like your size but are actually way too small.

Well, now it's actually 50 minutes past your birthday, you've woken up and I need to get you back to bed so I'm not going to spend time to think of a nice way to finish this. Happy birthday I love you!

1.

A Year Ago I Was In The Shower

That is so crazy to me. This time last year, we didn't have a baby yet. On this night last year, I was in the shower, in labor, only about 9 hours away from making the decision to go to the hospital. I was tired and bored because I'd been having contractions for like two days already and had had very little sleep, and the only way to not be in too much pain was by standing in the shower, and it gets boring in there.

But also, I was scared. Joe's and my life together had been wonderful, and once we finally achieved pregnancy, I didn't know why I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO HAVE A BABY. I didn't even know what a baby WAS; I hadn't been around any. Why would we change our good life by bringing into it such a responsibility, by making such a choice that could never be taken back? How was it possible that my "biological clock" could push us into doing something with the vague logic that, if we didn't, maybe our lives would be empty when we were old?

Then Raleigh was born, and there was no magical surge of mystical mommy-love. He was nice, sweet, but I guess in sort of a kitteny way. The only face I could think of to make in those first photos with him - how I regret now that I forced any expression - was a "Wow, I made this" face.

The day of his birth and the two or three right after that were some of the most perfect in my life. If I could re-live any time of my life, I would go back there and write everything down, capture it to be savored any time forever. The celebration; having all this food brought to me; people happy around me because I did something great. A triumphant moment still in the beginning of my life. It brought uncomfortable thoughts about the end of my life - growing up, more responsibility, getting older - but that was easy to ignore in the beautiful homecoming, with Joe having made the house spotless before Raleigh and I were released from the hospital.

But then I awoke to the day when those sparkling first days were over. Like that feeling you get when you've been on vacation but now it's over and you're back to your regular life but worse than regular, because you were just free and it's going to be a very long time before you get to be free again.

I had feared that my life would be erased. This is what the world says about having a kid: You will cease to exist and also cease to ever get any sleep. Raleigh needed when I didn't feel like giving, and I felt so alone with his neediness. Because of him, I couldn't do the fun stuff I had done before; my other life was lost to me. My marriage hadn't caught up to these new conditions yet. I had no idea things would get better. In the darkest moments of those newborn days, in my thoughts I had secret conversations with myself to figure out whether I really would choose to die to protect him like I was supposed to. I came to "yes" just by default, because that's what you do if you're decent...but honestly, it was reluctant. Even adoption crossed my mind. (But no way, the thought of someone else raising my baby made me feel territorial.)

Dark days. My baby was easy but early motherhood was hard and I thought my life was over.

I was wrong. I mean, it was really scary for a little while there, but as Raleigh became cooler and more able to do stuff instead of just generally needy and unrewarding, I fell in love.

He grew. We grew. As of just a few weeks ago, our marriage has caught up to these new conditions and finally finally we are back to where we belong with each other, which really changes everything. We are together now, and the three of us are a family now, with so much to look forward to and the grown-up days of our baby so, so far away from now.

As of last week, our perfect boy says "da-da" and "thank you" and "yellow," and they're all the same word. He says "bath" "baaAAAAaaaaaf," with that short "f," and there is almost nothing in my entire life that has delighted me more; every day I look forward to the moment lifting him from his high chair after dinner when I get to ask him if he's ready for his bath and he looks at me and says that. Every day I'm thrilled when I hand him something and he says "deh dehhhh" - thank you. And the way he makes these awful noises that are an imitation of any racecar sounds we make at him.

I'm sorry about that rough start taking up approximately 3/4ths of the year and 4/4ths of the pregnancy. Sorry that I couldn't just relax, stop being afraid, and have more happy times. Next time, when I know what to expect, (if there is a next time but we won't talk about that).....next time will be different. But Raleigh, I guess, will probably know that his beginning didn't go how it should have.

But hopefully he'll also know that we love him more than anything, say to each other every single day what a treasure he is, how we can't remember how we could've thought that our old life without him could possibly be enough.

Happy birthday, sweet boy. We love being with you and are so excited to see what this year brings.

Things Babies Hate

This is not me and Raleigh when Joe gets home from work. (Partly because we aren't creepy spider aliens.)

It was supposed to be. Because how do stay-at-home moms have sweatpants and messy houses at all? They stay at home, where there's nothing to do but clean, exercise, or watch TV. There is 0 excuse for any stay-at-home mom to ever do anything but have sparkling carpets, chiseled abs, dinner ready, and to be all dressed up when their man comes home. Especially if they have only one vehicle and the man takes it during the day. But yet I kept reading about these women who can't find time for a shower and who eat the leftovers of their kids' lunches for breakfast around 4 PM, who live with dirt on the floor and dishes in the sink. "Wow," my pregnant self thought, "What is wrong with them?"

Everything was going to be so nice and perfect. Clean house, healthy meals, painless budget, so much time to write. The first day of Joe being back at work after his paternity leave would be the first day of my long and rewarding career as a flawless homemaker.

So, on that first day, the door closed behind Joe and I waved at him as he drove away. Then I looked at my baby. We had been left alone together; the world was pretty sure I could keep him alive! How exhilarating.

I changed the baby's diaper and fed him, then carefully put him down when he fell asleep. I spent the next half hour trying to put together a workout outfit from the 3 things in my closet that actually still fit. Then I popped in an exercise DVD. I was most of the way through the warmup when I heard the baby wake up. I left the video going while I ran to get the baby and put him on his mat where I could watch him and work out at the same time, then I tried to coordinate myself with the video people. So far, so good. I was stretching and watching Raleigh out of the corner of my eye. He was flailing his arms and legs around. He started to suck on his hand because he was already hungry again. His face turned in my direction, even though he couldn't see very far yet, and he had this worried expression on, so I started talking to him. "HI RALEIGH!" I said, punching at the air in time to the music. "Hi baby boy! You are so sweet!" But yelling happy things at him only worked for so long. The hand-sucking intensified. He'd start crying soon. So I sighed and paused the video and fed him. He fell asleep and I finished exercising and got a quick shower. That 30 minute video took more than twice as long as it should have, but at least I'd gotten through it.

By the end of that day, I had run the washer and dryer. I think I'd also collected most of the dirty clothes from around the living room. I hadn't: vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen, written, found a work-at-home career, prepared dinner, folded Laundry Mountain, caught up with any of my overdue correspondence, or paid bills. Raleigh had somehow soaked up the entire day.

And so I learned what was wrong with those stay-at-home moms who never get anything done. It's that "mom" part. You see, babies don't grow on milk. They grow on the time they slyly steal from you while you have all these great plans about what you're going to do all day. That is why my baby is enormous.

That's the important thing, though. That Raleigh is enormous. I mean, I figured out that my main thing right now is to make him happy. I think that every smile I put on his face right now will make his little growing brain different and better forever.

As long as his naps are unpredictable, I'll uselessly hold him while he sleeps instead of wasting my time by trying to escape - he'll just wake up two minutes after I start doing something useful, anyway. When he lets me put him down for a few minutes, I'll clean. When he goes to sleep for the night, I'll stay up til 3 AM so I can do things I used to do before I had a baby. See? I'm figuring it out!

My new job isn't to keep this place spotless, or cook a lot, or even change out of my spit-uppy clothes before Joe gets home (the spitup is also encrusted in my hair, so really there's not much of a point.) My new job is to make Raleigh smile. Yeah, I can do other things, and I will keep learning how to be efficient and fit everything in. Mostly, though, I'm going to get nothing done, love my baby, and be stupidly happy.

Game Changed

September 12th, age 5 weeks and 5 days, Raleigh became something completely different. He'd been changing anyway; we noticed that he had longer waking periods instead of the newborn sleep-eat-sleep-eat schedule. Along with the longer waking periods, he developed the ability to be bored. He would no longer tolerate lying on his back in one place for long, or even being held chest-to-chest rather than face-out. He preferred to stare at the ceiling fan (oh man how he loves to stare at the ceiling fan) or the kitchen light fixture or computer monitors. He also started making these sudden excited single-syllable vocalizations, like an OH or EH, just out of nowhere while he was looking around. You wouldn't think that would be something to be just super in love with, but it totally is.

But the big thing, the game-changer, was the smile. Raleigh was on his back looking up at me and I was talking to him and making excited faces, seeing if he could react yet...and he smiled. I kept talking, thinking it was probably just another accident, but his smile widened into a mouth-wide-open big gummy grin.

Perfection.

He was noticing me.

"Joe," I said, "Come here! He smiled. Talk to him and make faces at him." And Raleigh did it again.

It's like he graduated. Evolved in a second, like a Pokémon. One minute, he was a warm floppy fragile responsibility on the other end of a really short leash, and the next, he became my very own sweet happy little buddy.

We're a team now. I would be incredibly sad if he died. And if he were to ever get a horrible sickness, I would definitely go through it instead of him, if I could. I just want him to always smile for me.

One Month

Raleigh was born a month ago. I had no idea he was going to grow so fast.

Life was easier and more fun without a baby. Who would've thought that having a little helpless person who needs to be fed every couple of hours would make such a difference, right? I miss the freedom of our old life. I miss "us." I think no one can know what a responsibility and what a change it is to have a baby, and how serious of a decision it really is, until they're there.

So, I'm overwhelmed and sad sometimes. And tired and bored and disconnected. And guilty, because I have a healthy and happy little guy and there are so many out there who can't have that and I just shouldn't be allowed to feel anything but 100% ecstatic.

I hate I'm not one of those moms who posts on FaceBook every other day about how I didn't know it was possible to love like this, my heart is 300x bigger and the world is made out of glitter and smiles now. He was supposed to make me feel all different and good and mom-like when he was born. I was supposed to go from "Is this really going to be okay?" to "YYYYYYYEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!," not just get stuck at "Is this really going to be okay?"

I know it will be. I also know it would be a lot more okay if it was noon right now. Seriously, I shouldn't even publish this post, my mood is so dependent on how sunny it is outside that I'll be a completely different person in 12 hours. But this is when I had time to write, so oh well.

Soon Raleigh will be able to do stuff. He'll smile and notice me. I'll get used to life this way. My body will go back to normal. Everything will be okay.

Also, though, when he's sleeping, he's literally the cutest and most wonderful thing I have ever seen. I can't stop taking pictures of him. When he has one of his little accidental smiles, I smile back and I laugh and I see if I can get him to do it again (can't yet.) When he's making little zombie noises and looking around and flailing his arms and legs, I just stare and think how much I need to get it on video before he learns how to control his limbs. When he's awake, I want to hold him so he'll never feel alone. It takes me twice as long to go grocery shopping now because I keep stopping in the middle of the aisles to kiss his little face. It's nice to cuddle him, to have him all curled up asleep on my chest, finally content. When he wakes up hungry and I lift him out of the bassinet and bring him to lay with me for a sleepy feed, and he doesn't wake up, just latches on with one of his hands resting on me and his little perfect eyes closed...I guess that's when I feel the way I'm supposed to.

Babies Are Hard

Happy 2:23 AM on 8/29/2014, my baby's 19th day of life. He was born August 10th at 41 weeks gestation.

He's good. By that, I guess I mean predictable. Predictable is one of the best things in the world. And he almost never cries, because his needs are easy to figure out and we don't let him go long without having them met.

He's bigger already, at 19 days - 1 more pound, 7 more ounces, an inch grown in not even three weeks. Joe sees it, I really don't. I think he still looks like the pictures from the "early days," just after his newborn swollenness went down and his features became visible.

Our new life is similar to our old life, except with diapers and a lot more dirty towels and, yes, less sleep, and a carseat. The biggest change is that everything has to be scheduled now. It goes: Raleigh wakes up, does his hunger signals if I don't get to him, his diaper gets changed, he gets fed, he falls asleep. Then we have like two hours to do stuff, if we have stuff to do, before he wakes up hungry. (Already, he has more periods of alertness sprinkled in.) If we want to go anywhere, we have to plan hours in advance to squish the trip into one of his sleepy times so we don't end up hanging out in a parking lot while I feed him.

As of last Thursday, our nice schedule has changed. Between about 11:30 PM and 4:00 AM, he gets really upset. When I try to feed him, he starts eating, but then he pulls away suddenly and starts whimpering and banging his face against me and shaking his head back and forth really quickly with his mouth open in his food-finding motion, then he latches on and eats again for a minute. Then he needs to be burped. Then I'll try feeding him again. If he's not interested in eating or burping or cuddling, Joe gets him. Joe talks to him and moves his limbs around and helps him sit up and look at stuff. If that's not working, Joe walks him around the house singing and talking to him, and that almost always puts him to sleep. At least temporarily. During these hours, if he's not held with us troubleshooting him constantly, he just starts crying. Don't worry, this is normal and should be over by the time he's three or four months old, so we only have about 101 more nights of it!

When you've had an unhappy baby in your arms for hours while trying not to leak milk all over everything and trying to stay awake and not be too miserable from tiredness and boredom because all you can do with your arms around a baby is watch TV and get stabbed and scratched by stupid little sharp newborn claws, "Let me take him" is one of the best sentences you've ever heard. Teamwork is wonderful.

So I guess things have kind of gone downhill. It's easy to appreciate a baby when it's happy and nice. And sleeping. It's not so easy when you're tired and you feel like you can't satisfy its needs, and it doesn't like you anyway because it has the responsiveness of a houseplant and can't even really look at you yet. Even if you have the liberty of sleeping when the baby sleeps and of not getting out of bed til like 2 in the afternoon, it's kind of enough to give you a little postpartum depression. I want him to be happy, I want to feel like I'm successful, and I want him to sleep. It's 4:18 AM and none of that is really going on right now. At least I'm enjoying the songs Joe's making up.*

And the baby's smiles. After I feed Raleigh, while he's sleeping, he smiles for a couple of seconds at a time. It's an accident, he has no idea, but I stare at him while he's sleeping just to catch a glimpse of those fleeting little smiles. Yesterday, I think we even heard him laugh for the first time.

Raleigh, I hope someday you'll read this and know: we're just waiting it out with you. This is a dumb situation, but we're doing our best to make you happy. Today, we bought some foam corner things to stick on the upper kitchen cabinet we walk you past 399 times a night, because we were afraid we'd accidentally hit your head on the corners while walking. Also, the diapers you wear are Size 1 Pampers Swaddlers, and they have Sesame Street faces on them, and right now the Cookie Monster on your diaper has a drawn-on mustache and beard because right before you were born we started this inside joke of drawing mustaches and beards on everything.

-----

One more thing. Earlier, I tried to take a nice picture of Raleigh, like a newborn picture. I've been meaning to get pictures while he's still almost newborn size. I wanted to get something like this:

Credit: http://www.carolinetran.net/blog/2012/10/santa-monica-newborn-photographer/

 And instead I ended up with this:

Which could be a lot better with some editing. But still, not even close. We laughed so hard.

(*I know it gets better, this is just a phase, he won't be like this forever and it will go by faster than we think, and I know it could be a lot worse. None of that goes very far toward making it easier while it's happening.)

40 Weeks, 2 Days

(Spontaneous labor statistics from spacefem.com)

Not in labor yet, which at least gives me more time to have fun with statistics.

I think it was Saturday, the day before Raleigh's due date, when I really became comfortable with the idea of having a baby. So that's great! I'm kinda looking forward to having him here. I think it will be nice.

Before that, honestly, I was terrified. The entire time. Ultrasound days - you'd think they'd be happy - but really, I'd see Little Squish in there and I'd just think of all the ways I was going to accidentally mess him up and how when he grows up he might not even like me even though I just gave him 18 years of my life, and how, in the meantime, we'd have to sacrifice so much for him and he'd cry a lot and poop everywhere and destroy everything.

Like, you know how getting a new pet is a major gamble? You just became responsible for this living thing for at least the next 10 years. What if your personalities clash, or you just aren't compatible with that type of pet? What if it eats your furniture or can't be house trained? All you can do is hope that you're able to make each other happy more than you frustrate each other, and give it the best life that you possibly can. And then, at the end of those 10ish years, the pet is gone. You might be super sad and wish that the pet could live forever, but on the flip side, if the pet was terrible or a bad match, now you have been relieved.

Well, that's...kind of what it's like with a baby, I'm guessing...except there is no 10 year life span. You are creating a human who will basically have the power to destroy you not just for the next few years, but for the rest of your life. Maybe there won't be a personality clash, and maybe you'll be compatible with parenthood, but what if you don't like each other or you end up being a terrible parent?

That. Is. Terrifying. And it's all I could think about.

But then, out of nowhere, I got tentatively happier. I guess my reasons are selfish. Like that I think it will probably be pretty nice to hold our baby. I think it will be fun to watch him grow, hopefully to be a lot like Joe, because I like Joe a lot. I'm looking forward to seeing Joe as a dad - he's going to be fantastic. I'm more optimistic about our family's future now than I have been at any point since we found out that we were going to have one.

Nothing says "you're having a kid" quite like suddenly seeing a crib in your room

Also - totally unrelated - I want to see how good I am at pushing out babies. It seems there are two main views of labor: 1. The probably more logical one, as a necessary evil to get through as painlessly as possible to get to the baby, and 2. A challenging life experience to conquer. I'm taking the second view. (Or at least starting there, and then switching to the first one once the second one starts seeming really dumb.)

Childbirth will be a new and scary and extremely personal situation, and without having experienced it, I feel like I'll be better able to handle it if I maintain as much control as possible and allow as little invasion as possible. That means staying at home for most of labor. It could go quickly, but since this is my first baby, I expect it to take pretty much forever, like hours and hours and hours and hours. It really seems like I'd rather spend all that time comfortable and undisturbed instead of in an environment where there are strangers and needles and they want to put the needles in me.

I've learned about timing contractions, about when it really is time to go to the hospital, and about when it really is too early to go. I've stocked up on Gatorade and applesauce and juice. I even got this giant inflatable kiddie pool to set up in the living room because our bathtubs are tiny and water is supposed to be super helpful for labor pain management.

Won't it be funny if I end up not even using it

I may very well end up perfectly happy in a hospital bed with an epidural, watching my baby be born like it's coming out of someone else because it sure isn't hurting me, but I'm glad that I've given myself a chance to have "THE EXPERIENCE" and see if it really is worth it...or if I just need to take the logical route next time.

A Probability Jump

There are only four more days, give or take a few, before we're parents. Let's not talk about how that's really weird and I don't get it and life is still normal, exactly like the world isn't about to be turned upside down.

First thing every Sunday morning since we found out about the baby, I've checked for my two weekly emails detailing what part of development he was on, what he's doing in there. I loved finding out when he was able to hear, when he could dream, smile, or suck his thumb. And I'd get out the tape measure and show Joe about how many inches long the baby had grown. Now that there aren't really weeks left (probably,) what I'm really interested in is when I'm going to go into labor. I found this super cool chart that tells you, based on a survey of like 6,000 people, the probability that you'll spontaneously (not induced) go into labor on any given day. The probability jumped a whole percentage point today! (Source: http://spacefem.com/pregnant/charts/duedate1.php?minweek=38 )

The site also tells you the most popular days to give birth. Joe's and my guessed dates are both on the list. I'm going with 40+2 (August 5.) Joe's guess is 39+5 (August 1 - the day after tomorrow :O !) Both dates have a 4% chance of labor.

Now, in case numbers bore you, have a picture of the baby smushing out from my abdomen.

And this one, the cool thing I can do where my stomach gets pointy when I flex a certain way.

In Between

So...hi. This is awkward. It's been nine months since I've been here.

I never had much interesting to say - this blog is domestic, self-indulgent - but I still feel it's important for me to write our story. To keep it. Especially now.

Snapshot: I'm 27, Joe's 28. August 17th will be our 7th anniversary. Our marriage has been 92% fantastic. Our life is fun, secure, tranquil, comfy, routine. Like living in one of the squares of a waffle. I love it.

Last year, as my first real academic accomplishment, I was so proud to have earned a real estate sales certification. By now, I've realized that real estate is a pretty bad fit for me. Joe's on his 4th year in the Army. Seems that's another bad fit. With 22 months left on his contract, we've started to work on an exit plan.

We bought a home last year. We have a dog and a cat and two birds, some grape bushes!, two living rooms, two spare bedrooms. One of those bedrooms is full of boxes. The other bedroom was painted and curtained and made into my office. I couldn't find the perfect "resale beige" paint, so I went with what I really wanted - a perfect delicate blue-green. It turned out that the blue really was perfect...turned out that I was painting a nursery for the baby I'd given up on.

There are 55 days until his due date, August 3rd.

Now, we're in between. In between "us two" and "we three." Between home office and nursery. Everything we've known, and the rest of our lives.

It's summer. Outside the back windows, our yard is overgrown and green and hazy with humidity. The sun sets slowly. We play video games side-by-side like always, watch movies on the couch, cook and clean together. Everything is still so normal. But ten times a day we walk past the calendar months I printed out - April to September all taped together on the fridge - and every night I cross off another day. So many have been crossed off already.

It's been seven years of just us, of adventure and figuring stuff out. Strange to think how soon that will change. We're ready (as anyone can ever be,) but I'll always remember, always keep these last days of ours, these perfect summer in-between days.

Locked Out FOREVER

Y. E. S. !!!!! JOE INSTALLED A KEYLESS ON OUR ENTRY FRONT DOOR! WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!!!!!! It's like being in Korea again (cause that's how you get into all the apartments)! Guys, this is seriously SO luxurious.

Funny story: There is a set of keys which open the locks of the doors of foreclosure houses in our area. Someone at our local Century 21 had the key to our front door when they sold the house to us, because that's how they sell houses, by getting inside to show people, you know. When we bought our house, we didn't receive a copy of our key, because then we'd be able to get into a lot of other for sale homes in the area. So we haven't been able to unlock our front door the entire time we've lived here.

We never got around to replacing the front doorknob; we ordered an expensive keyless entry system and door handle thing that we liked, but they were both broken, and time just flew by, and the back door had a new knob that we used, so it was okay. Climbing over the fence to get into the back door a few times never hurt anybody.

Well, the other day, when I got my real estate license, I gained access to a set of keys that would open the doors of a lot of houses in the area - including my own.

I got a key to my front door because I became a real estate agent.

LOL.

Six

On August 17th, I didn't write to tell you I love you. I was washing the car. I should have been in here, typing, waiting for you to get home from work on our anniversary, but instead I was out there in the rain scrubbing something that never stays clean. But that's how it goes, isn't it? Paychecks need to be earned, things need to be fixed, I get tired of thinking "I should wash the car this weekend." Before you know it, it's been a week since we've really had time for each other.

This year, our anniversary was just a whisper and the familiar date on the calendar.* And cake, chocolate cake chocolate frosting chocolate chips brownie chunks and chocolate syrup, that good old standby from our olden days (like 4 years ago).

From the olden days.

We didn't really do anything (except cake,) but it was comfy just holding your hand and saying "happy anniversary" and not making too much of a thing of it because there was last year and there will be next year. To get to the point where anniversaries aren't as momentous, because we've already had a few. 

So if last year was complicated, this year is comfy. We're back from our Great Asia Adventure. We have our household goods and the Passat and the couch. We're buckling down and settling in for a long stretch of very normal life - two jobs, a cat and a dog, retirement plan, mortgage. I can't say I'm exactly excited about it; there's nothing exciting about working to pay off a bunch of surprise debt, and about not knowing if things are going to go the way we've planned. But whatever happens, at least I'll be with you...and really, our life always has just kept getting better. 

Here's to another year of shared memories, even if these will be more mundane than seeing the Great Wall of China or visiting volcanic islands or seeing people poop behind bushes in public parks.

I love you.

* There was also a thoroughly enjoyable dinner with my family at Golden Corral, where I got four cotton candies and we laughed together like we haven't laughed together in years, and then me and Joe got a beautiful new toilet, but as awesome as those things were and as much as I wish we could do them all the time, they were not romantic.

Back When I Made Spiderweb Cotton Candy

I had forgotten that I used to have a spiderweb harvesting stick.

The trailer we rented when we first got married was full of spiders. We'd have to walk from our bedroom across the living room to get to the bathroom that worked, and the webs would spring up across the living room overnight, and I'd walk into them.

I found the stick picture while searching my Pictures folder to find out what me and Joe were doing on this day in history six years ago. On July 14th, 2007, we were fixing the place up; Joe was working on the floor, and I was raking leaves. We'd be married and moving in a month later.

The cast-iron woodburning stove against the front door added extra security.

Raking in progress! How exciting!

And below is a nice picture of the moldy-carpeted rotting-wooded broken hot tub I later pulled the carpet off of with the back of a hammer. The tub was never used for anything but garbage and storage, especially after the water pipe under it burst and had to be sealed off.

It wasn't the type of place we ever imagined ourselves living, but it was ours. (Kind of.) And despite the mice and the spiders, and the mystery of HOW ARE THESE WASPS GETTING IN (they had a nest in that yellow rectangular stove vent next to the little window,) I haven't been more attached to any of our other homes.

Some Cool Stories About Our Life

1. Sometimes we go to the IHOP near our hotel. It's the first restaurant we visited when we got back to the States, 'cause it was in the middle of the night and 'cause we'd eaten there before, like three years ago when we first were stationed here. The other night, I wanted to go there. We got in the car and started looking for it. It's three minutes away from our hotel and also never where I expect it to be, and we didn't see it, so I just figured we drove past it. I turned on the GPS and we turned around and it said "Arriving at destination on right." BUT THERE WAS NOTHING THERE! except some dirt in a parking lot. I commented, "Wouldn't it be crazy if it got torn down," and then we ate at Denny's instead, and saw a cockroach, and then I researched that IHOP and found out that it had been torn down and we'd eaten there in its last week. CRAZY.

(the newspaper's picture)

2. When we went to the hotel's front desk for our weekly Thursday week-renewal on the room, the price was lower than usual. "The price is lower than usual," I said to the receptionist. "So it is," she said. "I wonder why." It turns out that we're no longer being charged a hotel tax because this is now considered to be our place of residence. LOLLLLLLLL

3. I feel like the greatest right now because I'm taking three classes to become a licensed Realtor and investor. Joe's on night shift, so I'm awake all night, which makes things complicateder. The week starts on Tuesday mornings with salesperson training at 8:30 (which is like 9:30 PM to me.) I have to leave for that at 8, half an hour after Joe gets back from work. I get home at noon (or "1 AM,") and sleep a few hours until I have to get ready for pre-licensing class that evening. I drive Joe to work (he has to be there at 6 PM) and I go to school (I have to be there at 6 PM.) After school, I drive home at 9:30 PM and watch Flip or Flop on HGTV! Then take a nap, because in eleven hours I have salesperson training again. After that, I get home at "1 AM" and finally get some sleep. That night, I do homework and the week's first session of online Real Estate Investing class (which is only like 30 minutes of reading.) After that Tues-morning-Tues-night-Weds-morning set, things are easier because I don't have class again until Thursday night. Friday is my second weekly session of online REI class. Saturday Sunday Monday, relax, sleep, homework.

This is the first time I've ever felt like I'm "doing something with my life."

4. Between the hours of 4 AM and 7 AM, all HGTV plays is infomercials for anti-aging creme. The Krispy Kreme near us closes at the stupidly early hour of 11 PM. And the McDonald's next to our house hotel shuts down its icecream machine every night for cleaning from the hours of, like, 2 AM to 6 AM. It's the worst. I guess. Last time I was over there at 3 AM, a guy asked if I had a place where he could sleep. I went back to the room and used all the locks.

5. We've been buying gallon bottles of water because who wants to drink gross warm chlorine city tap water? Not us. (Even though most bottled water is city tap water - it's "from a municipal source.") Since I grew up in a rural area, I prefer the taste of nice cool fresh water straight from the ground, that still has minerals and sand floating around in it. So I've been trying to find the brand that makes water (hehe) with the least "municipal" flavor. Nestle Pure Life water is the best I've found. Crystal Purified Drinking Water tastes like inflatable pool toys. (Joe just buys whatever's cheap and squirts MiO flavoring in it.)

6. I wanted Japanese food. We went to a Japanese restaurant. It was going to be fun. We were seated and ordered our drinks, one Coke and one Diet Coke. Joe saw our waiter, who was on his way to our table, take a sip out of Joe's glass (I assume the waiter forgot which one was Diet.) We left and ate at Red Lobster instead.

WOW! Those were some pretty cool stories!