Category Archives: Kids

Preparing For a New Baby Minimalista Way, Furnishing Nursery

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Baby news can put anyone over the edge considering the upcoming medical bills, acquiring all the baby gear, nursery furnishings, clothing. All this is besides the upcoming every day expenses, like diapers, formula, health insurance, etc.

I am a minimalista and in less than three weeks we are expecting our second child, this time it’s a boy! We already have a 2-year old girl, and by going through her stuff the other day, I realized that we hardly need anything for our new baby boy! I would like to share with you how I managed to spend very little on both of my kids and still have all the necessities.

In this post I will be talking about setting up nursery. You can spend a ton or spend a little, it’s up to you. All I’m going to do is provide the information that could help you make the choices that are right for you!

1. Relieve yourself from extra work. If you’re planning on more than one kid, Continue reading →

Litter Fight

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Today my 2-year old daughter gave me about 1 hour of extra work that I didn’t ask for! It all started with me changing an old litter box to a new automatic litter box.

As I was pouring the litter into the new litter box, I realized I didn’t have enough. So I dug into the old litter box for extra litter. While I was cleaning out the old litter box in the laundry room, cat decided to pee into the new box that was sitting in the living room. She doesn’t waste any time!

Then I started hearing exciting laughing from my 2-year old. Something was making her very happy. As I picked into the living room Continue reading →

Minimalist’s House Organization – Baby Room Closet

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I probably am one of the worst home organizers you will ever meet. Why? Before I met my husband, I didn’t have much stuff, didn’t care for having lots of it, and I seemed to always have enough space for what I had. So home organization was one of the last things that ever popped into my mind. When I bought my first house, and it’s the house that we’re currently in, I thought to myself, there is no way I will ever fill this space. It’s a four bedroom house with a large kitchen, decent family room and a good size living room/dining room combination. At the time it seemed to have unlimited amount of closet space.

Well, was I wrong. Five years down the road, and two additional occupants with the third on the way, the house is officially packed to its max. These days I look in the closets thinking to myself, how could they go from completely empty to being stuffed like this? The three-car garage is now a two-car with tons of crap in place of third. Now I have no choice, but to start getting creative and get organized!

My first project was Continue reading →

Am I a Bad Mother?

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Leaving my 2-year old at the daycare this morning, left a very bad taste in my mouth. Since I am almost 37 weeks pregnant and having a harder time keeping up with my daughter’s social and everyday activities, we decided to put her in the daycare for couple of days a week. It should give me a chance to reorganize the house, make room for the little one, move Elyana into her new “big girl’s room”, and to simply catch my breath from constant demands for attention and unlimited energy outbursts of the 2-yr old.

This is her first week at the daycare. Even though she’s not new to it, she went there for a brief period when she was 18 months, few months have passed in between. And today is her 2nd day there without mommy, so she probably knew that my intention was to drop her off and leave. As we got there, she started making her sad face as I was holding onto her. As soon as I started to let go and making moves towards the door, she grabbed onto my leg and started screaming and crying. The teacher had to grab a hold of her, so she doesn’t run outside after me. As I was walking away, I kept hearing screaming and crying and sounds of pounding on the door.

And that brings me to my topic, Continue reading →

Baby Jogger City Elite Disappointment

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With the 2-yr old and the second one on the way, I decided to look for a double stroller. I wanted a side-by-side type, with jogging/running capability, good size canopy for sun protection and compact enough to fit through a door. By looking through a ton of strollers online at the Babies-R-Us store, I decided to go with Baby Jogger City Elite Double Stroller. It seemed to have everything, nice soft reclining seats, good size basket underneath, large size canopy for each seat and an easy fold-up technology. What else could a mom dream of? I found the stroller on the Babies-r-Us site under Jogging/Running strollers. Though the price tag wasn’t small, it retails for $650.

When my mother-in-law brought over the heavy box, she pointed out that there was a warning right on the box: Continue reading →

How I Saved On My Maternity With No Maternity Insurance

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If you are reading this post, you are probably desperate.  First off, congratulations on your pregnancy! I hope my story will help you save money on your maternity bills if you don’t have maternity coverage.

In April 2007 I found myself pregnant.  I called my insurance first to find out if they covered pregnancy.  The answer was ‘no’.  Then after calling numerous insurance companies I found that pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition and none of them could cover me, since I was already pregnant.

I started to get worried.  We have a baby on the way and we will have to pay for the doctor, labs, hospital ourselves!  How much will it be?  Where are we going to get the money?  What if there are complications?

My husband is self-employed and I wasn’t working at the time. We had individual insurance plan through a major insurance carrier.  The only way they would cover pregnancy is if I had maternity coverage before I got pregnant or if we had group insurance through the business.

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SAHMs’ Essential Connections

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Being a stay-at-home parent can get monotonous and downright depressing. What else does one have to look forward to every day besides taking care of kids, cleaning, cooking, laundry? And what about the kids? They need interaction as much as adults do, if not more.

Working full time for many stay-at-home parents just doesn’t make sense. Some choose to stay home, because they believe that child develops better at home, others just don’t want to bother due to high daycare costs. If you have only one, it’s tolerable, but once the second one pops, usually half or more of your monthly paycheck goes to daycare! Whatever the reason is, it’s not an excuse to pout.

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The Potty Training Challenge 2

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This is my second post about our potty training experience. I posted the first post five days ago and you can find here.

Elyana is definitely progressing in the right direction, though going into the potty hasn’t happened yet. She likes spending her time mostly without any underpants or in her regular underwear. She progressed to having no accidents. Instead, she tells me, she needs to go pi-pi, when she’s not wearing a diaper. She actually goes and gets the diaper from her room, once I tell her to bring it to me.  She then lays down, and I put the diaper on her.

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The Potty Training Challenge

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Well, my daughter is now 22 months and the new baby is coming in February. I am on the quest to get her potty trained by the time the second one arrives. Is it going to happen by then? It’s hard to tell, but I am keeping my fingers crossed!

I feel like she has been ready for the potty since about 18 months, but with me being tied up and her being in the daycare we just couldn’t get the ball rolling. Now she is out of daycare and I have more time to spend on it. We have been taking it slow for about three weeks.

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