First of all, a big fat “thanks” to all the comments on my previous post on daycares. It was very interesting to hear how much you all pay. I received some good info via e-mail also. I admit, I am feeling much better about the whole thing. I mean, it all sucks. The place we visited yesterday was good. It is close enough to my work, that I could walk there and breast feed. I hadn’t even thought about that as an option.

Needless to say, The King and I put our names on “the list” and we’ll see what happens. The facility manager was really nice, but told us that chances of us actually getting our baby in in June aren’t too good. Afterwards, I got online and have a whole new list of places to call.

Now, on to the poop.

If you are new to this blog, you should know that we recently moved into an apartment downtown. We like it. Although is it an adjustment coming from a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom home that we owned, to a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment that we rent. With people living right next to us. In my mind, we are alone and nobody can hear me yelling from the bedroom at The King in the front room. (Since the building is concrete, they might not be able to hear us.)

We haven’t met any of the people who live on our same floor. I’ve only seen one of them one time. The King has never seen anybody. But we know they exist. Why, you may ask. Because I found some poop in front of our front door this weekend. Real live poop.

I believe it to be dog poop, because I have heard a dog barking right when I get off the elevator on our floor. Plus, it was just little poops.

I was horrified. Where did this poop come from? How did it end up in front of my door? Is someone trying to send me a message? Does someone hate me? Oh my gosh, what have we done to deserve this?

I called The King immediately to inform him. He just got pissed. As soon as he came home, he made me take him out to the hall and show him the poop. Since it was such small poops and since we have “Las Vegas” carpet in the hall, it was hard to see. He kicked the biggest piece (it was quite dry by this point) in front of the unit that we know has a dog living in it. We just assumed it was theirs.

It’s been almost a week, and the poop is still there. I’m not picking it up. It’s not mine. The hall is starting to smell a little. It hasn’t reached the inside of our apartment. That still smells like our glorious live Christmas tree.

How did this poop end up in the hall? We believe that the pet owner was just too lazy to take the elevator a few floors down and take the dog outside to poop. Which okay, I get lazy to. But if you are going to let your dog poop in the hall, at least pick it up and throw it out. Leaving it there for a week is just too lazy.

When I got home from work yesterday I noticed a stain on the hall carpet. Are they now letting their dog pee out there?

This has to stop.

My parents and two younger siblings (and their spouses) live in the same state (not Washington). Naturally they celebrated Christmas together. For the first time ever, it was not celebrated at my parents house. Which means nobody was able to see all of my Mom’s decorations (yes, she has two Christmas trees side by side in her front room). This year they had Christmas Eve dinner at my younger brothers house. This was because he has a new baby that they didn’t want to take out in the cold. And also because he had to work late that night at his horrible, horrible job (at a store that sounds a lot like Small-Bart).

They called me on the phone so that I could be “there” while they opened the family presents from each other. I had sent a big package and was excited to hear if they liked what I got them. Before they were opening their presents, I chatted on the phone with my sister in law about child birth. Which, by the way, she swears she didn’t feel at all. This is exactly what I like to hear. Then we started talking about her thoughts on motherhood. She sounded so in love with her little girl and it made me happy to hear. (Plus, have I mentioned that my Dad bought me a plane ticket to fly out there in a few weeks? So I get to snuggle my new niece, soon!)

Then I asked her when she was planning on going back to work. (It must be noted that all my siblings and their spouses work for the same company, which rhymes with Mal-Kart.) She said she was scheduled to be back to work on January 9th. Which is two weeks away (from the time I talked to her). The conversation then turned to daycare and where they would be taking my sweet little niece. When I asked, my sister in law said (are you ready for this?)……

“We haven’t looked into daycare yet.”

I may have thrown up a little at this point. But I tried to stay calm, and replied, “I’m not sure what it’s like out there, but in most places in the Free World you have to start looking basically as soon as the pee dries on the pregnancy test, because most places have waiting lists and you want to check out a lot of different places to find the right one for you and your baby. There are daycare centers, as well as in-home facilities, and nannies. There are a lot of things to look into.”

This didn’t seem to phase her. At all.

She told me that she didn’t think things are like that where she lived. Plus she said that she was hoping “something” would come up and she wouldn’t have to go back to work.

Huh? “Something”, like what? What the crap does that mean? Like maybe between now and January 9th they might win the lotto? I doubt it.

She said that she and my brother had hoped to be able to live off just his salary (which, it also must be noted, is peanuts). But that they hadn’t had a chance to “practice” living on his salary because she had so much vacation time saved up, she has been getting paid during all of her maternity leave (of course she didn’t get any official maternity leave, she just had to use her own vacation time). She said they wanted one pay period without her pay to see if they could do it.

I assume you just do the math, and figure out your budget and whether or not you can live off the one salary. I didn’t realize you had to actually try it out.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds for them. I hope it works out, like they have (sort of) planned.

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The King and I will be visiting another daycare center today on our lunch breaks. We have been looking around in West Seattle, where our new house will be. And also in downtown, where we live now and where I work (The King also works about 2 miles from downtown). Of course, downtown daycare is more expensive that out in West Seattle. But if we take the baby to a place near our house, we would have to drive the baby there, drive back home, park the car, and then take the bus downtown to work. It might be worth it to just take the baby with me downtown, on the bus.

I hope this place works out. It is really close to my work, and is a decent price. Well, none of them are really decently priced. They are all expensive. We want a place that will be good for our little guy, and good for us, and not so much money that I will have to work over time to pay for it.

Plus, I am sort of hoping/dreaming that I’ll be able to work a few days from home each week. And maybe we can talk The King’s mom into watching our guy one day a week. Which would mean we might only need daycare part time. Which would basically rock.

But I’m not holding my breath for that.

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I am super-duper curious how much daycare costs where you live. Out here in Seattle the most expensive I have seen (at a place that sounds like Minder Mare) is $350.00 a week. The least expensive place (an in home center near our new house) is $250.00 a week.

She’s engaged, again.

My take is that Tori likes to be married. She just didn’t like her first choice in husbands.

I think the part about her new fiance leaving his wife of 12 years to be the saddest part.

I often wonder what it must be like to be rich and famous and think that stuff like this is acceptable in the real world.

(I can’t worry too much about this. I mean, odds are the marriage won’t even take place!)

I know I’m not the only one having a hard time being back at work today. Every weekend should be a 4 day weekend. It would do the world some good.

The only things that are making this day better is that I got to wear my new hat this morning, and my new shoes! (Who cares if my new heels are typically for old ladies-they are sooo comfy and the baby likes me to wear comfy shoes. Plus, they really are cute.)

I also have some gift cards to use on my lunch break today. My younger brother’s wife got me a gift card to Motherhood Maternity (I need some new black slacks for work) and The King got me a card for a caramel apple a month for the entire year. (I have always loved caramel apples, but loved them even more when I had my braces a few years ago and couldn’t eat them!) I may need to pick up January’s apple a little early (as in, today) The King is a good man, who spoils me and I love it.

What I’m trying to say, is that I am not too thrilled about being at work this week. But I am thrilled about all the goodies I received for Christmas from those who love me! I am truly blessed (even without the goodies). Christmas was extra special this year. Especially because we had the twins to entertain us. They were so cute with their gifts and loved all the toys they received. Nothing like a bunch of adults sitting around watching seven month olds put everything in their mouths.

To close out the Christmas weekend, here’s a 25 week belly shot. Taken myself in the bathroom mirror, since The King wants no part of “belly pictures on the internet”. Yes, I’m getting bigger.

Hi. Remember me? Yeah, I’ve been so busy with work this week. I love to be busy, but it really does cut down on my “personal internet time”. Since The King and I only have dial up at home, we rarely even bother with the world wide web once we leave work.

Here are a few things I wanted to mention in today’s post:

The King sends me e-mails all day. Lots of e-mails. Most of them are things I need to get at the grocery store, or reminding me of something to do for the new house (or even something I have done wrong). Some make me laugh out loud. This is the latest one:

i totally have the growing pains theme song stuck in my head, for like 2 weeks now.

Oh, poor King. I am not even sure how the theme song even goes. Mostly because since I saw this site I haven’t been able to think of Kirk Cameron the same again.