Makeup & Beauty Monday: Sensor Mirror Pro

Vent: doc really pushed genetic testing 12 weeks gestation, office said usually it’s $49 if medically indicated (it is). Today lab calls and says that’ll be $950, out of network, or you can pay out of pocket $350 w/o running through insurance. Um. No thanks. Guess we’ll wait for the anatomy ultrasound and hope everything’s okay.

Yes, yes, I have a call in to the doc office to see if they can sort it. Not much hope though.

Any quick meal ideas for when you’re solo parenting, badly need to get to the grocery store, and are stressed out from work (i.e., not creative at all)? I figure if I can get the kids fed and happy-ish, they can come with me to the store tonight.

Every time we come back from family vacation I 1) wonder if we should move closer to them because even though my family drives me nuts, my kid loves his cousins so much and 2) lament that I am working, even though I would be a terrible SAHM. Just needed to get that out there.

First time mom (3 weeks into this parenting thing) – does maternity leave get any less difficult? I knew that newborns take up all of your time, I guess I just didn’t realize that the time they take up is so extremely physical and monotonous. I’m use to challenging mental work in a biglaw practice, but not anything physical and nothing that’s this repetitive (our baby was also born very small for his gestational age, so every feeding is me attempting to nurse, then supplementing with a bottle of pumped breast milk, then pumping to make enough breast milk for the next feeding. It usually takes about 1.5 hours to get all of this done, so even being on a longer 3 hour cycle only leaves 1.5 hours to sit/nap/eat/shower/whatever). I feel like my brain is turning to mush between the sleep deprivation and the lack of mental stimulation. I’m listening to audiobooks or podcasts while nursing, but also feeling a lot like “you need to eat *again*? didn’t we just feed you?” I definitely think PPD is creeping up so I’m making an appointment with my OBGYN to talk and likely see a counselor. It’s just a lot at the moment.

How do you feel about giving a child 4 names (i.e. two middle names)? I want our kid to have my maiden name as a middle, but we’re also considering a normal first name as a middle name, so it would be First Middle Maiden Last. Will this get annoying for him? Thanks!

I just got around to reading Thursday’s post and just wanted to throw some support at you! I also have twins, who are now 3, and am a lowish earner too (MCOL city, make about $55K). We have paid my entire salary, a little less than half of our entire HHI, in day care costs since they were 4 months old and it gets demoralizing! I really love my job and don’t want to leave it, and likely won’t be getting huge raises in the future (government)… But to get myself through, I think about a) retirement contributions, b) minimal but existent salary growth, which I wouldn’t have if I was at home, and c) that honestly I don’t think I’d be a great SAHM. It wouldn’t give me the same discrete accomplishments I have at work and I think I need those. But solidarity, paying for child care for multiples is awful. Even my other friends who have kids close in age only have to “overlap” day care costs for a year or two.. the way that their birthdays play out, we are going to double-pay until they’re at least 4.5, maybe 5.5. I’m just telling myself how flush we’ll seem once kindergarten rolls around!

At an indoor playground + cafe over the weekend, another mom confronted me as I was loading my kids into the car to tell me that my 2 year old had grabbed her one year old’s shirt, and caused her to fall and bonk her head. I kind of blinked at her, waiting for the point of the story. When I didn’t fill the silence with an apology, she continued that she’d watched my son, “since [she] didn’t know who he belonged to,” and saw him being a little bit rough with other kids too. “As a mom,” she would want to know if her kid was playing like that, so she when saw me leaving with him and figured out who his parent was, she wanted to make sure she told me. I don’t think I rolled my eyes, but I did say that I was sorry she thinks my 2 year old is a bully, causing her to gawp at me and huff back inside.

As a mom, frankly, I could not care less if my 2 year old is jostling another toddler for shared toys. I’m 98% sure my son had no intention of pulling the little girl to the ground, it just doesn’t take much to tip a one year old. This sounds like pretty normal behavior. If my older kid were shoving toddlers out of the way, I’d want to hear about it, but another toddler? Please. My gut reaction is that this is a mom of one one year old, and probably a SAHM. I’m not adding the SAHM bit to be snarky, I just figure that my kids have been knocked down approximately 500 times in daycare, because that’s what happens when kids are together. But maybe I’m a jerk? Should I care about this? Am I being irresponsible by availing myself of the coffee and comfy chairs at the play place instead of following my kids around as a referee?

Looking for a shampoo for 10 y.o. who has thick hair and produces a lot of sebum. We’ve tried a few shampoos for oily hair but freshly washed hair still looks a little matted down and greasy.