Mommin' It Up!

May 24, 2008May 24, 2008

This Week’s CVS-capades!

***Edited to add: for a video of me shopping at CVS this week, see this post here. I added it later today! You won’t regret it!***
Well, I started off this week thinking the deals at CVS were not too great this week, but once again CVS totally came through for me! First, I went in to get some milk and make some photo prints and got all this:

Milk: $3.19
Two Oral B toothbrushes $3.98
Two Sobe Life waters $2
Two Rolaids 3-pks. $4.98
Ten 4 x 6 photo prints $2.90
Total = $17.05
Coupons used:
CVS $5/$15
Two 75 cents off Oral B coupons
Sobe B1G1 Free coupon
Ten 4 x 6 prints free coupon
Total = $6.65
Paid with 6 ECBs and 65 cents cash, and got back 7 ECBs! Two for the toothbrushes, one for the Sobe, and four for the Rolaids.

While I was printing my photos, I saw a tearpad on the photo counter of all places, for up to $55 off the Freestyle glucose meter. Now these just happen to be one of the May monthly ECB deals, and they are $10 with $10 back in ECBs! Woohoo!! So I grabbed two of these coupons since there is a limit of 2 on this deal. Unfortunately, the store I was at was out of the meters, even though they had the coupons! So a couple of days later I went to another CVS and got this:

One Freestyle Lite meter at $10
One Neutrogena spray-on Sunscreen at $8.49
Total pre-tax ws $18.49
Coupons used:
CVS $5/$15
Freestyle coupon adjusted down to $10
$2 off Neutrogena sun care item CVS coupon (emailed to me last week. It expired 5/18 but most CVSes in my area will take them until they “beep” at the register)
Total including tax: $1.60, which I paid in cash and got back 10 ECBs for the meter!!
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
I went back and did this exact same transaction again and got the $10 for the meter and an additional $5 ECB for the Neutrogena sunscreen! If you bought $10 worth, you got 5 ECBs, so the two Neutrogena purchases combined to give me the $5 ECB on the second transaction. OOT OOT! For reasons that shall be revealed later, (probably next week!) I was completely out of ECBs before I did these two transactions. So, by spending only $3.20 cash, I made $25 in ECBs, and my suppy is now replenished! Oh, CVS, how I LOVE you!!

Because we are pretty well stocked up on groceries, I went down to our local market and only bread, bananas, and cheese this week. So I spent less that $7 of my $40/week grocery budget there, and just about $11 total with the money I spent at CVS. YAY!!

Well that’s it for me this week! For more awesome deals, check out CVS Superstars at the “Cents”ible Sawyer, and Super Savings Saturday over at Money Saving Mom!

May 23, 2008

It’s official – boys are gross.

I have come to the conclusion that boys are just born gross. All this time I thought it was a learned behavior, but if my son is representative of his gender, I now know they are that way from birth.

Sammy spits up. All. The. Time. Jenny can confirm this, as he ralphed all over her the other day. And it’s not just a little bit… the sheer volume amazes me. If his cheeks weren’t so chubby, I would swear that none of the milk he ingests was being digested. I suppose this could be the reason that he nursed from approximately noon to 10 p.m. yesterday. Ugh.

I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I won’t bother – the kid is a farting machine. Jenny can also attest to this, as she witnessed his would-make-a-14-year-old-boy-jealous farting prowess just today. Some people have to stretch before they can completely wake up, some must drink coffee. Not Sammy. Sammy must fart 9000 times before his eyes will completely open.

And then there’s the peeing. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but jeez! It’s just amazing to me. The other day, we were visiting my grandma and I decided to give Sam a bath in the kitchen sink. Yeah, nothing like pee in the cookie jar. Lovely. Come to think of it, I’m going to need to get a new toothbrush from Jenny’s stockpile, seeing as how the rest of Sam’s baths have taken place in my bathroom sink. Awesome.

As I wrote this, I paused for a moment, concerned that Sam or his friends might someday read this and he would be embarrassed. Then I remembered the moral of the story – boys are gross – and realized that his aptitude for all things relating to bodily functions will probably make him quite proud of himself.

Boys. Ugh.

May 22, 2008

Chasing Sleep

If I ever write my autobiography, I’m going to title it Chasing Sleep. I am a lot of things, but I’m always that. For about four years, I’ve been in a cycle of sleep-deprivation. The first thought I have every morning is usually, “When can I go back to sleep?” It’s a question that generally has a disappointing answer, and then the cycle begins again.

I have a variety of sleep issues: For starters, I’m a light sleeper. Since I became a mother, I hear every noise my kids make. If my husband falls asleep before I do, his heavy breathing keeps me awake. If I’m awakened, I can’t get back to sleep. I dream a lot, and don’t sleep peacefully. I go to bed as early as I can, because the first three to four hours of sleep are usually the best for me. When we go on vacation, I take my ginormous and loud white noise machine with me because I can’t fall asleep without it. But it doesn’t really matter, because regardless of how much sleep I get, I still wake up tired.

I swear as soon as I wean Sophie the first thing I’m gonna do is make a doctor’s appointment to get this thing figured out. Maybe then I’ll catch up to sleep, but until then, the chase continues.

And so does my whining about it!