Baby blankets are an important part of your baby items. I like having as many blankets as possible; depending on the number of children you have, it may not be possible for you to do laundry every day, or even every other day. Some days babies will go through three or four blankets; other days, only one is needed. When both my children were sleeping in bassinets of a Graco Pack'n'Play, I would tuck a blanket under the sheet for a little bit more padding. With my second daughter, this was a most; after two years with my oldest daughter, the mat wasn't very comfortable to lay on.

There all kinds of uses for blankets. There is, of course, the traditional - a covering for them while they sleep. You can also put them on the ground to make a pallet for baby to lay on during TummyTime, or just when the baby is staring at the ceiling. As baby gets older, you can put one or two blankets in the bottom of a playpen for extra padding. What if you find out after giving baby a bath that there aren't any clean towels? In a pinch, use a baby blanket; receiving blankets are good for this. Bigger blankets are good to have as well; they can cover yourself and baby while you feed or cuddle with baby. One of my favorite things to do is sit on the couch with my daughters, and one of their blankets covering all three of us during a rainy afternoon.

If your newborn enjoys being swaddled, purchase some swaddling blankets. These are blankets that usually have a velcro closure and wraps around baby. These are safer then swaddling with a receiving blanket, because a baby can sometimes pull the blanket up over their faces. There have been cases where the babies died because the blanket got tugged over their faces, so the Consumer Product Safety Commission reccomends that instead of a blanket, babies sleep in blanket sacks or sleep sacks. This reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Footed sleepers or gowns with socks worked well for my daughters when they were newborns and infants.

Take into consideration the temperature climate of your area and the temperature inside your home when buying blankets. Babies get cold easier then adults, and they also get hot easier. If you generally keep your house warm or hot, use natural fibers like cotton; these breathe better, allowing air to circulate close to baby's skin. If it's usually chilly or cold, consider flannel or fleece; these hold in body heat better. There are also fire-retardant blankets on the market; these will help protect baby if flames get too close, because they don't burn as easily. Don't use fabric softener on fire-retardant blankets; the chemicals in fabric softener break down the additive that makes it fire-retardant.

Be careful when you buy or are gifted baby blankets, though - some fabrics contain polyester or aryclic, which can give off gases when baby's body heat escalates. These gases can irritate a baby's eyes and skin. Go for natural materials as much as you can; you'll be keeping gases away from your baby and helping the environment.

Poopy Diapers
Oh, poopy diapers!
How I loathe thee; let me count
The ways that I feel.

Today has been spent playing with my daughters and updating this website. I changed the layout yesterday; it's the first Wordpress theme I've ever created that I am 98% happy with (for some reason, the shadow on top won't show up). I also changed the radio player from radio.blog to PremiumBeat; in some ways I like radio.blog better. :/ I've also put a new page up under 'About' titled Projects. This will be where I list all my websites, craft projects, web/graphic design and writing projects. I also added Google Ads (in the sidebar to the right, at the very bottom).

I started writing another book yesterday, titled Mommyhood at 20. It's about my experiences with being a young single mother and the misconceptions people automatically associate with it. I've gotten the outline done, and I've started the first draft. I'm also still working on Guide for The Young Single Mother: What You Need to Survive. I'm giving myself until April 2010 to finish it.

I entered Century 21's The Path to Your Dreams sweepstakes. I'm praying that I win; anything that I could put into a savings account for a house would be fantastic, because then me and my girls could move out of my grandmother's sooner.

I've opened an Amazon.com store here. When people purchase something from my store, a portion of the proceeds will go to me.

I've got about thirteen articles I need to go through and edit before adding them to the content section. I may end up completely re-writing some of them, but oh well - it's good practice, right? :) I've also started writing short stories for a children's book anthology, and poems about the joys and tribulations of single parenting. Once I finish getting the children's book written, I'll start looking for illustrater(s).

A week or two ago, I sent an Order of Paternity to the attorney state general of Texas. That one was for Mike on Ariel, and I'll be filling one out for David on Alex within the next week or two. I'm also supposed to go to court about my dad's child support; me and my brothers are all over the age of 18, but at least in the state of Texas, if you owe back child support (read: you didn't make all your payments), you still have to pay it. The Texas Rangers are looking for him to arrest him. If I can get child support started from my father again, and child support from each of the girls' fathers, as well as making some money from freelance writing and the Amazon store, I can open my baby boutique (Head to Toe) and my as yet untitled organic bath and beauty etsy shop. If need be, I could also get a part-time job. With money from all those things, I'm hoping me and the girls will be able to move out within the next two years. This house is just way too small for three adults and two kids.

Alex's father still hasn't seen her. I always thought Ariel's father was the biggest jerk, but at least he had the decency - and the balls - to show up at the hospital. Of course, I had Ariel late at night, so most of my friends weren't at work or in school (like when I had Alex).  It was a friend of mine who called Mike to tell him I was having the baby; I didn't call David until after they moved me to my room a few hours after I had Alex. But still, he knew where I was. He could've showed up.

Anyway, I digress. I have my check up in about a week, so that makes me happy. I'm already doing some light excerising; I've decided I want to learn how to belly dance! It's an awesome workout (have you see the abs on belly dancers??), and it's low impact, unlike lifting weights or something. I have weak knees, so I needed something like this. I've wanted to learn for years anyway, and now I have good incentive - I want to lose ten-fifteen pounds by Mike & Chau's wedding in August. I picked up a belly dance work out DVD a few days ago from someone off of Freecycle, and I'm picking up some belly dance clothes and some more DVD's this weekend. I also ordered two DVD's this afternoon and I  should be getting those within a week or so. I'm going to work out once a day Monday-Friday; every day I'll do a different DVD, so I don't get too bored. I've been working out while Alex naps during the day, and Ariel stands near me watching - she even tried to copy me today, it was so cute. I'm already a healthy eater, so I don't need to change anything in my diet.

I got a new cell phone! I have a Blackberry Pearl 8100 now. My Samsung flip phone broke, and I was already supposed to get my sister-in-law's almost brand new Pearl because she upgraded to the Curve when it came to T-Mobile. I love it! :)

The past few weeks, whenever I wore my foundation, my skin's been really itchy. I thought I had developed an allergy to it; but no. It was dead skin. After scratching my face a few times, I looked in a mirror and saw that my scratching had caused patches of dry skin to show up on my cheeks. I'm assuming that's why I was so itchy. I ran out of my normal exfoliating face wash a few days ago, so today I used salt and baby oil.

Yes, you read that right. I got the idea from a spa treatment I learned in massage therapy school (salt and massage oil or lotion). I just put some baby oil in the palm of my hand (I have some that smells like lavendar), added some salt, mixed it while it was still in my palm, then rubbed it onto my face where I have dry skin. The baby oil softens the dead skin, making exfoliation easier, and the salt is what actually takes the dead skin off. Another benefit: if you only wash the salt off, and leave the baby oil on, it moisturizes and softens the skin. This is great for me, since I have really dry skin on my cheeks, around my nose and at my eyebrows; dry skin shows fine lines and wrinkles much easier then oily or normal skin does. If you have oily skin, don't try my baby oil and salt exfoliating wash - or, if you do, you have to wash the baby oil off COMPLETELY. (Tip: if you don't know what kind of skin you have, here's some tips. If you're skin feels tight after washing, you have dry skin. If your skin looks shiny when you're not sweating, you have oily skin. If it doesn't feel tight and you don't have shiny spots, you have normal skin. If you have both, you have - guess what? - combination skin like me.) Just don't rub this mixture over your face too hard - trust me, it does not feel good (or look good, 'cause it makes your face red if you rub too hard). If you want, you could use sea salt instead of regular salt. I just used what I had on hand, since I was desperate to stop the itching. Oh, and do I really need to tell you not to put any other mosturizer on if you keep the baby oil on after washing the salt off? I didn't think so.

Anyway. Alex weighed seven pounds, twelve ounces at birth and was 20 inches long - so she was almost two pounds heavier then Ariel was, and she was half an inch longer. Alex is doing great, Ariel's liking being a big sister (as far as I can tell, there hasn't been any jealousy issues - yet), and mommy is healing well. :) I'm currently in the process of planning Ariel's first birthday party; she'll be three on Valentine's Day. It'll also be the first time most people will get to see Alex. I've got my work cut out for me, heh.

Then tonight, Jenn & I are helping Myron & Francis put their tree up. Woohoo!

"Everything but that one little part knew I didn't want it to turn out differently. I didn't really want the boy who couldn't stand by me or his own child."

In a way, I still love Michael. Whatever unhappiness he caused, he gave me Ariel, who gives me more joy in one day then anything else does - and that kinda makes up for all the hurt. I wouldn't have a little girl whose facial features and hair are just like mine when I was her age, with a lighter shade of her fraternal grandfather's blue eyes instead of my plain, dull brown. I wouldn't have a little girl who makes me laugh at a thousand different things every day, and makes my world completed just by letting me hold her. I love him because he gave me Ariel. I still love David too, although differently then Michael. I love Michael the way I love Brian, who was my first love. I'm not in love with either Michael or Brian anymore, but I am with David. We've barely spoken in the past couple of months, but I'll be doing something simple, like driving along a certain street, or sitting at my kitchen table, and I'll remember the way we used to talk when I drove us somewhere, or watching him fix my air conditioner. And I know that, like Brian and Michael, I will always love David in some way. But it's just like the quote above - I don't want the boy who can't stand by me or his own child. I want a man who will be there for me and my kids, and care about us, who won't go running away when things get too complicated or unexpected for him.

Excuse the sentiment - you can blame it on pregnancy hormones, if you'd like. ;)

The point of this? I HATE RLS.

Oh, before I forget - I got a domain for my blog. I heard about this site, CO.CC, who are offering free domain names. Yes, you read that right - I said free. To me, it sounds too good to be true, so I decided to sign up and see what would happen. Well, what happened was I got a free domain - lastchancelastdance.co.cc. Pretty long URL, but the other URLs I tried (lastchance, last-chance, last-dance and lastdance) were all taken or $3/year (which is still really, really cheap, but my main purpose in signing up was to determine if the free ones were legit or not). lastchancelastdance.co.cc will point to this blog sometime within the next 48 hours, after the DNS propagates. Some of their domains you have to pay for, but $3... that's the cheapest I've ever seen a domain name. Some of them are more, going up to a hundred dollars or more a year to register. They also have an option where if you donate $10 or more, you can register up to 100 domains. I've also grabbed kiaragilbert.co.cc for my portfolio; it was free as well, and will be pointing to the right place within the next 48 hours. I tried to get kiara.co.cc, but it was $23 a year to register. Oh well. :) I haven't decided if I want to just point lastchancelastdance.co.cc to the directory here for my blog, or if I want to move my blog over (yay for having tons of hosting space and the ability to have add on domains!). I need to find out, first, if I can backup everything and then upload the backup if I move it, because I do not want to lose everything that's here - that's happened way too many times in the past year or so.

Right now I want to introduce a new section of the site - tutorials! I don't have any up yet, but there's a nice long list of tutorials I will be putting up. I'm working on a few different ones right now; as soon as I finish tweaking them, they'll be added to the list. I wish I could find a plugin that would display recently added and/or modified pages, like the recent comments and recent posts plugins. For all I know, there is one, I just haven't found it. Anyone else know of one? If there's not one, I wish I knew how to code plugins... I'd do it myself. :/ Oh well. Something else to learn down the road, perhaps?

The past few days have been busy. Well, technically, only Saturday was. I watched my nephews that morning from 7 am to about 3:30, and then again from 7 pm to about 2 am. I was exhauseted. Saturday morning, before it got too hot, I dropped JD off here with my mom and took Ariel & Shay to the park for about an hour. Ariel had been up all night, so about noon she started getting fussy. Adam had told me that he'd be picking the boys up about one anyway, so we came back here and I fed them lunch. The three of us ended up falling asleep in my room while watching Peter Pan, heh. Adam called around two and mom told him the boys were both asleep, so he decided to wait to pick the boys up until after they'd woken up. I watched them for a little while today, too (and by today, I mean Sunday)  - Adam had been working on this guy Mike's car (one of Prissy's co-workers), doing the brakes, and the guy left and broke down. Prissy called me and asked me if I was done eating dinner (I was over at Mike & Francis' eating hamburgers - I'd already been over to Adam's about twenty or thirty minutes earlier, and got sent to Auto Zone to get a tool... heh). I said I was, and she asked me if I could watch the boys. Shay was already asleep, so he must've been really tired. JD went to sleep about fifteen minutes after Adam & Prissy left, and about ten minutes later they got back with Mike's car. But I have done so much walking and running this weekend that when I stand up, my leg muscles scream in protest. It's not very fun.

I'm extremely proud of myself for the work I've done this past week. It's mostly been my own sites that I've been doing, but that's fine - I'm getting back into the swing of it. I remember a lot more then I thought I did, so that was a nice surprise. I feel extremely productive. :)