A double-edged sword.

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So Thursday will be my last day babysitting until possibly the 14th. The woman I babysit for is going on a business trip and her son is staying with family for the week. Then, because her family will be visiting, they may keep him until they leave.

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm glad I'll have that precious time back with my babies, just me and them, and I'll be free to go where I please. When Boy is here, I can't - my car can only hold two carseats and two adults. Well, it could also hold a small child between the two of them, but Boy is only 3 years old and weighs just a bit more than my infant (he's skinny!), so he must be carseated. Thus, I'm tethered to the apartment. We've tried taking walks, but his mom even admits, he's kinda hard to control. Anyway, now I can go to the park or the library or maybe even the mall.

However...

Were I a regular daycare, I might be able to work out some sort of compensation for the time I will be involuntarily out of work. But I'm not. I'm just a stay-at-home mom who watches a boy all week. So I'm out $100 a week until he returns. This may not sound like much to some of you, but for us, it's pretty damn important. It helps pay the bills!

Meh. I don't know whether to be enthralled at more one-on-one time with my kids or shittin' kittens because we may not be able to pay a few bills this month - bills that need to be paid.

Maybe I should go panhandle outside AT&T Park???

I should totally get paid for this...

but I won't. But I should. I'm not one to publicly endorse a particular product. I know people have their preferences and some feel that the more you spend, the better the product. *shrug* Maybe.

But I spent $49.99 on a stroller last year and although it's seen better days, I really can't complain! We bought it a few days before we took our trip to Barstow and Las Vegas. My other stroller was a beat-up, dirty, smelly, two-year-old Graco from a travel system. It squeaked, the tray was all scratched up, the handle was permanently dirty, the seat pad - although I had washed it - was stained from all the sunblock I'd put on Beth's legs over the years, and it had cat fur embedded in the creases because my cats saw fit to make a bed out of it if it wasn't collapsed. Stupid furballs.

I wasn't about to take that jalopy to Vegas! It was bad enough that when we asked to borrow luggage from my in-laws for the trip, we were loaned two big-ass duffel bags. Combine that with our Walmart/Target/Mervyns attire and a Chevy Tracker in bad need of a carwash, and you have this:



Anyway, I insisted on a new stroller for the trip. I vowed to not spend more than $60.00. I spent about half an hour in Babies 'R Us checking out their lightweight strollers. I didn't want a full-size stroller; Beth was two years old at that point, sooner or later, she was going to have to walk places. [Wouldn't ya know, two weeks later I discovered I was pregnant! She's a full-time walker now.]

I ended up settling for the Baby Trend Trendsport Lite. I was a little less than optimistic about it. It didn't cost much and seemed a bit flimsy. But, I figured, it wasn't meant to last a long time. It was only fifty bucks. What did I want? A Peg Perego???

Lemme tell you, I couldn't be happier with this purchase! We've had that puppy for 16 months and now we're using it with Robby. The only part that could use replacing is the wheels; it seems the "tires" have broken away from the wheel and if too much weight is put on them, they could fall off, although they haven't yet. We're hard on our strollers though, they've been used to haul groceries up to a 2nd floor apartment, haul a 30+ lb. girl around town, four one-gallon jugs of water AND the aforementioned girl for a few miles...so yeah, we're hard on the strollers.

Seriously folks, if you're looking for a lightweight stroller but don't want to drop $300.00, this is something to consider.

Just tired of this shit.

To any and all of my right coast people out there...I miss you. There's something to be said for keeping the friends you've had your whole life. They know you best and actually give a shit about you.

Someone fly out here and visit us! We used up all of R's vacation time between finding a place to live and him having pneumonia, so we can't make it back this summer. *whaaaaaaa!!!!* We have the space for guests...we'll show you San Francisco, Monterey Bay, Napa, Sacramento, Tahoe, Reno, whatever! Just come out here and see us!!!!