broken record

Yep, that's me! It would appear I have "shopping" and "pacifiers--or lack thereof" on my mind recently. And I'm going to write about both of them again. :)

First, shopping. I mentioned in my last post that I had some great coupons to use. One of those coupons was from a website I found out about from my sister. It's called Money Saving Mom and if you don't check it already, I would recommend trying it. It can be hit or miss, but you can find good deals. She had a coupon for Bath and Body Works where you could get a free spa item (worth up to $6) with any purchase. I did this at two different stores and each time just bought a $1 lotion, then got the free spa item.

The other shopping I've done lately was with a 30% off coupon good at Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic. It even worked on stuff already on sale, so I got some good basic, solid-colored Ts for $3.50 (which look really cute jazzed up with necklaces!) and this fun dress for $10.50. I also had 20% off at Famous Footwear and got two great pairs of shoes from the clearance section. The total for both pairs was $20!!! I'm excited about spring and summer now!

One of the zillions of blogs I read is called Kelly's Korner and she had a post last week on what she called Recession Fashion where she showed things for under $30. This stuff would have fit right in! Other people linked with deals they have found or ideas they have for updating your wardrobe on the cheap. Fun to look at!

Maybe I'm doing some retail therapy to help keep my sanity while Sophie is adjusting to life without binkies. We took them away on Wednesday--bagged them up for the little babies and gave her new toys which she LOVES.

Things still aren't pretty. She used to sleep 11 hours at night and then take, on average, a 2 hour nap every afternoon. Nights have become 9 hours, and naps are iffy. She's missing out on a lot of sleep! We're trying to get her to find comfort in her blanket and her bunny but they just aren't the same, apparently. It's so hard to listen to her cry and know that she's sad because something she's had her whole life is just gone. Her first "new normal."

Over the weekend she was allowed to lay on the living room floor and fall asleep out there while watching a video. Yep, never thought I'd do that! She'd skipped a couple naps and just needed SLEEP, no matter what. Today I went back to trying to get her to nap in her bed. She cried off and on for an hour and then finally conked out for 40 minutes. It didn't even seem worth it. It's just crazy that missing out on this afternoon sleep doesn't make her sleep better at night. What do we do? I've tried rocking her, talking to her, praying with her, surprising her with a treat the one time she did wake up from napping like a big girl...

As you can see, she only likes Oreos for the filling!
I knew this would be hard, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite so bad. She doesn't look like herself. Her face and lips are chapped from crying, her eyes aren't bright anymore...we could use help again! Anything to do besides just tough it out?She's a precious girl and I'd love for her to be happy and well rested again!