Brenden painting a picture at school

It's been a while since I posted a blog, mostly because we've been very busy coping with Brenden's ear infection. He's had it for nearly a month. We're on our third round of antibiotics and we've tried just about everything to clear up the fluid. He's getting better and seems to be in a lot less pain, but he's now in the habit of being held/rocked all night. So we are finally, after 15 months of debating the sleep situation, going to start sleep training. Once the dr gives us the all-clear that he's no longer sick, we'll start putting him to bed awake. The dr warned us that rocking to sleep will be a hard habit to break after this long, but we pretty much have to at this point. We are EXHAUSTED from being up all night with him. Adam and I are both tempted to take an ax to the rocking chair because we're so sick of being in it.

Adam still hasn't found a job. He's been forced to lower his standards quite a bit, and has two interviews coming up for jobs he's not excited about. He might even end up working part-time for now just to have something. It's hard to be facing down money struggles after being pretty comfortable in Seattle. The worst part is having high-deductible health insurance, which is all we can afford but would pretty much bankrupt us if we had to ever use. Until we get on our feet, we applied for a state program to help with Brenden's medical costs. Brenden's dr warned us that he might have to have tubes in his ears soon, which requires general anestethia and is very expensive without insurance.

This might not be what we had in mind for ourselves, but we're making it work. Life in the midwest is a lot less expensive, and we're finding other ways to cut costs. We shop at a great grocery store that only sells their own generic brands. The food is really good, often better than name brands, and so much cheaper. We're also benefitting from hand-me-downs for Brenden, dinners over at our family's houses, and shopping yard sales, which practically a sport in the midwest. I spent $18 at a rummage sale today and came home with a trunk full of stuff for Brenden:

-7 long-sleeve shirts for fall

-jacket

-snowsuit (can't wait to use that!)

-big riding toy shaped like a car with a handle we can push

-Elmo doll that laughs, talks, does flips

-doll stroller (totally girly but B fell in love with it)

It's starting to feel like fall here, which we're really excited about. Spending summer with family has been great, but I bet fall/winter will be even better with the holidays and family meals (to be followed up by a new exercise regimen in January!).

So even though things have been rough, we're sticking it out and looking on the bright side of things. Eventually we'll get to where we're financially secure again, but in the meantime we have the things you can't put a pricetag on, like a home that truly feels like home (ok, that does have a price tag), a joyful little boy, and our families.