We honored Alex this year for Father's Day with some Pinterest motivation - The Bean and I took a couple hours Friday to get our paint on - hand/footprint cards abound. I still love the idea of Francie growing up and loving things like art, music, theater, etc. It's just so different than how Alex and I both spent our time, mostly in athletics. It would be fuc to experience something different as the Bean's parents, and so far she definitely has a predilection for all things artsy-fartsy.
In addition to this "superhero" card, we gave Alex "The Daddy Book." Essentially, it's a journal to hold cards and kiddo anecdotes through the years. It was intended for Father's Day, specifically, but would be a great place for birthday and Christmas wishes for Alex, too. Per Pinterest - yet again - I interviewed Francie about her daddy, and glued it in the scrapbook.
Translation =
My dad's name is "Aglis."
He is "futty fow" years old.
His is as big as "mommy."
He has "white" hair and "white" eyes.
His favorite food is "um, waffle."
His favorite color is "pink."
He likes to go to "work."
For fun he likes to "play."
My favorite think to do with daddy is "go to beer sto."
I love my dad because "teacher."
He likes to wear "um, shirts."
He is smart because "um, teacher."
Daddy always tells me "hi."
Alex and I have been bickering a lot lately, ironically, about parenting/parenthood. He is more ready to bring on #2 than I am. At least today. A month or two ago? I was game on. But right now I can't seem to imagine adding another stressor to the table, mostly in relation to finances. And housekeeping. Neither of us wants to work more, but neither of us wants to spend less either. By my calculations, if we were to have another kid in one year, we would need to earn an additional $1300/month. The story behind the math - childcare costs average about $800/kid, and in about 12 months time I will also have to be paying $500 toward my astronomical school loans. Where will that money come from, you ask? No effing clue.
Although the origin of Father's Day was simply a response to Mother's Day (one website defined it as a "complement" to Mother's Day), it was created as a day to celebrate paternity and the influence of dads on society. Fact is, FD was inspired by a woman who wanted to honor her own dad - a single, working dad raising 6 kids on his own. That is indeed someone to honor. Assuming he was nice about the whole thing. Truth is, while I can barely envision having a new baby - let alone 6 kids - I couldn't have chosen a better father for my offspring. Except maybe Brad Pitt, that would be amazing. Just kidding. Kind of. Whether Alex gets the privilage of being "daddy" to just Francie, or to a whole litter of kids (not a chance, babe), today is as good a day as any to say thanks to the man who made me a mother. So while I won't be making you a dad x2 on this holiday, thanks for being patient waiting for me to come around.
Have you ever heard of Dave Ramsey? He's a financial guy that has a bunch of books, classes, etc. I used to roll my eyes at him but then as a wedding present, Josh's sister and brother-in-law bought us his "Financial Peace University" class. It's a 9 week course, once a week, that goes over a super simple step-by-step way to get get out of debt, build your savings, invest, budget, pay off your house early, etc. Josh and I took the class just a few months after getting married and it was AMAZING. Seriously, it has changed my life and provided some amazing tools for us in our marriage. We now have a substantial savings in place (when before we had basically nothing) and have paid off HALF of our debt in less then a year and still get to do fun things like go to Vegas for a mini vacation because we budgeted for it! Every month we have a "budget meeting" where we create a budget so that we know where all our money is going. It sounds like common sense and I'm sure you guys already do a lot of the stuff anyway, but the best part was that it got Josh and I on the same page and made our finances so much simpler and easy for us. I highly highly highly recommend it. Google "Financial Peace University" and you can find a class near you. It is so worth it, I promise. Sorry for the long comment but I seriously can PREACH about this class so much because it has been such a game changer for us. I hope you'll check it out! :)
ReplyDeleteI have heard of him numerous times, but never done any exploring. I am googling his "Financial Peace University" as we speak ... thanks for the rec - and congrats to you for paying off school loans and SAVING money!!!
DeleteThanks! It's such a great feeling! I hope you guys take the class, it really is as good as I say. ;-) Also, just fyi, Josh also highly recommends it, not just me. Our other friends who took the class after us, based on our recommendation, also both loved it!
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