Elin can

It's official! Elin learnt how to sit up yesterday. (Well, she has been training for a while but we decided that yesterday she got the hang of it!)

Finances

One thing that has been effected by the expanding family is the economic situation. And the coin does have two sides in this case too.

Things cost money. And buying three of everything quite often costs three times as much as buying one.

Going to the groceries store is costly these days. For most part of the round in the store things are normal. I have a number of times been hit by the thought "this won't be that expensive". And then I arrive at the section with diapers. That adds 20% to the normal weekly "bill". And then I arrive at the section with baby milk/formula, and another 40% is added.

Six months ago I usually ended up with a total sum of 1200 SEK (or 200 USD) per week when I did the shopping. These days I rarely manage to stay under 2000 when diapers and milk formula has been added...

But still, I find that I have some money left at the end of the month these days - how is that possible? (Previously the money usually ended before the month did...)

It's rather simple - I'm finding it hard to find time buying the things I want and/or need. I don't know how many times I have planned to go somewhere to buy clothes or some gadget - but in the last minute something comes up and the plans change and the money stays in the bank.

This was a nice change in the beginning, but it gets frustrating:

I have needed to buy a new charger to my cell phone for a few weeks. I pass through town on my way home from work almost every day, so you can imagine how easy it must be to get off the bus, buy it and catch the next bus home.

But this never happens. I'm always late from work and I'm always in a hurry to pick up kids or to get home to take care of kids.

So why don't I just order it online? When all kids are asleep for the night, milk is prepared, dishes done, the living room reasonably tidy and the time is 11.30 PM - spending ten minutes at the computer finding a charger for 30 USD isn't my top priority. Sleep is. So the charger remains un-bought... And so is the shirt I need, and so is the box of screws needed to mount some hangers on the wall, and so are ten other small things.

I feel a bit trapped here. But I'll learn eventually. There are a bit too many things that are missing right now.

A notable change

One thing has changed here over the last few weeks. Elin, Oscar and Filip seem to be getting tired much earlier in the evenings now. We never used to have them all asleep before 11.30 PM - now they all sleep at 10 PM quite often.

With this change we need to adopt - we should go to bed quickly after that to get some sleep - but we're slow to learn. You see, the babies doesn't sleep longer - they just go to sleep earlier. So feeding at 3.30 AM has become something quite common again... And we're not that alert at that time. ;)

We'll see how long this will last.