Sleeeeeep, my pretty.

6 Comments
Posted 26 Jan 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category Abigail, baby business, motherhood, not so much, other people are awesome, The Hubs

Just to get it out of the way – my insides are much better, thank you for asking. I’ve managed 3 meals without any, eh…distress, so that’s awesome. And I came into work this morning! Well, maybe more like this afternoon since I got all purdied up and came to work only to realize my laptop was still at home. (This SO isn’t the first time I’ve done this.) So I had to walk back to my car and go home and get it. BUT I WAS AT WORK TODAY, DAMMIT! And it felt REALLY good to be there. Mostly to be out of the house.

SO. Where do I begin this story? Hmmm. Hokay. So, since the dawn of Abbers we had ONE way of getting her to sleep, and that was in our arms. Sitting on the couch, walking her in circles around the dining room table, rocking her in her room, you name it – it happened in our arms. This wasn’t too big of a deal. When she got to be about 9 months, I asked her doctor about it. Her response? “She won’t need to fall asleep in your arms when she’s going off to college, so I wouldn’t worry about it.” She also referred me to a few books, including Ferber and others. So, we let it slide some more. If it ain’t broke, why fix it? (See also: I’m scurred of sleep training.)

Fast forward to a few months ago, suddenly Abbers has her nighttime bottle (shut up about her having a bottle, we’ll deal with that eventually) and instead of passing out in our arms, she’s a little ball of energy. And BOOK! READ ME THIS BOOK! I DON’T WANT TO BE HELD! And I’ll scream if you suggest sleeping! This was usually lasting us until 10, even 11pm sometimes. We resorted to laying her in our bed while one of us lays with her in the dark. (Probably a bad idea.) She’ll pull out every trick in the book, laughing at nothing, pulling her socks off, testing gravity, but eventually will quiet down and fall asleep (pseudo on her own). AND NOW, she will wake up in the middle of the night, will not fall asleep or allow you to put her back down in her crib, so she ends up back in our bed because WE NEED SLEEP SOMETIMES TOO, little girl.

We’ve been battling this for a while. And with the holidays, vacations, random nights out – it’s never been a good time to attempt sleep training.

Until this weekend.

I’ve been asking interweb friends, twitpeeps – you name it, I feel like I’ve gotten advice and encouragement from every last one of you. For some reason, it wasn’t until I read this blog post by Melissa at Dear Baby that I felt like I might actually be able to do it.

Abby is not going to do well. She will cry until she gags and maybe even barfs. She does that a lot if she gets hysterical. I’m preparing myself for that. I’m also preparing for having my own little meltdown since I’ll be extra hormonal by this weekend, likely crying at Disney World commercials I’ve seen a fafillion times.

Abby WILL do this though. I know she knows how to fall asleep on her own, I watch it nearly every night in our bed. She’s a smart girl. And she knows we are here. So, please, if you have any extra good juju to pass our way, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD pass it our way. It’s going to be a long weekend.

I’ll report as I can after Friday night, aka DOOMSDAY FOR ABBERS.

BRAT.

2 Comments
Posted 24 Jan 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category not so much

I was planning on coming back from vacay and writing an epic recap post, along with something about our pending plans to get this little kid on the sleep training…uh…train, when something else happened.

I thought I was going to die. In fact, I occasionally still do.

I woke up Sunday morning with what felt like the worst acid reflux/heartburn ever. Then I got the business. I wrote it off to late-night orange consumption and took a Pepto. The pain kept getting worse. I popped some Prevacid. Nothing. Then the pain got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought I had a bleeding ulcer, or that my gallbladder had finally had enough and was trying to explode out of my abdomen. The hubs stayed home with Abbers while his mom & I went to the ER.

The doc gave me a Maalox & numbing-something concoction to rule out stomach issues. It didn’t help. He probed my tummy and I nearly went through the roof when he touched my right side. He started mumbling about my appendix or my gallbladder and I started panicking. I ended up getting a CAT scan and he determined that my “ascending colon” (that’s in quotes because I don’t know what the hell that is) was thickened and enlarged, probably due to a case of….

TRAVELERS DIARRHEA.

Is that not the grosses thing you’ve ever heard? Worst part is, diarrhea (shudder) wasn’t my big issue. My issue was the horrendous pain I was in. I got a prescription for Cipro which he said only to use if the…ehem….business doesn’t get better. (It has.) The pain is still lingering, as is my new diet. The BRAT diet – bananas, rice, applesauce and toast.

I’m feeling better, for the most part. My most awesome brother-in-law came over today to lend a hand with Abbers while I rested. I’m eating my toast like a champ and the pain is about a quarter of what it was yesterday. I get little episodes where it hurts REALLY bad, but they’re getting fewer and fewer. I’m hoping that by tomorrow I’m back in the saddle again, to quote Aerosmith. (It only seemed totally out of context and thus, belonged in this post.)

So yeah. I totally just spent a whole post talking about poop and pain and whatever. Don’t hate me. It happens to everyone.

BOV (blogging on vacation)

1 Comment
Posted 20 Jan 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category motherhood, RAD, The Hubs

Yes, I am taking time out of my dwindling vacation to blog. I might be insane. Or this might be the first time since we got here that the internet connection hasn’t shitted out and we don’t have any impending activities to keep me busy.

So far, this vacay in Puerto Vallarta has been a big ole’ success. We’ve ziplined, taken a day trip to Sayulita (a little surfing village north of here) and have spent copious hours at the pool, and drinking & eating ourselves to near comatose levels. This is the first time I’ve taken a trip with this many friends, and it’s been super fun. I did manage to lose our point & shoot camera before we got off the airplane (Sun Country – call me if you find a camera with eleventy billion pictures of the same little girl) and also had a gallbladder attack the first night (I swear I ate less than a tablespoon of guac, medical professionals. Diagnose THAT!) but overall it’s been nothing but bliss.

But MY GOD do I miss my little girl. Since the internet has been spotty, we haven’t been able to Skype since we’d JUST get signed in and we’d lose it again. Last night though, it finally worked long enough to be able to see our little Abbers. She looked so much older already. I didn’t cry (even though I wanted to), just like how I barely held my shit together when we dropped her off on Saturday. I DID cry when I heard the hubs playing a video of her on his phone. He tried showing it to me and I yelled DON’T SHOW IT TO ME OR I’LL CRY which was stupid because at that point there were already gigantic tears in my eyes, so I yelled WHATEVER I’M ALREADY CRYING and watched it anyway.

I’m not lying when I say I never want to take a trip this long without her ever again. (This is, of course, being said by someone who has never tried taking a toddler on an airplane before. I know I’ll regret that the first time I ask her to “try to sit still and be quiet” for four hours in a tin can that will make her ears explode.)

Today we’re going to tool around the main drag and try to find a few gifts for Abbers (as well as myself because DUH), tonight we have reservations at an awesome place up on the hill with everyone, tomorrow is pool/recovery day, and then Saturday morning we hop back on the plane and I get to see my little girl. I will try not to think about the fact that with the windchill, it will be 100 DEGREES COLDER in Minnesota when we land. Did you see what I just said? ONE HUNDRED DEGREES COLDER.

On second thought, maybe the hub’s parents should just put Abby on a plane and we’ll just stay here.

And now, I will continue to clear out the over 400 posts in my Google Reader. I will not let it get that backed up EVER AGAIN.

Vacation = EFFING ANXIETY

3 Comments
Posted 12 Jan 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category not so much, other people are morons

Remember when you were a kid and your parents would plan a vacation and it was SO AWESOME AND FUN and you couldn’t wait to go? When someone took care of all the planning and travel arrangements so you didn’t have to worry about ANYTHING?

OMG y’all. I leave for Mexico on Sunday morning and I could NOT BE MORE ANXIOUS. Yeah, I’m excited but I’m more nervous than anything.

Let me backtrack. We’re headed to Puerto Vallarta…to the exact same hotel where we stayed when this happened. (Side note: I am happy to say that almost two years later and I finally look like this again. HIGH FIVE.) Anyway, this is my attempt to do that vacation again, the right way, with zip-lining and mas tequila. We’re doing this trip with three other couples, two of which are on our reservation with the airlines & hotel through Expedia. If you don’t follow me on the twitter, then you didn’t see this go down on Monday:

So yeah. Why was I putting myself through hell to talk to someone at Expedia? Because since I booked the trip for myself, the hubs and 4 of our friends in September, this message has been on our itinerary:

Awaiting confirmation from the airline? I have been checking back every 24 hours waiting for this confirmation SINCE SEPTEMBER and IT’S STILL NOT HERE? We leave Sunday, assholes.

So…I (finally) talk to Expedia, request ticket numbers, and they inform me that they have a confirmation for our flight, but I’ll have to call TransGlobal Vacations to get ticket numbers. GREAT.

I call them, talk to someone within 5 minutes, but then spend 20 minutes on hold while they try to find our reservation. Even WITH the confirmation number. Eventually they find it. And then tell me we’re supposed to have a “E-Travel Document” and that Expedia must have it. Okay…Expedia is a website. I don’t think they “have” anything, aside from the worst travel-themed hold music on the face of the Earth.

Which is where I stand now. I have a confirmation number, we all paid for our plane tickets…now we just wait to see if we can get checked in for the flight at 6am Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, between freaking out about packing, making sure Abby is all set to be away from momma & dadda for a week (which is pretty much causing me to cry on a daily basis) and thoughts of us arriving at the airport only to be told they can’t find our reservation, I am nearing critical anxiety levels.

Once I get on the plane? I will be excited. Until then? PASS THE ZANAX.

(No really. I could use some. Or send wine. Wine works too.)

I’m trying not to be smug.

8 Comments
Posted 06 Jan 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category motherhood, other people are awesome, RAD

But, dear internets, it is SO VERY HARD not to. I would like to scream “I told you so,” but I won’t.

(i told you so)

Yesterday, this story hit the newswire…again, discrediting “Doctor” Wakefield and severing the ties between vaccines and autism. From the article:

In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 90% of those infected had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, the CDC reported.

“But perhaps as important as the scare’s effect on infectious disease is the energy, emotion and money that have been diverted away from efforts to understand the real causes of autism and how to help children and families who live with it,” the BMJ editorial states.

These two paragraphs speak VOLUMES. I’ll reiterate from the post from a little over a year ago that I wrote on the same subject – I’m not going to make any valiant attempts at changing anyone’s mind about whether they will vaccinate or not. However, if you’re on the fence, PLEASE look at the facts, and think about your child’s future. Or how horrible you’d feel if not only your child contracted measles, but then gave it to your best friend’s kid who also wasn’t vaccinated.

Autism SUCKS, I understand that. However, from what I understand polio sucks a lot harder. Like, a lot. I mean, FDR was a great dude but he suffered pretty bad. And whooping cough is no walk in the park either.

Let’s just break it down here; science is awesome. Smart people are kick ass. They know what they’re doing. Vaccines were created because of both of those things. Take advantage of them. Pretty please?

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