Archive for the ‘other people are awesome’ Category

La La Love You

4 Comments
Posted 15 Feb 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category marriage, other people are awesome, The Hubs

While most of my day yesterday was spent chasing after a nearly 16 month old with a kleenex and drool rag, the hubs and I did have reservations at a great restaurant called Spill the Wine. I had a delicious viognier hybrid of sorts while the hubs had a wine pairing for all 4 courses of his meal. It was an awesome night. The in-laws kept Abby overnight, which essentially resulted in me sleeping until 2:30am and then tossing and turning for the next 3.5 hours until my alarm went off. *sigh*

But dinner was good. As are the gorgeous roses the hubs surprised me with.

Yes, I am wearing a blanket & the hubs has a sweatshirt on his shoulders. We are classy. (photo from mexico)

Love you lots, my dear. Nine years of Valentine’s days. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Paging Dr. Ferber. (Nights 1 & 2)

3 Comments
Posted 29 Jan 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category baby business, other people are awesome, paparazzi, RAD, The Hubs

Last night was the dreaded first night of sleep training. I’m not going to lie, I had butterflies in my stomach the minute I walked in the door after work.

Day One.

At 8:15, we got Abby ready for her bath where she played with her Yo Gabba Gabba bath toys, and got in her jammies. We sat on the couch, I read her Goodnight Moon, fed her a bottle and she was close to snoozing. I quickly got up and put her in her crib. (I admit, at this point I panicked because I just wanted it over with. In hindsight I would have read a book or two to her in her room in the rocking chair.) The minute I lowered her into her crib, it was hysterics turned up to 11. I said “Night night, I love you, time to sleep” and left the room with the door nearly closed.

I sat on the couch and looked at the clock. It was 9:03. I couldn’t go back in until 9:06. She was screaming “MAMMA! MAMMA!!” and crying harder than I’ve ever heard. I waited a bit and looked at the clock again. It was still 9:03. ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME. Tears started welling up in my eyes and I started posting on Twitter to distract myself. FINALLY it was 9:06. I went in, she got more hysterical for a moment, kept reaching for me and saying “DOWN! DOWN!” so I leaned into the crib, hugged her and laid her down again (which was a joke cause she was back up again in 2 nanoseconds), told her I loved her and left the room again. That’s when the gag-crying started. I knew it was going to happen. (She didn’t barf, THANK GOD.)

The hubs announced he wanted to take the next one, which was good since she’d given up on asking for MAMMMMAAAAAAAAA and had moved on to DAAAAAADDDAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! It was 9:08…he had to wait 5 minutes this time. It was still horrible, but then she started getting quiet. We’d peek on her video monitor and she’d be down. We’d look at each other in anticipation, and just like that she’d stand up and start screaming again. Then down & quiet. Then up and screaming. It got to be 9:13 and she was still crying sort of but not really. The hubs went in and it started up all over again, except when he left, she was quiet and asleep within 5 minutes. It was 9:20.

Abbers after a good night's sleep

She stayed asleep all night and didn’t wake up until 7:30 this morning.

Day Two.

"you have no idea I'm not going to get a good nap today."

Abby did not nap much today as we were out running errands during her prime nap times, resulting in a couple cat naps totaling maybe 25 minutes. It got to be about 5:30 and she was passing out, so we reluctantly let her catch a couple z’s WAY later than normal.

getting ready for bathtime

I made dinner, the hubs gave Abbers her bath around 8:30, she had her bottle in the living room and instead of getting sleepy like she did last night, she asked to be put down. NOT GOOD. I picked her up and brought her into her room, where I had a stack of books waiting, along with dimmed lights and a glass of coping medicine for mamma (read: wine).

The setup.

I read books to her for 25 minutes until she FINALLY seemed tired, kissed her, said goodnight and laid her in her crib. She immediately stood up and started screaming, but before I could even get the monitor from our room to ready myself in the living room, it was quiet. SHE WAS ASLEEP. WITHIN 15 SECONDS.

It’s 11:21 and she’s still asleep.

Now, I fully expect a relapse night or something because (and by saying this I’m sealing our fate) this was WAY too easy. And/plus/also WHY DIDN’T WE DO THIS SOONER? It went a lot like people said. The first night was the hardest and also why didn’t we do this sooner ? I mean, I know we didn’t because of holidays and being away…but we really should have done this MONTHS ago.

I’m so glad we did it. Even if the next few nights are hard…I’m so very glad.

Thank you everyone for words of encouragement and advice over the past few weeks.

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.

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?

Do it again.

2 Comments
Posted 04 Jan 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category marriage, other people are awesome, wedding whatnots

I’ve been married to the hubs for a little over 3 years now. Nearly an eternity, am I right?

(insert nervous laughter here)

Anyway, when I got married, half of my friends from my hometown/high school had already tied the knot. However, only a few friends in the great city of Minneapolis had gotten married. So, while I got some broad tips & tricks from my long time BFFs, my bestie in wedding planning became The Knot. Every single vendor I booked was due to recommendations from people on The Knot. While it was an awesome resource, it lacked the personal experience of seeing the vendor/venue’s work first hand.

Recently, a few good friends have gotten married in the MPLS, and another is planning for her big day in June. I’ve been lucky enough to join her in wedding dress hunting, and have been hearing about venues and vendors that are the hot pick of today.

Honestly…it makes me want to do it again. I mean, you know, again to the hubs…with an unlimited budget…as if we’d never done it before.

A big reason for wanting to do it again is a photographer that my girls have been using. She takes absolutely GORGEOUS photos and I could only DREAM to be in one of them. For example, my beautiful friend Regan:

(source)

Is that not breathtaking?! You can see the rest of Regan + Mike’s photos here, at Ai Ling’s photography site. Between her photography, and looking at the new styles of wedding gowns, it has me wishing that it would be kosher to renew our vows at our five year anniversary. Complete with a new gown and venue and lots of cocktails.

What would you want to do if you could do it again? Or if you haven’t tied the knot, what is a dream you have for your big day?

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