Archive for the ‘The Hubs’ Category

I can FINALLY spill the beans.

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Posted 31 Jan 2012 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category other people are awesome, RAD, The Hubs, toddler business

No. I’m not pregnant. But thanks for assuming!

I WON A TRIP TO TURKS & CAICOS AT BLOGHER! I know, that was so 2011. Here’s the story:

While at BlogHer, Playskool had a booth set up with the steps to Sesame Street and a contest. Tweet a picture of yourself sitting on the steps of Sesame Street along with some prefab tweet, and you’ll be entered to win!

On August 18th, I got an email saying I’d won. Then I pooped my pants. Then I read the email again. Then I had a seizure, then read the email again…and so on and so on. It was real. We (all three of us!) were scheduled to go on September 30th, the hubs’ birthday. We didn’t have much time, so we immediately went and got Abby her first passport.

cutest passport photo ever.

Then Hurricane Irene hit and damaged the Beaches resort. We had our fingers crossed it would reopen for our trip, but alas they wouldn’t. Our trip was postponed with no idea when we would be going. (In all honesty, the hubs and I were both in the midst of dealing with our awesome dual anxiety issues, so it was probably for the better.) Finally we got the word, we’d be getting a trip voucher to cash in at any time in the next year (with blackout dates, of course). We still didn’t know when we were going. And being the supersticioius jerk I am, I didn’t want to get excited (read: post anything about this awesomeness) until we had solid dates set.

Well, we have our dates, though not our first choice (which was early March) – but we’ll be going mid-April. WE’RE GOING TO THE TURKS & CAICOS IN APRIL. I’m so excited.

So, there you have it. We’re going on a trip! (In April.) BUT WE’RE ACTUALLY GOING!

In other news, I’m going to attempt the Feb photo a day thing, again. Maybe I’ll actually stick to it this time. :)

 

Happy, eh…10th of July!

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Posted 10 Jul 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category Abigail, paparazzi, The Hubs

(Just pretend I got these up five days ago.)

Happy splashes

the tongue out means she's stoked

semi-enthused about patriotism

viewing the (not famous) john phillip sousa band on dada's chest

Memorial Day Weekend = Good Memories

1 Comment
Posted 01 Jun 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category Abigail, I am awesome, motherhood, paparazzi, The Hubs

Well, the fact that I am posting means I survived our first plane trip with the Abbers. For reals, Internets? She was a muthereffing rock star on that plane.

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Blurry walking through the airport photo.

 

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Getting prepared for the flight. With Goldfish.

She totally made that plane her bitch on the way there. Slept through takeoff and EVERYTHING. (Virtual high-fives.) Although, she never really understood that she was ON a plane. When we landed she was all “AIRPLANE! AIRPLANE!” upon seeing all the planes at their gates. I reminded her a couple times that DUDE WE ARE ON A PLANE but it didn’t really register.

Sidenote – you can check a carseat FOR FREE when you fly on Delta. I was not aware of that. Also? Awesome.

Anyway, we had a LOT of fun with the fam and Abby in the Bay Area. We hit up a few wineries on Friday afternoon, then headed to the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve. All Abby wanted to do was climb the trees like her older cousins, whom she referred to simply as “BOYSSSS!!” Unfortunately, she was a bit too little to do the tree climbing thing.

 

Abby going for a hike while mom & dad get wasted at the vineyards. (just kidding.) (sort of.)

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RedWOODS! (To be shouted like IngleWOOD!) (Like Dr. Dre.) (Duh.)

Saturday we headed into the city for some farmers market action and then a playground for the kiddies, as well as made an attempt to go shopping, but a random downpour ended that quickly. So, in typical Jenna fashion, we went back on Sunday to Haight Street where I bought two adorable new dresses, as well as a shirt for the hubs.

Dont even act like youre offended.

Then Monday morning we headed back to the airport with a toddler unwilling to nap. She did okay on the flight back, but had some ear issues upon landing. And then had some meltdown issues from not sleeping.

All in all though? It went really, really well. Thank you everyone for all the advice and willingness to listen to me freak out about this trip.

Beta Test: Complete.

2 Comments
Posted 25 May 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category Abigail, baby business, motherhood, The Hubs

Monday night the hubs and I had tickets to see the Minnesota Twins play some (rotten) baseball, and although we had someone to watch Abbers, we decided to bring her along. It’s one of the few games we had tickets to with just the two of us, so it was worth the shot.

Overall, she was good. However, it was a great second test to see how she’ll do on our trip – specifically on the airplane. Without a seat of her own.

Result? SHE IS SQUIRMY. MY GOD, she is squirmy. We must have passed her back and forth about 30 times in the first inning alone, as well as her modifying her position in our laps a billion times.

So THAT’S why people say the littles should have their own seat.

(If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted any ADORABLE pictures of her at the game, it’s because WE BROUGHT A TODDLER TO A BASEBALL GAME and I didn’t have a third arm to take a picture with. Toddler wrangling should be a sport.)

Anyway, we ended up leaving the game around the 5th inning because her highness was getting tired and was signaling we needed to go. I was pretty panicked at the thought of our flight, but the hubs reminded me we just endured 5 innings of baseball without toys or a DVD player. A little less than two hours of keeping a child entertained with funny faces and french fries. Not too bad.

We leave for our trip tomorrow.

(I haven’t packed anything yet and have to get laundry done tonight on top of packing.)

(I’m just a little panicky.)

(And I’m serious about toddler wrangling being a sport. Do you see this face? SERIOUS.)

I’ll more than likely be tweeting the hell out of our trip, and maybe a “post” with pictures while we’re away.

Fresh ink.

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Posted 24 May 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category I am awesome, marriage, The Hubs

Technically, re-inked. I had this touched up last week to be darker. That Tiffany blue just wasn’t holding up. Honestly, I love it even more now. (I still wear my rings, just not while it’s healing…)

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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.

Just keeping it real.

6 Comments
Posted 02 Feb 2011 — by Mrs. Jenna
Category Abigail, baby business, motherhood, The Hubs

I’m writing this post to serve as a reminder, mostly to myself, that I typically take this motherhood gig with a grain of salt. Abby is a really, REALLY easy kid. We rarely have any major issues or crazy stories to tell. Then there’s nights like tonight, that can be described as nothing short of a comedy of errors.

The hubs was running Abby’s bath, I was in the kitchen getting ready to do dishes. Abby’s been in the tub for a little bit when I hear, “uh… Jenna? Can you come in here?” I’m expecting a funny Abby trick or to grab a washcloth.

I get in the bathroom to find Abby standing on the bath rug naked, the tub with stuff floating in it. My first instinct is that she finally pooped in the tub (something I’ve been weirdly expecting for a while), but the hubs explains differently; Abby’s new hobby is sticking her open mouth in the water and getting water in her mouth. Something I’d like her to stop doing, but you try telling a 1 year old not to do something. Tonight is no different, and she does the same, except this time she gets a mouthful of water. And chokes.

She starts choking and gagging, coughing the water up and suddenly starts barfing her lunch (not her dinner, HER LUNCH) into the tub. The hubs pulls her out of the barf bath and stands her on the rug, where she immediately commences pissing all over.

I walk in to find a tub full of half chewed hotdog pieces and a really wet bathmat. Abby is squealing “BATTTHHH! BATTHHH!” because she wants to get back in (gross) having not been impacted AT ALL by just barfing and peeing within a minute of each other…and the hubs is just standing there, half laughing and half shell-shocked at what a complete fail this bath has become.

The water drains out, I fish all the hotdog pieces out of the tub with a paper towel, rinse it and all the toys off, and we start filling it again. Except now there is no hot water. We filled the tub and the sink up at the same time 10 minutes before, and apparently have a five gallon water heater.

So, there is no hot water for another “BAATTTHHHH!!!,”  or to wash the piss out of the rug.

And this, friends is what parenthood is all about. May I never forget.

For a quick sleep training update – Abby cries when she knows  she’s about to be laid down to sleep, but the minute she’s in her crib she’s quiet and sleep within seconds. It’s been going really well. My parents will be in town starting tomorrow, so we’ll see if that has any affect on her nighttime routine. (They are staying at a hotel, so I don’t expect too much of an issue.)

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.

BOV (blogging on vacation)

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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.

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