kalliejenn81 | Recent Entries

I am totally falling apart at the seams. due to some really ridiculous circumstances, I never got to be at the hospital today to see Jon after his surgery & thus also wasn't able to talk to the surgeon about what they found/did. Jon's mom was there instead, and what she told me the surgeon said was totally confusing & scary & I'm pretty sure she didn't really get the whole story/understand it. I have never felt so sick with worry before & I am seriously just falling apart.

my baby is not a baby anymore! he's a TODDLER, OMG. he took four steps by himself tonight and I totally cried. I can't believe how fast he is growing up...every day he does more and more. I am SO PROUD.

so the biggest thing in 2011 was the arrival of my wonderful baby boy! in fact, since (i believe) he was conceived some time around Christmas 2010, i basically spent the entire year either pregnant with or getting to know my boy. the pregnancy was hard (quite bad nausea throughout most of it, and a horrible and scary experience with kidney stones about 2/3 of the way through the pregnancy) and the birth was long (30 hours) and pretty painful...but we ended up with, honestly, the easiest, most amazingly well behaved baby on the face of the planet (as far as i'm concerned).

he started sleeping through the night at around 2 months old and continues to do so (he's averaging about 10-11 hrs. a night of uninterrupted sleep). he's super mellow most of the time, and he's such a *fun* baby to be around. he's recently started babbling quite a bit and it's pretty easy to make him giggle by tickling or otherwise teasing him. he's also gotten really snuggly, and loves to just cuddle with me for long periods of time. i know he's probably not always going to be that cuddly, so i'm savoring every last bit of it while i can. he's also recently become very interested in toys - particularly in soft plush things that he can snuggle with. he has two lovies right now -- one, a soft giraffe blanket called "bayem" and the other a tiny plush kangaroo wearing a shirt called "giraffe." he's also getting big so fast -- he's already up to (i estimate) about 17 lbs. and 25 1/2 inches long...such a big boy! he's wearing 6 mo. size clothes already!

the other significant thing this year was quitting my awful job. i was so miserable there, and stressed out beyond belief. getting pregnant and wanting to stay home (at least for the first few years) to take care of the baby came at a pretty good time, as i was just about to bail for sanity's sake anyway. best decision ever, and i feel SO lucky to be able to stay home with Ben and hang out with him all day and get to watch him grow.

overall it was a challenging but otherwise good year. i look forward to 2012 and watching my boy grow ever more amazing every day!

i'm probably going to totally jinx myself by saying this, but i'm not finding motherhood to be nearly as difficult as i expected it to be. granted, we have the world's easiest baby. he fusses only when he's got legitimate things to complain about like a wet diaper or hunger, but not much else -- and he sleeps quite well (already mostly sleeping through the night from 8 pm - 8 amish although he does wake up to eat during that time several times).

i love this little dude soooo much -- my heart nearly explodes with joy every time he smiles up at me and coos. i feel so lucky to be his mom.

this baby does not seem to want to exit the womb, which is making me go slightly insane.

sorry, i know i probably sound like a broken record lately, but it's really hard to focus on much else.

i am SO GODDAMN UNCOMFORTABLE right now it's not even funny. i feel like a beached whale, and like my insides might explode at any given point from the pressure. there is no position in which i am comfortable (none. not even lying down). i'm also an emotional wreck due to said uncomfortableness -- i'm whiny, cranky, and not feeling like much fun at the moment. if i end up skipping a party or event you're hosting in the near future, now you know why.

i also keep having awful boughts of braxton-hicks contractions, some of which have lasted for 3-4 consecutive hrs. at a time. they're bad enough that several times i've thought that they were the beginning of labor until, you know, they just totally went away for no reason. that happens to be incredibly goddamn frustrating, since i get my hopes up that we're almost there and then no, not today. the OB told me today that i'm still 1 cm dilated, but this time at least i was 50% effaced, so that's something, i guess. she keeps saying that she doesn't think i'll need to be induced, but that i could still go even up to a week after my due date. right now our due date is still one week four days away (i'm counting every freaking second, believe me). that seems like eons from now. EONS.

i keep joking with jon that if this baby doesn't choose to come out on its own soon, that i am going to break my own water with a freaking chopstick...which is seeming like more and more of a good idea as time goes on (don't worry, i won't actually do it...it's just *really* frakking tempting at the moment).

these past couple of weeks i've been exhausted, a lot. there are times during the day when i can barely keep my eyes open, and lying down on the couch is just about all i can manage. which stinks, because there's a lot of stuff i want to get done before mr. baby arrives. luckily, the extreme exhaustion seems to come in fits and spurts, which means that occasionally, i have about an hour span of time where i feel relatively energized, and i get a ton of stuff done during that time. sometimes, i do it stupidly and end up overdoing and exhausting myself even more, but these periods of energy have been really useful.

in the past few days i've used them to:
* wash and dry all the baby clothes/toys/blankets, and put all of these and other baby gifts away in the baby's room
*wrote and sent out almost all of the thank you cards for baby gifts received thus far
*cleaned the house (vaccuum, some windows washed, etc.).
*organized/straightened several areas of the house i've been meaning to get to for ages
*packed my hospital bag (lacking a few items, but they're things i don't own yet, so nothing i can do about that just yet)
*completed or nearly completed several craft project gifts i've been working hard on for a long time (one of which was a HUGE project)

not bad for someone who just wants to nap all day long :)

highly amused to note that as of today (5 weeks 3 days from our due date), i have only gained 10 pounds this entire pregnancy. surprising to me...i thought for sure i would have put on a lot more weight than that by now.

i was just talking to jon about this last night, so i've been thinking about it a lot today. before i quit my job, i was pretty fearful about how we were going to manage (mostly financially, somewhat mentally) with just one income/one of us working. now that we're a few months in, i've found that it's actually a more enjoyable state of existance for us (i won't speak for jon, but i think he's feeling the same way). i've even noticed that, although we're not socking away savings like we used to, we're not doing that horribly financially -- probably breaking just about even or a tad above, in fact.

there are two big things i don't think i realized before we switched to this way of living. the first is that there are ways of saving money by me being at home that weren't happening before, like these:

*things that i normally would have said "screw it, not worth my time" to and just paid while we were both working (for example, copays that insurance really should have covered -- while not huge, add up over time) i now take the time to work with the insurance or other places to get them to pay instead, meaning savings for us.
*i have time to do "fun" work, like focus groups (which actually pay pretty decently) and taking online surveys. not a huge source of income, but they definitely help
*instead of just throwing a bunch of money at presents, cards, etc. (because i had no time to do otherwise), i have time to *make* more meaningful things for people -- which saves money and actually means a lot more to me (and hopefully the recipients as well!)
*once the baby is born (and even now), we're saving money by not having to pay for the following: childcare (around 15-20k per year), disposable diapers (we're saving a ton by using cloth, which i would *not* have been able/willing to deal with if i'd been working, breakfasts/lunches out every day for me (i ate out a lot while working), work clothes for me AND a ton of maternity clothes (i was able to avoid having to buy fancy maternity work clothes but am also able to get away with not buying much stuff for home either because thus far my wardrobe's been able to stretch to fit me. i think i've bought maybe about $50-75 of maternity clothes total thus far, and i'm at the start of month 8), commuting costs for me (around $35/month)
*i fix and reuse things that previously i would have just chucked and bought new versions of (due to time restrictions). i wash out and reuse ziplock bags, i sew up holes in clothes, i mend broken things.
*couponing/being aware of sales and deals. i used to do this before, but not nearly as much as i do now. now i actually wait for things to go on sale instead of impulse buying because i have the time to track them.
*i actually have time to sell stuff on ebay i've been meaning to sell for an age and a day. i just made $130 yesterday on a used Zune, for example! this stuff would have sat in boxes until doomsday had i still been working.
*i don't feel the need to splurge on expensive treats for myself to make me feel better about my horrible job and the fact that i had no free time. huge savings.
*i don't think we feel the need for eating out as much, or to do destressing activities that cost lots of money, because i am able to take care of household stuff and chores, etc. during the day.

the last one was the other BIG revelation....because i get so much of the "chore" stuff done while home every day, we actually have a LOT more free time to just hang out and enjoy each other when jon gets home because we're not running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get stuff done after work. this has been the nicest of the changes...i feel like we have a better quality of life because of this, and i suspect it's going to benefit our son in big ways, too.

once mr. baby's about 3 mos. old, we're also going to try me doing a modified version of in-home day care (one to two babies/kids tops), hopefully for babies of friends only. i love kids and this seems like a good way to offer really quality day care to kids of friends while also bringing in a bit of income. let me know if you or anyone you know is interested...i suspect those slots are going to end up filling up quickly.

i feel so lucky that we're able to try to do this. i love my hubby and am so glad that he's supportive of me/this arrangement...he really is the best hubs in the whole wide world.

tues/early morning wednesday i had been having some back pains. i mostly felt like i'd pulled a muscle on the right side of my back, and had been treating it with heat packs, mostly. wed. morning i had a weird feeling about it and told jon to make sure he had his phone on him that day so i could reach him if i needed to...and it was a good thing because at 10 AMish, i collapsed onto the floor with the most horrible pain in my side that i have ever experienced in my life. it felt like someone had literally shot me in the side or that something had exploded there. i was in so much pain that i couldn't get up off the floor, started panting like a dog, moaning very loudly, writhing around, throwing up repeatedly, and sweating/overheating so much that it was pretty unbearable.

i luckily had had my phone in my hand when i collapsed (good thing, because there was no way i could have gotten myself up off the floor just then. i called jon and managed to grunt out that i needed him to get home as soon as humanly possible to get me to the ER, fast (i would have called 911 but there was no way i could have gotten the front door open, and i didn't think that would end well). he managed to get home in an insanely short amount of time (i think he ran part of the way...luckily he was only at harvard).

we got to the ER and we had to go to labor & delivery first because they needed to make sure mr. baby was OK (he was just fine), and then they sent us down to the ER again. this resulted in many hours of poking, prodding, bloodwork, and ultrasound, an MRI, etc., etc....and also some morphine and oxycodone for me since the pain was so intense i otherwise would have disturbed other patients in the ER by moaning repeatedly VERY loudly. eventually, after we'd met with everyone and their mother in the hospital, the surgical team came in to inform us that unfortunately, i *definitely* had appendicitis, and very definitely also needed surgery, immediately (likely that same night). they also unfortunately needed to transfer us from mount auburn to beth israel deaconess because the place that the appendix was (behind my liver) required that they do invasive (ie - not laproscopic) surgery on it, and that meant that it was quite possible i could go into preterm labor...so they needed to get me to a hospital that had a NICU that could take care of babies at that level of prematurity (about 30 weeks).

by the time they transfered me (via ambulance), i had not been allowed to eat in over 24 hours, which, as a pregnant woman, believe me...not so fun. once at BID, we were in the ER again, where a more advanced surgeon informed us that they'd re-reviewed my MRI results, and surprisingly, they did *not* believe i had appendicitis after al, and they thought it was likely i would not need surgery after all. which was insanely good news, but they still didn't know what the hell was wrong with me. they also weren't *entirely* ruling out appendicitis at that point...they just thought it was less likely.

so we had to go up to labor and delivery, where we sat for another several hours while they did more testing, and then we finally got a room up on the high-risk maternity floor (of note: crappily, i'm now considered high-risk for the rest of my pregnancy due to all this happening). we ended up staying there for most of yesterday and half of today (we just got home at noon-ish). the general consensus after all this was that no, it had not been appendicitis, but that i'd likely had kidney stones (several), which had (hopefully) all passed at some point in the previous few days. (i have been told by several nurses/docs/etc. that kidney stones are one of the most painful things you can go through, worse even than labor!)

had to go through several new (and not fun) experiences over the few days like: experiencing morphine, MRI, and catheter insertion (ugh).

all in all, the nurses and docs at both hospitals were VERY nice, the hospitals were pretty nice, and the room in the high-risk maternity ward was pretty great for a hospital room (it was huge and had its own shower and room service, etc.)...but not a great experience IN THE LEAST. i am so, so glad to be home, showered and having eaten normal food and not being hooked up to IVs, etc., etc. let's hope that's the last ucky experience before labor because damn, that was not great at all.

big shout out to my hubs who is the best husband ever and took FANTASTIC care of me and made me feel so much better the whole time. he's the best hubs i could EVER have asked for!

will the puking EVER END??? we're past 14 weeks now and I'm still having nausea - UGH. it's getting really hard to deal with mentally because i am so tired of feeling horrible all the time.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

since we hit the second trimester today, we are finally announcing more widely that yay!, we are indeed pregnant!

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

~~1. get married~~ DONE -- woo hoo! (may)
~~2. start a decent storage system for holiday items~~ DONE (april)
~~3. find and buy a few bottles of the delicious ice wine we had at finale~~ DONE (oct.)
~~4. have dinner at a fancy, delicious restaurant~~ DONE, craigie on main (july)
5. go to a casino
~~6. have high tea at upstairs on the square with my mr.~~ DONE (april)
~~7. get a watsu massage~~ DONE (nov)
~~8. attend arisia~~ DONE (jan?)
~~9. trucker tea party~~ DONE (nov)
~~10. make a really great halloween costume i'm super proud of~~ DONE -- I was GIR! (oct.)
~~11. find a great baby present for kerri and mike~~ DONE (may)
12. sell some of the things i make (crafts)
~~13. schedule and do engagement photo session with felix~~ DONE! (march)
~~14. bachelorette party!~~ DONE - thanks renee and co.! (may)
~~15. see the xx in concert~~ no longer interested, honestly
~~16. make granola bars from scratch~~ DONE, and tasty! (march)
~~17. make photo books of wedding photos for parents for xmas~~ DONE, and they came out fantastic! (oct.)
~~18. send out photo holiday cards~~ DONE (dec)
~~19. frame photobooth photos of us next to photos of buster (arrested development) in the photobooth with the sheep~~ LOST INTEREST
~~20. mail out wedding invitations~~ DONE, and they're so pretty! (april)
~~21. finish jon's easter basket~~ DONE, and very cool (april)
22. get my hedgehog laid
23. perform on the subway (maybe ask

clarity_dog for help?)
~~24. try to infuse my wardrobe with a bit more color~~ DONE -- i have a lot more colorful pieces now, and i'll try to continue to buy more
25. stealth dinner party somewhere in boston (outside)
~~26. buy myself a pretty balloon~~ DONE (june)
~~27. attempt to get pregnant~~ DONE (dec)
28. try to call my sister more often
29. skinny dipping at walden pond
~~30. beach trips -- more of them!~~ DONE (summer)

hopefully i'll eventually be able to post all about the wedding and honeymoon, but for today (because i'm still a little bit braindead), i'll post about our hotel room.

we'd booked a room at the hyatt for both the night before and the night of the wedding. it was a suite, which is basically a normal hotel room with another room (sitting room with couches, etc.) attached. we figured it would be easier for everyone to have a place to get ready at the hotel that wasn't the same room as the room with the bed.

so we checked into the hotel and moved all of our stuff up to the suite (only the sitting room part, as they said the bedroom room wasn't ready), and came down a few minutes before the rehearsal was supposed to start. the hotel manager came over and said, we need to have you move rooms. apparently the hotel was completely booked because of the two weddings that weekend, and the 2nd room we were supposed to have (the bedroom) some guy had apparently never checked out of the night before, and they legally weren't able to remove his stuff. so the hotel manager had no choice except to bump us up to the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE.

since we were about to head out and do the rehearsal, and i was trying to herd people, i didn't really pay too much attention to this, just said, ok, we'll deal with it later.

after the rehearsal, we went up to look at the new room, and HOLY CRAP. i wish i'd had my camera at that point, because words cannot do this hotel room justice. first of all, it had a doorbell. a frikkin' doorbell! there was a huge sitting room with a 12+ foot long couch, several chaise lounges, and many tables, as well as a working fire place. this room was literally as large as our apartment's dining room, living room, and kitchen combined (their website says the presidential suite is 1000 square feet). the bedroom was equally huge as well. the bathroom, however, was the real show-stopper. when you first walk in to the bathroom, there is a whole room just for sinks. there's a room to the right of that which has a huge vanity mirror. and the bathroom itself -- oy!, heaven! a HUGE rainwater shower, a GIGANTIC black whirlpool bathtub which was large enough to fit jon and myself side by side with room to swim around, a telephone next to the toilet, and a huge flat screen tv over the toilet.

and the kicker was that we didn't have to pay anything extra for this, and the 2nd night was already being comped by the hotel. we asked at the front desk (just out of curiosity) what the normal room rate was for this place, and they said MINIMUM was $1499 per night...but that it went up to $5k per night!!!!! i doubt we'll ever stay in a hotel room that nice ever again!!

we went over to felix and sara's apartment to drop off their finished presents (some letterpress numbers and their dolls). i think they really liked them, a lot. they gave us a huge print of one of my favorite shots in a really cool distressed white frame (totally off the cuff -- not something we'd bought!), and we got to pick up our engagement album, which is WAY prettier in person than on the internet. that framed photo is totally taking a HUGE place of prominence in our living room -- it's seriously rad. i'll have to take a picture of it and post so you all can see it. we love them -- their apartment is SO COOL -- full of stuff you just want to keep looking around at (like a giant stone gargoyle, framed bugs, etc...just neat stuff). ...and they're a lot of fun to sit and chat with/hang out with also. love them!

anyway, here is sara's doll, and the two of them together:

OMG SQUEE!

our engagement photo session album got posted this morning!!!!

you can see it on our photographer's website here:

felixrust.squarespace.com/home/2010/4/7/jenn-jon-engagement.html

if you click the little album icon at the bottom, you can see even more photos (once that opens, just click one of the 1st pages that pops up, and it will go into a sort of slideshow of the pages)

our wedding invites arrived via fedex today, and are getting put in a mailbox for mailing tonight!!! (well, most of them, anyway).

i am SO SQUEEFUL! they came out so pretty (we have our extremely talented friend

gilana to thank for that!) and i can't wait for people to see them! i've been dying to show people, but have restrained myself so they'd be a surprise.

so excited!!!!!

highlights of today:

we went cake tasting w/ two of our groomsmen, jeremy and nick. when our waitress/cake expert person asked us who was getting married, we jokingly said that jon and i were already married, and that we were polygamist and adding jeremy and nick to our "flock" -- the really nervous/scared look on her face was totally worth it.

also, afterwards, we were all *really* hopped up on sugar (after having eaten/dipped into about 20 different slices of cake) -- jeremy and i were jumping around the parking lot and suddenly screamed, "we're going to go play in traffic!" and ran across the road, much to jon/nick's surprise/amusement.

also, after eating said 20 slices of cake, konditor meister sent us home with a "complimentary gift box of pastries" -- chocolate covered strawberries, frosted cookies, and all manner of little specialty cakes and tarts. yeah, because we REALLY needed more sugar after that!!!!

"Also, please help me convince Jenn that we collectively have the fashion sense of a peanut and if she doesn't want us showing up with tails, canes, and monocles she should come along to help us pick non-embarassing tuxes."

*snicker*

yes, there is a reason why this post isn't on my wedding filter, and it is this....

i just want to say this now, to (hopefully) avoid hurting any feelings down the line. our wedding is, very likely, going to be a small affair. between our budget (our parents really aren't giving us all that much - we're mostly going to end up paying for it ourselves) and the limitations of our venue (at least, of the venue we hope will work out), we're probably going to be inviting 60-70 people, which includes our families and some friends.

it's the "some friends" part that brings me to why i'm posting about this now. while we would love to invite all our friends, cost-wise (and venue-wise), this just isn't possible. there are going to be at least some people i'm sure who will be surprised that they're not being invited -- but let me just reassure you, it isn't because we don't love you -- it's that we had to cut numbers a lot (and believe me, those are not easy choices to make).

i think what we'd like to do is have a night where we all go out to a restaurant or bar to celebrate after the wedding (a few weeks after, mind you) with anyone who wants to join -- whether they were invited to the wedding or not (though we would not be able to cover the tab for this -- it would be sort of theater at first-esque, meaning that everyone would cover their own food/drinks). i think this will be a good way to involve everyone who wants to be involved, especially if we weren't able to invite them to the wedding itself.

Profile

kalliejenn81

My Website

October 2013

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Apr. 23rd, 2025 04:35 pm

listening to music in the dark with eyes wide open

Recent Entries

falling apart

ohmygosh

2011 restrospective

motherhood

(no subject)

very, very cranky jenn

fit and spurts

(no subject)

musings on becoming a SAHM (stay at home mom)

an episode in which Jenn has a very suck-tastic ER and hospital experience

(no subject)

(no subject)

update..how i'm doing on my 30 things before i turn 30

post the first: the hotel room

yay, all done!

our engagement album is up!!!!!!

CRAZY SQUEEFUL!

(no subject)

from my inbox this morning (e-mail from jon to his groomsmen)

(no subject)

Profile

October 2013

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags