jennanddave.com

me: Hey, is this a bad time?
Dave: Nope, what's up?
me: Is your afternoon totally booked up?
Dave: Nope, why?
me: Do you think you can sneak out to get some ice cream with me and Henry?
Dave: I'm running out to the front of the building right now!

That was yesterday, and it was glorious. A week ago his response to each of those questions would have been "AUUUUUGGGGHHHH!" The bonus was that I had to explain to Henry exactly what I meant by "sneaking out of work to get some ice cream." Glad he's got that concept down at such a young age.

Today we pulled out our wading pool, had lunch outside, came inside to cool off, worked on filling out tax forms for Henry's school (me), tortured the dog (Henry), got sent to bed for torturing the dog and not fessing up to what exactly he did to make her bark (Henry), cleaned the kitchen when she should have been napping (me). Looking forward to an evening spent wading-pool-side while Dave bbq's, if he's up for it.

Posted by Jenn at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

When you're packing up for a short trip and you don't want to bring your huge bottle of Cetaphil because whenever you do it inevitably leaks, these kinds of bento sauce containers are perfect for holding travel-sized quantities of beauty potions thereby allowing you to maintain your own personal level of cute (both in your bag and on your person) wherever you go.

My grandma is turning 91 this weekend. We'll be celebrating with cake and presents and cake and probably a lot of rock-throwing in a stream and at Grandpa Andy by a certain grandson who happens to have impeccable aim when it comes to both water and heads. We're all looking forward to hitting the road!

Posted by Jenn at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm feeling a bit like Debbie Downer today. Yesterday after a week and a half of salt gargles and Fishermen's Friends, I finally kicked my cough-induced sore throat when lo and behold, by afternoon I realized I was glued to my tissue box, and it wasn't because of the spring time allergies I'd chalked it up to earlier in the day; I have yet another cold. Not much sleep last night, pregnant, emotional, sniffly, coughy, grumpy. That would be me. This was my morning to help out at Henry's pre-school and when a couple of kids actively ignored my requests for them to stay on one side of a stream until the rest of the group could catch up with us, it peeved me a lot more than it would have on any other day. When I mentioned it to one of the other teachers, I got misty-eyed about it, and have since felt like an idiot, because it's so not like me. Well, feeling like an idiot is like me, but getting misty-eyed about things is not.

My only hope is that the last four weeks of being sick will have been the last hurrah of the cold season for us, at least until well after we've come back from our vacation in a few weeks. God, do I need that vacation.

Posted by Jenn at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Henry's doing a lot better. Yesterday he was chipper despite his eyes being at half-mast all day. By the time we put him to bed he had one heck of a runny nose. Today, it's all good. He's not coughing nearly as much and he put up quite the fight over taking a nap, which is always a sign of robust health in my kid.

Here's a mystery having to do with myself. I caught Henry's cold while we were in Boston and all of the symptoms are gone except for a scratchy throat which sometimes gives me fits. After dinner on Easter, I took Flash for a walk in the cemetery. Exercising after dinner is not something I've been inclined to do as of late, mainly because even the smallest meal makes me feel stuffed and uncomfortable. My inclination after eating is to retire to the couch to rub my poor belly until it's time to go to bed. Anyway, I hooked Flash up on her leash, took her to the cemetery and about halfway through the walk, coughed a bit, gagged a bit, then tossed a little bit of cookie just as she was doing her thing. It wasn't full blown by any stretch of the imagination.

Today I decided to take Flash for a walk before having dinner, thinking that perhaps part of the problem on Sunday was the fact that I was moving around while uncomfortably full. So I hooked Flash up on her leash, took her to the cemetery, and in almost the exact same spot, coughed a bit, gagged a bit, then tossed a little bit of cookie just as she was doing her thing. I can't decide if there's something in the air that's irritating my throat given that it's Springtime, or if pregnancy is maybe making me a little sensitive to things that come out of Flash's business end. Any guesses?

Posted by Jenn at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So Henry has pneumonia. He started coughing again this afternoon and while I (selfishly and truthfully) panicked at facing the possibility of another week spent tossing and turning and listening to him hack and cough all night just as it seemed he was getting over the last bout, he was kind enough to cough so hard he threw up. Twice. That was all it took for us to decide to not wait for the pediatrician's office to open in the morning. We piled into the car and headed for the nearest emergency room. About two hours in, I was fairly certain we would leave with the news that it's just a bad cough, that we'd have to ride it out, but then the doctor came back after looking at Henry's chest x-ray and said it was pneumonia. Poor kid. I have to hand it to him, he's had some pretty interesting things hit him this season: first a bad cold, then an ear infection that burst his ear drum, followed by strep throat, and finally pneumonia. He gets his penchant for going the dramatic route from me.

Posted by Jenn at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Posted by Jenn at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

First of all, what's with all of the pirate activity lately? Can Disney be to blame somehow?

I took my last belly dance class last December, just as the waves of exhaustion and nausea were really starting to hit full force. I welcomed the break, welcomed the extra time I got to spend laying in bed being tired and miserable. Since those symptoms don't last forever I was fully expecting to head back to dance class when they started up again in January, February at the latest. Unfortunately, Dave's Spring semester schedule had other plans that resulted in me having to bow out until the end of his classes in May. At the time, I was a little disappointed, but what can you do? By mid-February I was losing my mind, stuck in the house, slightly depressed, with nowhere to go, and nothing to do. The exercise alone would have been great, because it's awfully easy for a pregnant woman to puff up to epic proportions, especially when it comes to pant size. Mostly, though, I missed hanging out with the women I've been taking these classes with since August of 2007. When you spend all of your days chasing after or entertaining a little kid, you really start to crave interactions with people that you know through avenues that have nothing to do with children, and that's what belly dance class has given me. I've always known that that's been part of the draw, but it really hit home during the dead of winter.

One of the sessions I missed focused on an Egyptian choreography that I really wanted to learn. I mentioned it to another friend of mine who's also in the class, and because of what her schedule was like in January and February, it turns out she missed all of the classes after the first one. We decided to take semi-private lessons to learn the choreography, the first of which was this morning. It was wonderful. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to find another way to get back into it, but now I know.

Posted by Jenn at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned I went to Target and while I bought some things for Henry, I neglected to buy anything for the future girl that's soon to be emerging into our lives? This bit of news was passed on to a certain someone's mother who couldn't believe I didn't get anything and the end result is the very first contribution to what will probably be a very impressive wardrobe for a very lucky little girl:

Pretty cute, eh? Thanks, Bella!

Meanwhile, having a girl means sorting through 5 billion girls names. This is no easy feat, and after having gone through it with Henry, I'm completely over it. A couple of weeks ago I told Dave that since we like the name Henry so much, we should name her Henrietta, shorten it to Henry, and be done with it. We could even call them Henry². Anyway, we're tossing around a couple of ideas so I thought I might as well take a poll that will most likely have no bearing on our final decision but what the heck, it could be fun. Feel free to write in suggestions in a comment.

Posted by Jenn at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Actually, we've been back home since Saturday. As soon as we got off the interstate we stopped by the house to pick up our mail, then drove straight to Megan's. Nothing cures the blues that can be brought on by a seven hour car trip like snuggling a newborn. And snuggle I did.

The trip was good. Henry had a cough and since we were sharing a room, neither of us got much sleep during the week. His only consolation was that as he was slowly feeling better, I caught his cold, then Dave called from California to say he'd gotten it, Thursday my mom caught it, then on Saturday morning my Dad was hacking away. The kid knows how to spread the love. I also think that the order in which people got sick is a demonstration of who was smooching on Henry when and how soon after we arrived.

I'm not sure if it was because he wasn't sleeping very well or if it was because he was testing to see if he could get away with a lot more at Grammy and Grandpa's house than he can at his own, but Henry was a bit of a holy terror. He was throwing fits left and right when we were hanging out at home, although when we were out and about, he was his usual chipper self. He tried it again the Sunday morning after we got back to the 'burg, this time complete with crazed leg kicking, and found himself right smack in the middle of fourteen thousand different kinds of trouble because by that point I'd had it. Since then he's been great. Should've done it sooner. Sorry Mom and Dad.

Posted by Jenn at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)