Hello! I'm Jenn, and this is my blog. I'm 25 years old, I'm a wife, lover, mother, friend, freelance writer, blogger, photographer, and so much 
Late last night I realized it had been almost three days since the last time I blogged. Oops. My excuse is that I’ve been busy — busy wrapping up some freelancing projects, and then busy with training and learning the ropes at Eden Fantasys.
So, how has everyone enjoyed their weekend so far? Mine has been pretty damn awesome. Earlier this week my mom said she wanted to try taking Ryan overnight to see how he did with her. He has been asking to have a sleepover at her house for months, but with his rocking, difficulty verbalizing things at time, low frustration tolerance, picky eating issues, wandering issues, etc., she was afraid to be alone with him for more than a few hours, especially if he wasn’t at least in his own house and in a familiar environment. So she took Ryan home yesterday evening, after I dropped Alyssa off with Dan’s 18 year old sister (and their other sister, and his aunt and uncle) for the weekend. Dan’s sister is on spring break, and she wanted to have Alyssa for the weekend. Fine by me! Fine by Alyssa as well, who started asking about going to Dan’s aunt’s house for the weekend when she woke up for preschool yesterday morning.
I have to tell you, having an absolutely silent, empty house last night was fucking wonderful. Waking up this morning to an absolutely silent, empty house was even more wonderful. I laid in bed for a good twenty minutes, just basking in the glory of it all. And to think, once upon a time I took for granted being alone and not having kids. I know I’m not the only mom to have pangs of longing for the pre-kids day. The thought of never really having a me-only day again is sometimes a depressing one! Meh.
Right now I’m hyped up for tomorrow, because after I take Ryan out for breakfast I’m going over to the T-Mobile store to pick up a white T-Mobile MyTouch. I listed my G1 on eBay tonight and it sold in just twelve minutes, and the amount it went for is enough to cover the upgrade cost. Whee!
This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Cryo-Cell International. All opinions are 100% mine.
You would have to be living under a rock in order to have not heard about the major earthquake that hit Haiti in January (not to mention the major earthquake that hit Chile last week). A lot of organizations and individuals have been doing a lot to donate funds and supplies to both countries, and some companies have jumped on the band wagon as well.
One company in particular that I know of that is jumping in to help out is Cyro-Cell. Cyro-Cell is a cord blood banking company. Their services are nationwide, and while they are a little pricey, banking valuable and unique stem cells that can be used down the line for various therapies and medical treatments is priceless. Cord blood can also be used to substitute bone marrow, which often needs supplementing or replacing after chemotherapy or radiation.
Cyro-Cell has been helping out Haiti by sponsoring the Save the Children: Haiti Relief Fund. How it works is simple: every enrollment will generate a $25 donation from Cyro-Cell to Haiti. So if you’re pregnant or are planning on being pregnant, or you know someone who might like to bank their baby’s cord blood, take a look at Cyro-Cell’s services. February is over now, so Cyro-Cell may not necessarily still be donating to the Haiti relief fund, but you can still greatly benefit from cord blood banking services. You can enroll now!
This blog title brought to you by a random television commercial. Anyway, it’s barely 11:00pm and I have been ready for bed for at least four hours now. I know, being tired is my biggest complaint these days. But for once I have a legitimate excuse: I only had five hours of sleep last night. Overall though I think I’m starting to feel a bit better. I’ve been playing phone tag with the endoscopy department of the medical center where my surgeon works, so I don’t have an appointment for my stricture fix yet; but for the past week I have been using protein shakes and a high protein cereal (Better Balance apple cinnamon cereal, for those interested) to not only attain the minimum goal of 60g per day, but surpass it. One day in particular, last Thursday I think, I had over 110g for the day! By the way, I’m 228.4 today. 
I’ve been busy this week with the kids and work, of course, but also with my mom, though today she paid me back for driving her ass an hour and 20 minutes each way to a court hearing (don’t ask) by treating Dan, myself and the kidlets to lunch at a local buffet. I know, me at a buffet… ludicrous. It was kind of nice, actually. I took a plate and picked out five or six bites of this and that, and took my sweet time eating. I went for meats first — salmon, meat loaf, clam strips, steak, chicken — for the protein, then indulged in small bits of green beans, macaroni and cheese and nachos, and finally a few licks of soft serve ice cream and two gummi bears. When we got home I threw up the nachos and the gummi bears, but the protein-laden food all stayed down, thank goodness.
And now with potty-training Ryan… whew! The days are really whizzing by. Speaking of whizzing, haha, when I got him up this morning I took him into the bathroom. He didn’t do anything, but after I took him back to his room and pulled down his pajama pants in order to get him dressed, he started freaking out and grabbing his boy parts. I correctly guessed that he had to go potty — he practically yelled, “Yeah!” — and scooped him up and ran him back to the bathroom and plopped him on the toilet, where he promptly let loose. He went to preschool in underwear, and told his therapist that he had to go potty right before they were done for the day. He went, came home, went again a bit later, went at the buffet, and went again when we got home. Tonight he went in on his own to go to the bathroom (he didn’t even tell us), and a little later he attempted to go #2. I say attempted because, well… he wasn’t entirely successful.
I’m SO proud of him for doing so well so quickly, and I’m SO happy. I’m surprised, too, surprised that he is doing so well so soon! Our plan is to keep him in underwear all day long, even on outings (I keep a complete change of clothes in both cars), and put him in diapers at night. I need to pick up another waterproof mattress cover for his bed, so maybe at that point I’ll consider seeing how he does overnight. But I don’t want to push things too soon. I’m perfectly content with him being in diapers just at night!
Things with Eden Fantasys are moving along nicely. I have my email account all set up (my signature is quite spiffy, I’ll have you know), I’ve talked to several members of the team several times on Skype, participated in a conference call today, and I have a good idea of what I’m doing and will be diving headfirst into the system tomorrow morning. I can’t wait!
And to be honest, the timing of this job couldn’t have gotten any better. The pay is sweeeeeeeeet, and it’s a full-time position that offers direct deposit, whoo! Dan’s paychecks and mine will hit our bank account on the same Fridays, so it’ll be so much easier to pay all of our bills and expenses, since we’ll have enough money to take care of everything at once. Add the freelance work I’ll be continuing with, and the paid blogging that I squeeze in here and there, and we should be doing great in a couple of months. I’m looking forward to 2010 being SO much better now. 
Progress with my Eden Fantasys is coming along nicely. I did some training on Friday, and have more training and a conference call arranged for tomorrow morning and afternoon. For those who have asked, I will be working directly in blogger relations, coordinating reviews and giveaways.
Psst… have you seen my review of the Climax Gems Margarita Bubbly? You might want to check it out, because I’m launching a giveaway for one this week!
I’m pretty sure my tweet from earlier explains everything.
RYAN JUST WENT PEE-PEE IN THE POTTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m definitely not a fan of all caps or more than three exclamation points, so you know this has me excited. And why wouldn’t it? Ryan is going to be four in less than five months. I didn’t expect him to be potty-trained before three (like Alyssa was, at 35 months!), given the fact that he is both a boy and autistic, but by the time three and a half rolled around, it’s like, okay, time to work on the potty! We’ve spent months talking about the potty, and sitting Ryan on it, but he never seemed to take it seriously or have more than a passing interest in it.
Until today. For what felt like the 1000th time this month (and yes, I am aware that today is the first of the month. THAT’S HOW BAD IT IS.) Ryan complained about the fit of his [cloth] diaper. For the 1001th time this month, I checked to make sure that it wasn’t wet, and adjusted the velcro straps in the front. For the 1002nd time this month I suggested to Ryan that he go pee-pee in the potty, so that he could be a big boy and not have to wear diapers. Imagine my surprise when he said, “Okay!” and ran to the bathroom. I sat in there with him for ten minutes or so, all the while giving him potty pep talks and even offering to take him to Target and buy him a toy. And he went! He was so proud of himself, literally beaming with pride as I exclaimed his name and told him what a good boy he was, how awesome he was, what a good job he did, etc. Alyssa came in and we were both making a HUGE deal out of it, whistling, clapping, chanting “Yay Ryan!”, etc.
And then I took him to Target — in a pair of underwear (and clothes, haha) — so he could pick out his toy. and while he was there he went again!
Man, words cannot describe how much I hope that this is IT. Between my brothers, Alyssa, and now Ryan, I have been doing diaper changes for fifteen years. I’m ready to retire from it!
