Picture of Ben

Well, we're still at the hospital. My incision is bigger than the 1st one, and (I hate to admit it) but I'm still having a significant amount of pain some of the time. Two Percocets are keeping me comfortable but when they wear off-let's just say it's not good. So my mom and stepdad left last night (got a room close to the airport), and we are going home tomorrow morning. I'm not stir crazy yet, but I can feel it building up a little. My mother-in-law emailed me some pictures she took so here are some of them. I have some great shots but can't get them off my camera yet until we get home.

In the Quiet of the Morning...

I'm sitting here in the hospital room with nothing but peace and quiet around me. My two guys are sleeping for now-soon both will wake up hungry :) so I thought I'd send off a note before life got busy again. I am a blessed woman. A wonderful husband, a spunky redheaded girl, and now a beautiful boy in my family.
We are headed home today (hopefully). A day early but my mom is leaving on Friday morning, and I would love to just have a day at home getting settled into our new life with her around to help out. Here's a quick story of the Ben details....
The Technical Issues:
I was scheduled to have him on Monday but due to my doctor's scheduling crisis, I got bumped until Tuesday. We came in Tuesday morning and the hospital says, "oh we tried to call you....lots of women came in last night for labor issues, and we don't have a bed for you. so we can't tell you when you might have the baby, but no eating or drinking until you hear from us." So we (me, Jason, my mom and stepdad) turn around and go home. They make breakfast, and I cry. But all is well, when about 45 minutes later, the hospital calls and says, "We have a bed!" Jason just finished making his yummy breakfast, so I drive and he eats. I gotta get this bed before someone else walks in in labor! Watch out-emotional, hungry, thirsty, pregnant lady coming through!
Smooth Operation:
The c-section went great! Got a spinal, it worked like a charm. They walked me into the OR at 9:45 a.m. and he was born at 10:17 a.m. He wasn't even all the way out yet, when my doctors say, "You won't believe what color hair he has!" Oh yes, another redhead! As I'm peering at him getting worked on while I'm still on the table, I asked, "Hmm...how big is he?" The pediatrician in there eyeballed him and said about 8 1/2 to 9 lbs. Sure enough, the boy is 8 lbs. 14 oz. and 21 1/2 inches long. No wonder my hip joints felt dislocated those last few days.
Who He Looks Like:
Of course he changes every day so who knows who he will really look like. At first, he looked identical to Abby when she was born. But after the puffiness has faded, he looks a bit different than her. He has a lot more hair than she did. He almost needs a haircut-it's long in back and over the ears. And the hair color-it's like a copper color-brown but full of red in it too. I'm curious to see what it stays to be. But with him and Abby next to each other, their hair color looks the same. Ben also has a different-looking chin than Abby. I think it's a Boston chin like my brothers and I have. It's a cute chin-kinda sticks out there and says, "look at me." He is also a very content baby. He doesn't cry to much, but rather likes to look around, check everyone out, and is happy just being rocked or cuddled. Definitely not how Abigail was. She had to be just so-so, didn't like being swaddled, and to this day, is still not much of a cuddler. Ben loves to be swaddled tight....we've had a quick relearning with that.
Big Sister, Little Brother:
So far, so good. Abby is all smiles when she sees him. She picked out a plush "My 1st Soccer Ball" as his first gift from her (very much an Abby gift). Ben got her a silver piggy bank that said, "For My Big Sister, Abigail Elizabeth. Love, Baby Ben." So no one has gotten to keep their change when they come and visit us. (She loves piggy banks...she's like her daddy that way).
Okay-both the guys are up so I'm off. When we get home today, I'll post some pictures. Thanks for all the emails, prayers, and support. :)
Love, Jenn

Tuesday is Baby Day!

Just a few short days to go! My mom, stepdad, brother, and sister-in-law are all here and we're having a great time. Abby is loving the busy and full house. I am oh so ready to get this baby out...I'm hot constantly. Like a walking human incubator. But it will all be worth it! Just an update...we'll post pics of the new little man soon.

May Pictures

Like Father, Like Daughter. Let's just say with these two, I buy a lot of popcorn. I'm always on the hunt for a popcorn sale to stock up on the Smart Pop Kettle Corn. Jason has always been a big popcorn person....probably a bag of popcorn every night. Yes, every night. And his daughter loves it just as much as he does. It's their special thing...snuggle on the couch, share a bag, and then leave a mess for me to clean up later. :)


A Happy Mother's Day with my sweet girl!

I love Crocs. Just love them. (And yes, I'm very careful with them on escalators.) I usually buy a pair for Abby and a pair for me each summer. This year, I went on the cheesy side and bought matching pairs for us. I have never really done anything 'matching' with her before, but I love the Mary Jane Crocs and I love the red color. (I love anything red). When we got them, my joy was paled in comparison to Abby's excitement over having "wed shoes like Mommy!" So we had a little photo shoot to document the moment. Now, whenever Abby wears hers (often)...she many times insist that I wear mine too.

April Pictures

Here's a typical weekend day with us....drawing with sidewalk chalk, blowing bubbles, and playing in the dirt. Jason was turning up the dirt on my flower beds and Abby really got in on the action.



Jenn's scrapbooks....$29.99. Shipping and handling...$9.99. Packing peanuts...free. Abby playing with the box and loving it....priceless.


One morning, George (Papadoo) stopped by and had a flat tire. He and Jason were out changing the tire when Abby showed up with her own tool box (one of her favorite toys) to put her own elbow grease in on the job. Very cute!

I've Died and Gone to Grocery Heaven

There is this wonderful thing called Peapod. It makes me a happy person. It's through Stop & Shop (a big grocery chain in the northeast). Peapod is an online grocery delivery service. Can I just express how much I L-O-V-E it?!? I used it right after I had Abby 3 years ago, and silly me never used it since then. Jason has encouraged me to use them ever since, but I never did.
But, that all changed today. I needed groceries and hadn't had the time to get to the grocery store. Plus the idea of lugging me with this belly, Abby, and my groceries home on a hot day just wasn't appealing to me. So yesterday I put in my order online (www.peapod.com), picked my delivery time for this morning, and while relaxing at home with my daughter today, had all my groceries brought to my house and put on my kitchen countertops by a very nice delivery man. Like a little piece of heaven right there!
Some excellent things about them:
1. The frozen food is really frozen.
2. The produce is better than what you would choose yourself.
3. They take coupons and offer weekly specials just like the store.
4. For an order over $100, the delivery fee is $6.95. But they give you $5 off for each of your next four orders. I would spend more than $1.95 in gas just getting to the store and back.
5. They give lots of other specials...$1 off for certain delivery times, $1 off for using echeck, etc.
6. I typed into google for 'peapod promotional code' and found a code for $15 off my first order. Saved more money that way. (They thought I was a first time customer again...guess they don't keep records from 3 years ago and from a different address).
7. I think you probably save money doing it online because you don't impulse shop as much as you would while in the store.

So there's my big plug for Peapod. If you have this, you gotta try it. This pregnant lady is relishing in her happy place right now....

Things That Go Bump In The Night...

Two nights ago, I woke up around 1 a.m. hearing a few faint but strange noises outside. (I don't sleep the greatest since becoming a mom plus being 8 months pregnant). We live in a cute, safe, quiet neighborhood where you could almost hear a pin drop at night. It was the faintest of sounds, and I laid there thinking it was an animal or the wind. It was a warm night so our windows were open upstairs. Our master bedroom sits closest to the driveway. I almost rolled over and went back to sleep, but I thought, "No...something just seems a little funny...." So I poke Jason and tell him I hear something outside. He jumps up and looks out the window. It was dark out-our motion detector lights above our garage weren't on. All of a sudden, he yells in this booming, mean voice, "WHAT THE %&!)$ DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!??!" There were two guys trying to roll our Honda Civic down the driveway! Couldn't believe it! So I'm calling 911, Jason is throwing on some britches, and the two guys take off across the street, through our neighbors yard, jump the fence, and are gone. Jason wants to take off downstairs and I'm guarding the bedroom door saying, "You are not going anywhere, mister!" He's trying to convince me that they are gone but I'm like, "Stupid teenagers do stupid things with stupid guns and you are not going anywhere!" Thankfully, the Shelton police show up in less than 2 minutes and I let him leave the bedroom. :)
The two guys had already gotten into the car, broke the steering column, had it hotwired and ready to go, and were just rolling it down the driveway before they were outta there. Within 1 minute, they would've been gone with our car. A few strange things:
1. Our motion lights didn't go off and they were directly over where they were working. Don't know if they moved them or what.
2. Jason's white work van was parked behind the Civic. So in our double driveway, the red Civic is close to the house with the van behind it. They were turning the car to move it out from in front of the van and get it down the driveway....pretty ballsy.
3. I'm not sure what it was that I heard them doing. They were done working on the inside of the car and were just moving it while turning the wheels. It was just the faintest of sounds...I thought it was nothing-only my crazy "Law & Order" imagination.
4. Every night this past week with the warmer weather, we turn on the box fan in our window. We were 'thisclose' to turning on our fan that night before we went to bed. For some strange reason we didn't...otherwise, we would've heard nothing and woken up to find no car.

So after the police did their thing, a neighbor came running up saying a car was parked by his house and two guys jumped the fence, got in the car, drove off, etc. We finally crawled back in bed at 2:30 a.m. thinking we wouldn't be able to fall asleep. In the morning, we inspected it a bit more...found their tool that they left in the car, and realized the steering column was truly broken. You could put a screwdriver in the white plastic part hanging down and start the car up.
So the sad realization is that we were going to sell the car in the next couple of months-I only drive it 2x a week to work and we just wanted a 4 door car for the rare times the kids would be in it. But now we're going to probably have to go through the insurance company, pay a $500 deductible and get the car fixed. At 2:30 in the morning before we fell back to sleep, we both looked at each other and said, "We should've just let them steal the dang thing." If only we would've thought through the situation before the adrenaline kicked in. I definitely feel a bit more jumpy these last two days and we lock the house and cars down like its Ft. Knox when we go to bed. How did we go from living in a halfway shady neighborhood in West Haven and never being bothered there to moving to this cute, quiet, safe neighborhood in a nicer town and having this happen?
And we thought we were upset..I think our neighbors are way more in a tizzy about this. They loved to brag about how there is never any crime here for 50+ years...
Anyway...an exciting week for the Chiodos.