NJ Baby Shower

This past Saturday was my THIRD and final (I hope!) baby shower for the New Jersey family and friends. My mom and sister hosted it at Hendrickson's, one of our regular haunts in Bayonne. It was a nice buffet brunch, so there was breakfast and lunch food. The photos are of me with my sister karyn and best friend Denise, and then one of all the "Dziemian" girls dressed in green (Mom, me, my sister Karyn and my sister-in-law Cindy)...it was NOT planned for us to all wear green, but we all did...so we had to take a picture out in my parents' backyard afterwards since we never got one at the shower itself. I had a great time at the shower, and once again, was completely overwhelmed by all the gifts and people's generosity! We got so many cute outfits, toys, an extra car seat, bathtub, and so many other things from our registry and they did a wishing well of books for us to read to the baby. i think I need to buy a bookshelf now! Denise also wrote this hysterically funny letter to the baby that I tried to read out loud but only got through one sentence before Karyn had to take over and read the rest of it as I was too emotional (who, me?)! I will have to do a separate post of just the letter at some point because I think you will all get a kick out of it! It was so great to have so many wonderful people there on Saturday, and of course we received quite a few gifts from folks who could not be there due to vacations and distance. The cake was really good (again...I had 3 delicious shower cakes) and we only took 4 pieces home, which has to be the least amount of cake I have ever seen left over from a party!!! There was even an M&M dispenser that Karyn picked up and filled with blue and green M&M's which she said was for the baby's room when I needed the pick me up during the late night feedings to come! Excellent idea! Thanks Mom and Karyn for all the work you put into the shower and for making it such a special day, and special thanks to Karyn, Denise and Alexis for helping me while I was opening the gifts and to Cindy and Dave for keeping track of the many things I was opening!

After the shower we visited with my aunt and cousins back at my parents' house, and then John and I had to head home with all the stuff...it took us 2 hours to get home due to traffic going to the shore area...very unsual for that time of day on a Saturday, so I was quite frustrated by the time we got home (in separate cars, so it's not like I could nap!). We were going to a BBQ at a neighbor's house, which was a big deal, because we have lived here for TWO YEARS and do not know any of our neighbors, so we really wanted to go to meet some folks! Last year we were away the weekend they did the BBQ, and if there was one the year we moved in, we were not invited! We got to meet a lot of folks, no idea if I am going to remember everyone's name, definitely not the kids because there are 29 kids under the age of 18 who live on our block I found out! Everyone was very nice, and of course being that no one knew us and the fact that we are expecting, we got to talk to quite a lot of folks that night. By 9:30 or so, I was fading, and John walked me home before going back to hang out a little longer.

Unfortunately, I woke up around 12:30 and got sick...I think it was the burger from the BBQ b/c it hadn't been sitting right earlier. But, I have gotten sick 4x in the past 2 weeks, very randomly, but usually in the morning. But I feel fine right after. It may have been that I ate too fast, or laid down after I ate, or the heat was affecting me...so I'm hopeful I will not have a problem like I did the first 17-18 weeks! But...I was awake until at least 4:30am after this happened on Saturday. Eventually fell asleep, but was up around 9 or so, but in no mood to rush to church, so the late mass it was that morning. I was so tired all day, and tried to nap, but just could not. I even put some golf on TV because even John has been known to fall asleep watching that and he LOVES golf! No luck...by 4pm, I was in tears I was so overtired, and I did not know what to do with myself...I thought about how tired I would be when the baby was here...and that upset me even more of course. So I tried to figure out how to self-soothe like a baby might have to... I finally caved and took 2 Tylenol and eventually felt somewhat better. I decided to go through the gifts and organize everything and go figure got myself worked up and overwhelmed wondering what all the things in the cool Vera Bradley diaper bag that Karyn gave me were for, as well as just being overwhelmed with all these things that this little baby will need! Obviously a lot of hormones and being overtired will have this affect, I realized. John finally got home from work with a pizza, and I took a nice relaxing bath and went to bed around 10:15 and did not wake up until 5:30am...no trips to the bathroom! though the 5:30 trip was a long one! So my thinking is that I just overdid it on Saturday and had a little too much excitement and emotions going on between the shower and then the BBQ, plus the frustrations of the drive in between both parties...thus the insomnia and then the Sunday exhaustion. So I know I need to pace myself and take better care of myself, especially these last few weeks. Other than being sick (and yes, pretty miserable) those first few months, I feel I've been very fortunate to have had such a healthy pregnancy. I know the last trimester can have it's own challenges, which is what I'm learning to deal with day by day. I am usually a very upbeat individual, who worries a lot about things she shouldn't be worrying about, and that's kind of what happened on Sunday...hey, we all have "one of those days!"

John picked up my slack on Monday and did the grocery shopping and cleaned up the spare bedroom that I had not gotten to all last week like I had hoped to, amongst many other little projects around the house. Thank you honey!! He knows I'm starting to do that nesting thing a little where I want things in their place or projects finished. Hopefully our little guy has a nice mix of both of our personalities - all the good things that both of us have!

Our next doctor's appointment is on Monday morning, and we also are meeting with 2 women who do in-home day care this weekend, just so we can make an informed decision as to what we want to do when mommy has to go back to work. What works for one does not work for others, so we want to figure out what's best for us and our little guy!