What to talk about

It's hard. I come here to talk mostly about Hulk - because he is my reality. My little guy who seems to grow overnight! And learns new things and smiles and belly laughs and is such a joy. It's almost easy to forget that I'm pregnant. With twins.

But I still am. I'm at 11w3d, and things are going pretty much exactly like they went with Hulk. No real morning sickness, mostly tired and hungry. I'm starting to need to be careful when I roll over at night thanks to round ligament pain... but that is about it. Which means I'm entering that area where I start to worry that with such a small amount of symptoms... how can everything be OK? I saw the heartbeats back on May 1st - so I don't really have a reason to think their should be anything wrong... no spotting or anything since. I go to see my doc on Tuesday (6/2) so I just have to make it 5 more days and then maybe things will seem more real? Because right now it's kind of still unbelievable that I'm pregnant, let alone with twins.

We did decide this time that we will find out the genders of the babies. Waiting on Hulk was fun, but towards the end, I really really wanted to know... so this time we are going to find out. In my gut I think it's a girl and a boy. But time will tell!

Hanging out with Dad

I'm alive!

Wow. I think that is the longest I've gone without posting. It's been a totally crazy week. I was getting ready to sit down and load up a cute picture of Hulk for Wordless Wednesday, when I got a call from daycare - he had a fever of 101.6. I went to get him, and the poor little guy! He was so hot and sad! Since we were going away on Friday for the long weekend, I called the doc. And I'm glad I did - he has his first ear infection.

I worked from home on Weds, and then took a sick day to be with him on Thursday. This is the first time he's ever been really sick, and it was hard to see him so sad. I must admit, I did like the fact that he would only fall asleep on my chest - he hasn't done that since he was maybe 2 months old. By Thursday, he was feeling better, no fever - so we went out to buy some clothes. He is pretty much in 12 month size now - and we have nothing that size in hand-me-downs. I decided to skip 12 month all together, and just bought 18 months. The issue with 18 month size is that there are more tee shirts than onsies.... and he still needs the onsies. But we found what we needed.

Friday we went to Nantucket and my MIL watched Hulk while we went out to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. I went a little crazy and had oysters on the half shell and a glass of wine. I figured everything in moderation, right? And it was SO good. Then we went and watched the sunset on the beach and talked for a long while before we went home. Hulk slept almost the whole time we were gone.... but this was the beginning of the 'bottles are for chumps' phase of the week. My MIL kept saying he didn't want a bottle so she wasn't going to force him... but Hulk usually has 5 six ozs bottles a day, and this weekend, he maybe ate 16 ozs total the whole day. It was frustrating, and then with all the WONDERFUL advice from my MIL who was convinced he didn't like the taste of formula anymore (WTF!). He was still eating fine... so I was thinking in the back of my mind that we needed to stop the solids and force him to be hungry enough for the bottles... but I wasn't going to do that on the island. I just didn't need the 'help'. And Hulk was SO done being poked and prodded and woken up that he pretty much cried all day on Sunday. It was NO fun.

We got home Sunday night, and he pretty much refused a bottle of apple flavored pedilite (which he usually loves) so I knew it wasn't that he didn't like the taste. Monday morning, he sucked down a 6 oz bottle in 5 minutes.. I thought we were turning a corner. We stopped by a friends house who has 4 boys, and I told her the issue with the bottles... she said that we needed to stop the solids until he started drinking the bottles again. I knew this was what we needed to do, but I just needed to hear it from an experienced mom. And it worked! Yesterday he ate all his bottles. This morning I did give him some cereal - but not a bunch of fruit. I told daycare to only give him lunch if he was starving.

I'm guessing the combination of being sick and maybe being done with a growth spurt has decreased his appetite - so we just need to adjust how we feed him accordingly.

It was nice to have a bunch of days off of work, I must admit. I was pretty burned out. Yesterday, I took a nap from 10 - 12, and then another from 2 - 5, and went to bed at 9:30, and slept all night. Hulk was napping with me all those times too - so the both of us were just burned out. I'm really starting to show, so the weekend was filled with comments about 'OMG - twins!' which is funny but annoying after a while. Next week I have my first appointment with the doc - and I think I'll get an u/s too. The nurse mentioned that I could expect to get monthly u/s to check growth and heartbeats. I'm excited to see them again - I had a really bad dream last night that I lost them both. It sucked.

Ok - time to start my week...

Figuring stuff out

This was a fun weekend! Saturday was a really busy day - Hulk and I went shopping in the morning, to watch Aaron coach at noon, met the nanny in the afternoon, and had dinner with friends that night! He was super smiley all day - loved playing with everyone and being passed from person to person... so by 8 PM, I was getting nervous that we were going to have a major meltdown. He fell asleep on the way home, and Aaron got him all the way upstairs, diaper changed and into his PJ's without really waking him up! And Hulk slept all night!

Of course Sunday, when his godmother came to visit, he would basically wake up for 30 minutes, and then sleep for an hour all day long - so it wasn't as much fun for her while visiting. But! She did manage to finish up the blanket she was making him... it's adorable. I'll post pictures when we finally get some sun.

Back to the nanny. I hadn't talked much about her here, mostly because I didn't really have anything to say yet. This whole 'pregnant with twins' thing has thrown us for a bit of a loop. Last year about this time was working through the same question for Hulk - what will be the best childcare option. We decided to go with a very fancy daycare, mostly because they came highly recommend, and I liked the idea of the socialization he would get. The costs associated with 3 in daycare are SO high that it isn't even an option... so we started looking into other things. I'm still not comfortable with an au pair. And staying at home isn't an option for me. I lucked into a situation where someone I know who has a GREAT nanny - her youngest is starting preschool in the fall. She needed to have the conversation with the nanny that she wasn't going to need her anymore - and mentioning that she had a friend that would need a nanny was a great opening.

We met with her on Saturday, and she seems wonderful. She doesn't speak perfect English, but will speak Spanish to the kids... which I think will be awesome for them. I explained that my goals for my kids is for them to have fun, play and be safe - and she had this look of relief on her face. I'm sure that others have visions of nannies doing flashcards and teaching all day - but I think that is for school. They should enjoy growing up for a while! Assuming all goes well with my pregnancy, our plan is to have her start right when the twins come - to be an extra set of hands, but also to give me time to get to know her better before I have to leave her alone with 3 babies.

Oh - and as promised, a picture of our book corner.


I'm planning on keeping kid things in the bottom shelves - the toys that dogs can eat go in the shelves with doors (Henry has already eaten his fair share of binkies). The next item for this corner is a circular table on a pedestal (which Aaron is building, so that will take some time) and a beautiful stained glass fixture that will go over it.

Busy

The last few days have been busy. I've been feeling less tired and hungry (but a little pukey, you can't win them all). It's easier to just make a list of all the crap we've been doing:

• finishing up the 'book nook' that Aaron put together. This has been the vision since we finished the living room over a year ago. Aaron was going to make built-ins, but once we found out about the twins, we panicked a little and bought some Ikea bookshelves. They. Look. Awesome. I'll take pictures and show you all later.
• Organizing stuff for a tag sale. I have an extra dining room table. Seriously. With all the chairs. And an extra desk, bookshelves.... it's crazy. Mostly, it's old furniture that was hand-me-downs when I graduated from college. Time to purge (and make room for two more babies).
• Took the dogs for their yearly check up. Henry weighs 90 pounds! WTF!
• I went in for my meeting with the nurse. I got some sample prenatals. Remember how with Hulk I was taking $50 a month prenatal? I asked her what the difference was between those and others, and she said it was the coating on the pills. Seriously!?!?! The coating!!?!? I can deal with a funny taste. Geez. She also told me some of the complications I may have with a twin pregnancy (thanks.) which it isn't like I didn't know -but I really didn't want to think about yet.
• Hulk went to see a specialist yesterday too. He has a minor birth defect that will need surgery... and since they can't do the surgery until 6 months, I put off the consult as long as possible - because I'm grown up like that. We really like the doc, and the procedure seems like no biggie. The doc likes to wait until they are around 8 months, so I don't have to worry about anything until July or August.
• This weekend, we are meeting with a woman who may be our nanny! The nanny route is the only way we can go. Daycare is insanely expensive and I'm not into the whole au pair thing. I may be convinced as the babies get older - but for now, I'm looking for experience. Dealing with 3 babies isn't for wimps.
• Work is still crazy.

So - that's it. Not like it's insane stuff, but just busy. Life doesn't pause, does it?

Mother stuff

This weekend was pretty great. Good weather, and fun times getting to hang out with my guys. I even started the weekend by going to see Star Trek on Friday at the IMAX theater! It was awesome. It was so nice to spend some time just relaxing and not worrying about work - made me realize that I've been running on empty for a while now. I'm glad Aaron and I decided to make the Memorial Day weekend a 4 day weekend by taking Friday, the 22nd (our 5th anniversary!) off.

For Mother's Day - Aaron gave me the most fun pajamas - they say SUPER MOM! I wore then the rest of the weekend. He also cooked me and my mother a lobster dinner on Saturday night, and breakfast, lunch and dinner on Sunday. I was well spoiled.

My mom visited for Saturday and Sunday, and she is just hard. I guess that is the best way to describe her. Want to know why she didn't come on Friday? Because she and her cousin were going to see their gravestones. Yep. They have purchased in advance the plots (which in itself isn't strange, I guess) but she also has already purchased her stone. It's sitting there waiting for her. And she LOVES the trips to go look at the site.... the two of them plan lunches around it. It's just weird and disturbing to me.

Besides all that - my mom has been single for a long time. She got divorced from my father about 30 years ago, had a few relationships - but nothing stuck. It's my theory that living alone for that long makes a person lose all social skills. She has a boxer puppy - and that dog is the reason she hasn't visited in 6 weeks, because her dog had stomach issues. She gets up and takes her for a walk every 20 minutes. Surprisingly, the dog is a bit high strung. She is 68 years old, and I swear, this dog is tiring her out more than she will admit. She KNOWS not to complain to me about the dog, because I was adamantly opposed to her getting a puppy. Let alone a BOXER puppy which is hard for someone who is 30 years old to deal with! When we were in church on Sunday, she pretty much slept through the whole service. The second she sits down, she falls asleep.

She was also being kind of weird about Hulk too. She hasn't been to visit in 6 weeks (as I said before, because of her dog's issues) and on Sunday morning, Hulk woke up his normal time (around 6 AM) she went in and got him and brought him to her room. I slowly got up, and wandered in, and he was laying in the middle of her bed while she was going around the room tidying up. She wasn't holding him or playing with him or anything. So I climbed in bed, and started playing and cuddling with him. She said, "How dare you come in here. I never get to see him". Whatever.

Also on Sunday morning, the phone was ringing as we were walking to the kitchen to eat breakfast. I picked up the phone to look at caller id - and it was my brother. I didn't pick up (we were about to sit down for breakfast - cold eggs are nasty) and she was visibly angry with me. Visibly. After breakfast, I suggested we call him back even dialed the phone and handed it to her, and she kept shaking her head. She basically pouted - saying she would call him back later.

She was planning on leaving Sunday afternoon. At about 2, Hulk finally fell asleep after fighting the whole nap thing for about an hour. I asked her when she was planning on leaving (because at this point, I needed a nap!), and she said she wasn't sure - I said, well, your reason for visiting is sleeping. She didn't hear me, and said - I didn't hear you, but maybe that is better (like I say nasty things to her all the time).

The whole weekend wasn't like this - we had a few good conversations, and she really loves to see Hulk's big smiles. We took a few nice walks together, and I even made some English muffins from scratch that she loved. It's just hard to understand where the switch is - one moment she is pleasant, the next moment she acting nasty or rolling her eyes. So, she is hard to hang out with - stressful to say the least.

I've always known.

Do you gals ever do this? Get your palm read? I've done it numerous times in my life - and have pretty much gotten the exact same message each time. I have a strong 'leadership' line (or something like that), I would have a long, happy marriage, and I would have 3 children.

Now, I've kind of ignored the 3 children part. I really always thought I'd have 2. And figured I could control that through birth control (ah, the innocence of pre-IF). As I had the ectopic and the miscarriage, and then Hulk - I wondered if on my palm - the 2 previous pregnancies 'counted', and we'd just have Hulk. I'd told Aaron about my palm readings, and we joked that when we went for our second baby (and if I'm honest, Aaron wasn't sold yet on having a second. He is totally in love with Hulk, and was thinking that 'one and done' was a good strategy. But now, he is really excited about the new babies.) we'd need to be careful. You know, because I would probably have twins, based on having my palm read.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

So, when I showed him the pee stick, in the back of his head, Aaron already knew it was twins. He wasn't even surprised when he saw the two of them on that first ultrasound. And, I know a few of you mentioned when I first announced it was twins that I was pretty zen about the whole thing. I guess that's because I've always known.

Finally

From other's reports, Hulk has been rolling over from his front to his back for a little over a week. I had yet to see it. But this morning, he was awake and ready for the day at 6:30 (heavy sigh) so I brought him into bed to see if he would snuggle. He would have NONE of that... so I sat him up (he can sit if you put him in a sitting position). He proceeded to throw himself forward, put his butt in the air, and flip himself onto his back. And then giggle. And then cry to have me sit him up again, so he could do the whole thing over again.

Too funny.

Totally random

• Today, Hulk is 5 months old!
• I've been meaning to talk about how funny I'm finding it that I'm due in December again. After going through maternity leave in the winter - I was SO sure I'd never want to do that again. I assumed we'd do IVF again, and I would 'plan' a little better. Ha Ha on me.
• At the same time, I have loads of those Christmas themed onsies (newborn sized) that I kind of regretted buying - now they will get a second life!
• I've been starting to research what sort of minivan we will get. I said it. Minivan.
• With all this said, I'm kind of having trouble accepting this whole 'I'm pregnant with twins". It's kind of surreal.
• I'm more than a little excited to go see Star Trek at the 3d IMAX movie theater on Friday. I'm such a dork.
• This weekend I may begin a full house purge. There is a lot of stuff that I can just throw away, but the rest is going into a tag sale - probably the beginning of June.
• I feel like a bitch because I'm really sick of my brother calling me and telling me about the next awful thing that is happening in his life. He called on Friday morning, when I was a bit frantic and waiting for the doctor's office to call me back. When I told him why I was nervous this is what he said - "It's good they get back to you so quickly - one of my friends had a miscarriage and they didn't call her back for a week". WTF. It's ALL about him, 24/7. I know he is going through a hard time, but seriously. Get your head out of your ass. He called me 3 times yesterday, and being the grown up that I am I didn't answer. I caved in and answered this morning - thinking he was going to apologize, but it was more of him whining about his job search. Whatever. I'm on the fence if I should tell him that he's being an ass or just chalk it up to normal brother behavior.
• I want to go on vacation.

We did it!

Not sure I will do it again...

: )

Hulk and I left on Friday night and made our trip up to Saco, ME. The place we stayed at was beautiful - right across the street from the beach. It was a sort of dormitory, so we were put in a room by ourselves - but with 2 bunk beds and barely enough space for the pack and play - but I made it work. All the friends I met up there were a lot of fun, and the first night, he went to sleep pretty well - went down around 8, got up at 4 for a bottle and then slept again until 7.

Saturday the weather was BEAUTIFUL and we sat outside and knit, did a little yoga on the beach, and went for a few walks. Hulk was wonderful, smiling with everyone, napping on and off - really enjoying himself! I was thinking how my baby was the most perfect baby in the universe. One of the women that was up there with us was also pregnant, so we made a trip to a consignment shop which was suggested to me by Baby Smiling in the BackSeat - and that place is great! I got a few new to me shirts and so did my friend.

Things kind of started to go downhill on Saturday night. Hulk was tired and so was I. I brought him to bed at 8, and we fell asleep - but he managed to wake up every. single. hour. the entire night. And because we were in these dorms, with thin walls - I really couldn't just let him fuss... because that would wake everyone else up. It was brutal. Finally, around 5, I brought him into the tiny twin bed with me and cuddled him to sleep... where he slept until 8 (and I lost all feeling in my right side). Sunday morning, we drove home, and I haven't been so happy to see Aaron in a long time! I fed Hulk his lunch, and we went upstairs to bed and both napped for about 2.5 hours.

Hulk is still having trouble sleeping (I'm thinking it's the end of his cold that is bugging him when he sleeps)... but at least we were home, and Aaron switched him to the swing, and he happily slept for 5 hours. It was a fun trip - but pretty much made it clear that doing this the last week of July for a full week is insanity. So I'm going to cancel that trip and just hang out at home and relax.

Shitty morning (but with a fine outcome)

I woke up around 3 to pee, as usual. I was greeted with bright red spotting. Trying not to panic, I turned on the bathroom light, which woke up Aaron. I almost didn't want to tell him, but I did, and he was like - don't worry babe, it's probably nothing. I was faltering between panic and 'yah, it's probably nothing' for the rest of the morning.

After work today, Hulk and I are heading to Saco, ME - for our little mini-vacation... no Dad allowed (well, he totally would have been allowed, but he is opting to stay home and finish up the pantry - which I am excited about). It's a little camp on the ocean, you have to bring your own linens and everything PLUS packing for Hulk. So I'm running around, toasting my English muffin, feeding Hulk, throwing stuff in bags. I go downstairs to load the car... and I pull out my Kindle - I've somehow ruined the screen. Pissed beyond belief (this is NOT a cheap mistake I have made) I forget about the toast - it's burned to a black cinder. And Hulk starts freaking out. I get him calmed down and in the car... drive away, only to realize I forgot my pillows. Drive back, get pillows... finally start day.

I decided to call the doc so they could reassure me that the spotting was fine (it was now just brown) - and they wanted me to come in right away for an u/s. I call Aaron, and we drive over. I was nervous and a little shaky. Of course we get the tech who is in training. Sigh. The good news is that she has twins through IVF, so was really understanding, but it took a LONG time. We did get to see the two little hearts beating away at 152 and 149....but damn. No more spotting, OK babies!? But also no reason was found for the spotting, so I'm on pelvic rest for 2 weeks and no heavy lifting.

I'm glad that the doc whisked me right in for an u/s - because now I don't need to freak out all weekend about what is going on in there... wish me luck on my first 'sleep away' with Hulk!