hand slapped

I am a bad blogger. I'm sorry. Yes, it's been 2 weeks since I've posted anything, or responded to emails... or FB messages... or phone calls... I've slapped my hand and promised to do better. But don't hold me to it.

We are all fine and good, I promise. There really isn't anything going on, but we have still been super busy. The kids have been sick with colds and have been out of school for the better part of the last 2 weeks. They got better, went to school for 1 day, and now both of them have colds again. So, they are out of school for the rest of this week too. I felt a little better for a few days, which was nice. I even went 3 days without taking a nap! But it all caught up to me last weekend and I ended up sleeping all day Saturday between gagging and avoiding all food like it was going to kill me and still woke up tired and gagging on Sunday.

So far this week has been more peaceful than last week was. Last week I was at the hospital 4 times: 2 times for shots, one time for an appointment (both babies look good and are measuring right on track) and once because I was an idiot and lost my prescription for my test strips and lancets so I had to get another one. I'm sure the nurses are as tired of me as I am of them. This week I only need to go in twice for shots which is good news because that means I can stay in my PJs on the days I don't have to go out. And that is great news because that means less laundry for me, which is fantastic news because I still have about 6 loads of laundry that have been rotated on and off the bedroom floor and through the wash again for the better part of 6 weeks that needs to be folded and put away.

I just don't have the energy or the strength to do much. I have no shame in letting everyone know that my kids have now have a nanny named Dora, who rotates days
with Blue and Steve and Diego. Occasionally, Pablo or Manny will fill in when needed and George is always a good standby. A mama's got to get help where she can, right?

What I really need is a cook; someone to come make food for me, whatever I want at the exact moment that I want it. If I want food, I want it right then because in 3 minutes, I will be hating food and gagging again. A cook would actually be much more beneficial for my kids and husband. I think the boys are tired of pizza and pasta and I know they are tired of eating the things that I kind of maybe like, on a good day. They can only eat so much chicken, tuna with noodles, and green beans the way I want them-- covered in Cream of Mushroom soup and baked to perfection. And even then I end up scrapping off most of the soup and can only manage a few bites here and there.

I was told last week that I should be eating at least 2700-3500 calories a day, and I need to gain at least 20 pounds in the next 9 weeks, and 40-50 pounds overall. Ha! Riiiiiiiiiight. Right now I'm lucky to be able to take in (and keep down) 1/3 of those recommended calories a day, at best. So if you have any fool proof suggestions for getting those kind of calories down, and keeping them down, please share. Ensure or any kind of "calorie drink" are not an option and neither is anything with sugar. Same goes for red meat, fast food, things that are fried, things that are salty, mayo, things that are thick in texture (yogurt, pudding, jello, smoothies, oatmeal)...

I'm sure women have grown babies on worse than green bean casserole and rice. CB grew off of nothing but Whoppers (no mayo, no cheese) from Burger King while she was in the womb, but her 3rd toes are longer than her 2nd so that is probably not a very good example. Let's just hope for the best with these two.

big fat baby...

A few weeks ago we gad a scare and I ended up spending the morning at the hospital. Everything turned out to be ok, thank goodness. Both babies were fine, but my progesterone levels were pretty low. I didn't know that, until the nurse called me from the waiting room while we were waiting for the ultrasound. When she came to the door of the waiting room, I saw she had a big fat syringe in her hand and I thought, "Dude, sucks to be that person!" and then she called my name. Dude, sucks to be me. I don't exactly do needles. I'm the person who passes out cold when they give me a simple TB test. That's not even really a needle! It's like a little half second poke in the arm. Big whoop. Yeah, not to me. To me, it's the same as when they draw 8 vials of blood from my skinny limp arm.

Now, this needle-phobic gets to get twice weekly injections of progesterone in her butt. I'm not kidding when I say that it takes me a good 2 days to work up the courage to go get them done. They hurt. They hurt bad. It takes anywhere from 60-90 seconds to get the stuff injected, and did I mention that it is actually OIL they are injecting into my butt? I'm not a turkey! I don't need anything injected in my behind for tenderness. I have plenty of that on my own. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the one time in my life that I could get away with wearing one of those obnoxious pairs of track pants with "Juicy" written all over the butt. I swear, if you put me in a warm room, you'd have to come and baste me every 30 minutes because I'd be secreting so much oil that I'd eventually dry out.

I have learned a few tricks on how to cope through the shots, thanks to some amazing friends who have had to go through them before. Really though, I've found the amount of pain comes down to the person who has the unfortunate task of injecting me. Nurse New made me pass out-- it took her almost 2 minutes to get all of the oil into me. Nurse Nice is the best at it, but sadly, she's only been able to give me one. Nurse Tough Love though... she's, well, though. She is a very very pleasant person, until you give her a needle. There's no small talk. Just pull down your pants and let me see your booty. And then poke, shoot, and we're done, and then I cry. I wonder if she would be gentler to me if I brought her chocolates, or even a bottle of wine? The worst part is that she doesn't heat the oil to room temp, so the oil goes in straight out of the fridge. And that is what burns the most. But she says she warms it up, in her hands. Yeah, no, that doesn't work.

Of course, I will do whatever I have to for these babies. There's no denying that and honestly, this is probably just my little introduction to the world of needles during this pregnancy. I have a feeling that by the time these babies are born, I might not be so needle phobic. You get over your fears by immersion, right? Lord help me.

q&a

I want to take a second to thank everyone for all of the emails and messages. I hope to be able to respond to everyone individually soon, but just thinking about looking at the computer screen causes a Pavlovian response in me, making run for the barf bag. So I will address some of the questions I have been getting, here, in the meantime.

1. Are you really having twins?
- Yes, yes we REALLY are. It isn't a joke, or a ploy to get people to give us presents. There really are 2 babies in my uterus right now.

2. When are you due?
- August, but they will come earlier. I never give exact dates, I don't like the pressure.

3. How did M react?
- Much better than I did, that's for sure. Deep down I think he knew. Probably because I was 2x as sick and about 12x as hormonal. But he was very very happy, excited and levelheaded right from the start. He is a much calmer person than I am.

4. When are you moving, and where?
- NO CLUE. That is our biggest source of stress right now, and as soon as we figure it out, I'll let you know.

5. Was I the last to know about this?
- No, you were not the last to know, I promise. Very few of my friends and family knew. I didn't want to say anything until I felt more comfortable with the pregnancy and had seen 2 healthy babies more than once. I was a complete loser and told everyone on my blog and facebook, all at once. Please forgive me for not emailing you personally, as I said, the computer makes me puke and I'm not really a big fan of puking, so I try not get on the computer too much.

6. How are you feeling?
- Um, lets just say I feel like I did the time my friend A and I ate bad clam chowder and got food poisoning, only I feel that way Every. Single. Day.

7. Do you need anything?
- Yes, the biggest bottle of anti nausea meds you can find, a fat energy bar, a nanny to entertain my kids when I can't (which is most of the time), and a haircut because I am NEVER going to have free time again.

8. Did you want a big family?
- Is 4 kids a lot? Well, too late now, right? I have never had the desire to go all Duggar on everyone, but 4 has always been a good number for me. I just never thought that all 4 would probably be in college at the same time...

9. Do you have names picked out yet?
- ha ha hahahahahahahahahah! No. Not even close. It took us 9 months and 3 days to come up with both W and CB's names and now we have to figure out 3 sets of names (boy/boy, boy/girl, and girl/girl). I don't think we will have them picked out for another 27 months, 9 days.

10. Are you going to find out what you are having?
- I don't know yet. I'd like to be surprised this time, as we knew with both W and CB but finding out would make the naming process a whole lot easier, wouldn't it?

11. Did you have a feeling you were having twins?
- No, I thought I had the flu. I was praying I had the flu at least, because if what I had was morning sickness, then I just needed to take a big fat sleeping pill and sleep for the next 8 weeks.

12. Is the morning sickness really worse with twins?
- Yeah, pretty much everything is intensified when you are pregnant with twins, at least for me. The morning sickness started to get bad the 3 days before we found out about the 2 babies. We were traveling through Salzburg and I felt like I was going to die. But dang it, I did not go all the way to Salzburg just to see the inside of a toilet at the Marriot, so I powered through and we went out exploring. Now it makes me laugh to think about how I was walking in the pouring rain, with a kid on my back, stopping to puke in any bathroom that was open... Yeah, those days are gone. These days, I can hardly pull myself off the couch and being upright makes me dizzy and nauseous. Food makes me sick, not eating makes me sick... It's a big party around here.

13. Have you had any "parking lot incidents" yet?
- Sadly, no. Confronting stupid people in parking lots is my favorite part about being pregnant. For me, pregnancy is like being drunk, although not nearly as fun. I have zero inhibitions and tend to tell people when they are being a moron without really thinking about it, or caring about the consequences and parking lots seem to be my place of choice to do that. This pregnancy though has zapped me of all of my energy and most of my whit. I'm not much fun. But I'll be sure to let you know if I have one! They are the best!

story time!

Once upon a time, there was this girl named Joanna and she married a dude named M. Well, his name wasn't really "M", but that is besides the point. Anyway, 14 months after they were married, their handsome son was born and 17 months after that, their beautiful daughter came along. Then M left for 15 months. When he came home, Joanna and M decided they wanted to add to their family. 6 weeks later, they found out that Joanna was pregnant. That next week, she went to the doctor and the doctor gave her some frustrating news: there was only a tiny sac, so small infact that he wasn't sure if it was a sac at all. She cried and prayed and anxiously awaited her next appointment.

A week later, M and Joanna packed up the kids and went back to the doctor's office for another ultrasound. And there it was, a beautiful sac, yoke sac and fetal pole. This was amazing news, considering the week before there wasn't much hope. And Joanna was happy and jokingly asked the doctor if there was just one in there. And he said yes. And then 3 seconds later he said, "No, there's 2." And Joanna said "What?" And he said, "There are 2." And she said "What?!" And he said, "There are 2, you are having twins." And she said "WHAT?!" (Well, actually she said something else, but since this is a G rated blog, for the most part, we will just paraphrase what she said.) And then the room started to spin, very fast.

Now Joanna is somewhere around 9 weeks pregnant with twins, sick as a dog and lazy as an old one too. Her pants don't fit, she can't stay awake and cries at the drop of a hat, but she wouldn't change it for the world. The tiny miracles will make their debut sometime this summer and M and Joanna cannot wait. It is going to be an amazing year, people.

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Hey, remember that time I said this about CB's first year?

"I have no idea how we survived. I really, really don't. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and that scares the crap out of me. I don't know what is in our future that we need to be stronger for."

Call me crazy, but I think this just might be the reason we needed to be stronger, and yes, it scares the crap out of me. There is nothing that can prepare you for the moment when you find out that you are carrying two precious lives in your uterus. It is really quite amazing how much your life can change in the course of one innocent ultrasound. Since I found out we are having twins, I have been having a constant conversation with God, praying that the babies are ok and that they both arrive healthy this summer. The shock has pretty much worn off and has started to turn to excitement, but I am still scared. So if you want to pray, meditate, send good vibes and energy or do whatever it is you do, you can do so with us in mind. So far, this pregnancy has been full of surprises and challenges and it is only the beginning.

shouldn't we have flying cars by now?

It is freaking 2009, people! Where are the flying cars and personal jet packs? I want a refund. This sucks! When I was in second grade, they made a big deal about us being the class of 2000 and every other week we would have to do some lame art or social studies project and imagine what life would be like in the year 2000. We all made pictures of Reeboks (with the strap-- you can sing it-- low low low low low low low) with rockets and flying cars... the Two Thousands were going to be like the Jetsons. And now here we are. No flying cars, no jet packs. We should at least have robots that do dishes!

In all seriousness, happy 2009!! Like most people, I am happy to leave 2008 behind. Not because of the "economic meltdown", Lord help me if I hear that term one more time, but because I was just ready for something new. Plus, two thousand nine is easier to say than two thousand eight. Eight is not a very sexy number.

Last year brought so many challenges, none of which we need to rehash, and wasn't exactly a fun year. The past 2 months have almost made up for the previous 10 sucking, thankfully. I am so blessed to have my children finally (somewhat) healthy and a wonderful extended family who supports us so much and great friends who I can call on at anytime and don't complain about it and who don't seem to mind if my average turn around time for an email or call back is 4 days.

Most of all, I am blessed to have a fantastic husband who will do anything for our family and who has treated me like a queen even when he is dead tired and needs a break. Since he has come home I haven't really been at my finest because of colds and the flu and eczema so bad that the pads of my fingers were splitting open. So he has taken over most of the household duties, forbidden me from doing the dishes because that seems to be what tears my hands up the most and has cared for the kids in the middle of the night so I can rest. He even went Christmas shopping for me and got me the little things I would never buy for myself, like a bar stool so I can sit my fat butt down when I cook, even though I was lame and only bought him one little stupid gift. Our children are blessed to have a father who will do nothing but read to them and play with them from the second he gets home to the time he gives them a bath and puts them in bed. They are also blessed to have a father that is much more patient than their mother is.

So thank you, honey, for doing what you do and working so hard. Who would have thought that after 54 months of marriage and about 38 months apart that we would be where we are today, and doing just fine. And thank you to those of you who have stuck with me for the past few years. I couldn't have made it through 2008 without you. I hope you will stick around for 2009 too. I can pretty much guarantee that it is going to be one heck of a year.