Babies are scary

I had my first ultrasound today. It was exciting. It was extra fun because they guys were there so they got to get a nice, early look at their babies.

Oh yeah, babies. As in two.

Ack! I won't even lie. The idea of carrying two human beings in my body sort of makes me want to vomit in terror. Or that might be the morning sickness talking.

It's a little scary. Exciting though.

And scary.

Two years ago today a pharmacist tried to wound me.
Four years ago today Joseph pretended to like sports.

Ten magical-ish years

Jesse,
Today is our ten year anniversary. The last decade has gone by so quickly. I remember our wedding day like it was yesterday.

Let's not let this anniversary go by without marking the occasion with something special. Here's what I have in mind.

After you get home from work let's go to Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick out a new bedspread for Joseph. Then let's head over to Menards to pick out a new light for his room and paint to match the new bedspread.

When we get home I'll throw my purse on the counter (almost knocking over the roses you sent me) and run into the bathroom to throw up. You'll eat some of the homemade salsa I made for you today.

After we get the kids put to bed I'll turn the lights down low and slip into something more comfortable. Maybe that tank top I bought from Old Navy that I wore once but then it stretched out so much that it became more of a see through tank dress than a tank top. Then I'll climb into bed and say what you've know I've been waiting to say all night.

"Sweetie? Can you bring me a piece of cake and then do my shots?"

After my shots are done and I've eaten my cake I'll fall asleep watching Golden Girls while sit on the couch and draft your fantasy football team. Later you'll come to bed and curl up with me but the peppers and onions from the homemade salsa will do their work and you'll pass gas. I'll yell at you and kick you out of bed. You'll go out and sleep on the couch until twenty minutes later when one or both of the kids wake us up by screaming about the fact that their blankets are crooked or some such crap.

Is it any wonder we've made it to ten years? We really know how to keep the magic alive.

Your loving pain in the ass wife,
Jen

One year ago today I was married for nine years.
Two years ago today the kids played with flashlights.
Three years ago today I named my living room.

40 inches

In a few week my parents will be taking Elle to Disney World. If this seems a little unfair just let me point out that when I was pregnant with Elle they took Joseph to Disney World and a year later to Disneyland. Now it's Elle's turn for an entire week devoted entirely to her pleasure. (She's going to be a monster when she gets back.)

A few days ago we made an exciting discovery. Elle is now tall enough to go on a lot of the "E ticket" rides. Big Thunder, Splash Mountain, Tower of Terror, Test Track, Soarin' and Dinosaur. She is so pumped.

All day long she asks me things like "Tell me all about Big Thunder!" and "Tell me all about Tow of Tear!" She has no fear. She knows some of the rides are scary but in her words "It's all about Mickey magic."

The other night we did the unheard of and skipped bedtime stories so that I could tell her all the details of the new rides she would be able to go on. With each ride I would describe she would have to add her part. "And when they measure me in the line I can tell them I am 40 inches for Big Thunder."

I stayed in her room way too late that night. I kept her up, rubbing her back and telling her every little detail I could think of about each of the rides. I don't know which of us enjoyed it more.

When she finally fell asleep she had a little smile on her face and she was muttering "40 inches, 40 inches..." under her breath.

I'm going to miss that baby so much when she's gone.

One year ago today I talked about death and manicures.
Four years ago today I was more boring than seems humanly possible.

Bad news, good news

The bad news:
I am bleeding.

The good news:
I'm not cramping.
I'm still having morning sickness.
The blood is not bright red.
I bled a little bit when I was pregnant with Little A and that turned out ok.

We'll see what happens. For now I'm just trying to take it super easy and not stress out. Easier said than done I'm afraid.

Four years ago today our car was broken into.

Growing up

Joseph is nine years old but sometimes I forget. I forget that he's not my baby any more.

He's still so small. He was the littlest one in his class last year. He's still wearing size 5/6 shorts. His giant beast of a little sister will probably be taller than him soon.

He's still so innocent. The other day he heard someone use the word "stupid" and he covered his mouth and looked at me with his gigantic brown eyes opened as wide as they could be. "That man just said the S word!"

He still acts like a little boy. When we cross a street or walk through a busy parking lot or through a crowd of people he reaches for my hand. He needs help tying his shoes and pouring a glass of milk and figuring out left from right.

He's not a baby any more though. This morning he told me that he didn't want to call me Mommy any more. From now on he wants to call me Mom.

Ouch. My heart.

I know most kids Joseph's age stopped using "Mommy" a long time ago. I should have been ready for this. I'm not though. If he stops calling me Mommy no one will ever call me that again. Elle calls me Mama so I'm only "Mommy" to Joseph. I'm not ready to give that up yet.

At least I know I'll still be trying his shoes till he's 27.

One year ago today I was proud of Joseph for eating ice cream and Elle made the mother of all mud pies.
Two years ago today Jesse proved he can't be trusted to feed the kids when I'm not around.

Forever sleep*

I am 5 weeks and 1 day pregnant today.

This is the part of pregnancy where I spend most of my time struggling to stay awake and not vomit.

I look like I have a case of the swine flu and my house looks like actual swine live in it.

I'm doing the best I can but oh my god, all I want to do is sleep and cry and vomit and eat buffalo wings and then start the whole thing all over again. It's pathetic.

I'm not even trying to complain. I signed up for this. I knew that for me the early weeks are wretched. I guess I just forgot how wretched. And I'm starting to think there's more than one baby in there causing havoc with my body. At least if that's the case I'll have some kind of explanation for why my body feels this wrung out.

I would like to explore this further but for now that cracker I just ate is looking like it wants to come back up. Ugh.

*Bonus points to anyone who knows where this is from.

Four years ago today we had a bug infestation and Joseph played me like a violin.

How did Ma Ingalls do it?

When we planted this year's garden we intended for it to be a learning experience. Sure, we wanted to get some food from it but the real point was to learn by doing. And we have learned a lot from from it. Some things we learned are:

Follow the recommendations on how far apart to plant things otherwise your garden just kind of grows together in one giant mass of plantyness.

There's no such thing as a helper rabbit. There's only bean and carrot eating rabbits.

It is possible for a stalk of corn to grow without producing a single ear of corn. Bastards.

If given half a chance, pumpkins, watermelon and zucchini will happily take over your entire garden.

Gardening is really time consuming.

I'm not even joking about that last one. I vastly underestimated how much work this garden was going to be. It's not the weeding and harvesting that has surprised me, I was expecting that stuff. What I didn't think about was how much time it would take to process all of the vegetables I harvest.

I pick stuff from the garden every day. I usually get a large bowl full of veggies. I sort through what will be eaten in the next day or two and then figure out how to deal with all the rest. Peppers are put into the dehydrator, carrots are cut into sticks for snacks, pickles are made (I have made several batches of pickles this year), tomatoes are made into sauce, beans and peas are blanched and frozen for eating during the winter. On Fridays there's even more to do because I am supplementing what I'm not growing by buying stuff from the farmer's market.

For the most part I really like the garden and the over-abundance of produce. Mostly. Unfortunately I've got a good case of what I like to call the first trimester blues. Come two o'clock every day I am so exhausted that I ache. Morning sickness has started so sometimes when I chop a tomato I think I could vomit from the pure sliminess of if. I'm a little bit of a wreck and the garden seems to be serving to highlight that.

When I'm really feeling worn out though I like to pretend that I'm a frontier woman. I imagine that all that's standing between my family and starvation over the long winter months is all my hard work in the garden. Sometimes when I'm bent over the beans and my back is aching and all I want to do is go inside and lay down and watch Golden Girls I think to myself "No! I must harvest all these beans so that the children don't get scurvy this winter!" Never mind that beans don't prevent scurvy. It's my fantasy and I can grow scurvy beans if I want to. It works for me ok?

In spite of everything I think we're going to expand the garden next year. We'll lay it out better and hopefully with will be even more productive than this years. And hopefully I'll be smart enough to not be pregnant right during harvest time.

Sometimes I like to be wrong

For those of you who commented on yesterday's post suggesting I pee on a stick are a little late. I've peed on many sticks already. Many, many, many sticks. But we'll talk about my adventures in the woods another time.

For now let's answer the burning question you've come here to have answered. Am I pregnant? Well, if you didn't pick it up from yesterday's post and you don't follow me on facebook (for shame!) then you don't know the big news.

Yes, I am pregnant.

What a happy surprise. I honestly thought this batch of embryos was no good and that this transfer was not going to work. Way to be a positive thinker Jen. Good thing my sour attitude towards this was not the determining factor.

They guys are happy and excited. I'm happy and excited for them. I had told them a few days ago that I had gotten a positive pregnancy test but they were waiting for the official blood test results before they got too excited. Now they can celebrate for real.

As for me? Now I can breath a sigh for relief and wait for the answer to the next big question. How many of the little buggers are in there?

What ever could it be?

So what's going on with me?

Not much.

My boobs are huge and sore.

I get indigestion every time I eat.

I am tired.

I just can't figure out what's going on with me.

No idea at all.

Four years ago today Joseph called me a sucker.

"Woof" means "I wish the ground would swallow me up right now."

"Hey!" he shouted.

The second it was out of his mouth I knew what was coming. I froze. There was no way to stop it. My boy is an unstoppable force who has yet to meet his immovable object.

*************

It all started so innocently.

Joseph, Elle and I were in the garden picking beans. We saw that one of the neighbors who's backyard butts up against ours was building something shed-like in the corner of their yard.

"Maybe it's a tool shed." Joseph guessed.

"Maybe it's a mansion for Brutus." I suggested. Brutus is the neighbor's dog. He's about 6 inches tall.

As we headed inside the kids giggled at the idea of Brutus having his very own mansion. It quickly became The Funniest Joke Ever and I had to tell it over and over again. When they got tired of that I had to embellish the story.

What would they eat in the mansion? Pupperoni pizza. What would they call the mansion? The Puppy Party Palace. Would they have a butler? Yes, a penguin who knew how to work a pooper scooper.

Joseph seemed to start to think the dog mansion was real. "I wish I could go to the Puppy Party Palace but I'm allergic and I think they only let dogs in."

"Don't worry Joseph" I said. "I'll dress up as a dog and sneak in and let you know what it's like."

Later Joseph and I headed back out to the garden to do some weeding. Our neighbor and his friends were still hard at work on the shed. Joseph watched them work.

I was bent over a particularly weedy patch of carrots when out of the corner of my eye I saw Joseph wander over to the fence that encloses the neighbors yard.

"Hey!" he yelled.

And I froze. There was nothing else I could do.

"My mom wants to dress up like a dog and come over to play with you guys!"

I think I'm done working in my garden for the summer.

Two years ago today I went to the ER and then on bedrest.
Four years ago today Joseph was adorable.