Because the Beloved Leader tells me to

On the way home from school the other day Joseph drops this little gem on me. "Today I told my teacher that you're pregnant with twins. She said that was neat. Then I told you that you're an obedient mother and that you give the babies away to other people."

Now I'm afraid she thinks I'm in a cult.

Two years ago today Elle was the easy child. Ahahahahahahaha!

The babies

On Monday my IF's (hereby known as A and D) flew into town so that they could come to my ultrasound. They came bearing gifts for the kids. My kids that is, not theirs. I don't even want to the about the logistics that would be involved with giving their children gifts right now. For Joseph they brought a Lego Empire State building, a gift that perfectly combines Joseph's loves of Legos and all things New York. For Elle they brought a stuffed dog that barks, perfectly combining her love of stuffed animals and all things that are annoying after you listen to them for 14 seconds. The kids are smitten.

On Tuesday morning the guys and I went to the clinic or the ultrasound. As soon as the ultrasound started we could see Baby B bouncing and wiggling around. Then Baby B took a rest while Baby A kicked it's legs and waved it's arms. It looked like it was tap dancing. Then we saw Baby B put it's arm up over it's face. I suspect that Baby B is a girl and she had gotten a hold of a copy of Fetal Cosmo where she had read that a good way to distract people from the fact that your head is as big as the rest of your entire body is to prominently display your arm bud.

If I was a super hero I would be the Golden Uterus. In spite of all the weight I've lost the babies look good and are measuring a little ahead of their actual age. Now that they're each nearly two inches long I'm no longer ashamed to admit that I've switched to maternity pants. Not that I was ever ashamed to admit it I guess but now when I tell people that I get fewer odd looks.

So that's that. The babies look good, we had a nice visit with A and D and I'm getting fat again. Not a bad update.

Three years ago today I broke my elbow. Sort of.

It almost makes sense if you think about it really hard

You know that part in the song Man in the Mirror where Michael Jackson sings "And no message could have been any clearer"?

Until really recently (three days ago) I thought he was saying "And no mustache could have been any clipper".

When that song came out and it was really popular I would sing along with it every time I heard it. How many people have seen me throw my head back and sing with all the emotion in the world that "no mustache could have been any clipper"?

Two years ago today I talked about some of my best google hits ever.
Four years ago today I had a headache and Joseph had a cleaning fetish.

At least I can still enjoy glee club style medleys

Everything I love has fallen into a state of neglect. My kids, my husband, my house, my garden, my blog. I just don't have the energy to do much more than lay around and try to work up the energy to get something to eat. When I try to eat I find that 95% of the time the sight and smell of food makes me sick and I have to go lay back down.

In the past several weeks I've lost 13 pounds and yet my pants are starting to get tight. My conclusion? The babies are growing while I continue to shrink. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone would look at me and think "Oh my god! That girl needs to eat!" because I'm still fairly ... curvy. Losing weight when you're pregnant with twins though? Not a good idea. Not good for me and not good for the babies.

It's gotten to the point where people are bringing me food. My friend brought me the makings for buffalo chicken sandwiches. One of my aunts brought me a bunch of stuff for making dinners with. If I express the slightest interest in a certain food Jesse runs out and gets it. I think if I asked someone to peel me a grape they probably would. I would never do that though because the idea of eating a slimy peeled grape makes me want to gag.

I'm just so worn out and I want someone to promise me that it will pass. I want to know that someday I will have enough energy to do more than just lay on the couch, eating saltines and watching Golden Girls reruns. It will get better right? Right?

To make up for this horrible whining entry here's a neat video. You might enjoy it if you can get past this guy's horrible, crotch-cupping jeans.

This video makes me want to learn to beatbox. That would be a sight.

This is why my heart is on the floor

I choke up once or twice as I drive her to her first day of preschool. I glance back at her and her eyes are bright and happy. She chatters on, telling me all the things she's going to do at school.

Clutched to her chest is a new backpack. It strikes me that the backpack is half her size.

She seems so small.

When we get to the school she puts her backpack in her locker. I try to wrap my brain around the fact that my baby has a locker.

In the classroom she is nearly vibrating with excitement as we check her in. I try to take her hand to show her (just one more time) where the bathrooms are but she pulls away from me and makes for the play kitchen area.

My little buddy, my constant companion, my shadow.

I watch her from across the room as she plays with the other kids. She seems so grown up. She's a head taller than most of the kids in the class. I smile as I look at her impossibly long legs topped off by her little round bottom.

Her jeans are slipping down and I want to go over and pull them up. Obviously she's too young for this. She still needs me to be with her all the time.

She turns and sees me standing there. She smiles and says "Mama? Can you go now so I can be at school all by myself?"

This is why my heart is on the floor.

One year ago today I got political.
Two years ago today I struggled with medicating Joseph.

Because I'm too tired to argue

I was going to write a big long post about how moronic I find it that people are actually planning on keeping their kids home on September 8th so that they are not exposed to President Obama telling them to (gasp!) do well in school and (oh no!) try their best but then I found myself so befuddled by the whole thing that I became unable to compose my thoughts or write a sentence that was less than four lines long.

So instead I'm going to tell you the thing I saw this morning that made me laugh and laugh.

I was checking my blog stats and I came across a search done last night for the phrase "is it a problem to ask a girl for a picture of her feces?"

Then, not an hour later, from the exact same ISP - "how to apologize to a girl for a problem you caused".

I have to go now. The kids are watching an episode of Word Girl that I think is trying to brainwash them into becoming socialists.

Two years ago today I wasn't ready for first grade.
Three years ago today Joseph had fantastic manners.

Prairie dogs are good for the soul

When I found out I was pregnant with twins I immediately turned to the the most trusted source for information guaranteed to scare the crap out of you. Google. I googled everything. Rates of c-sections with twins, weight gain with twins, risk of gestational diabetes with twins, morning sickness and twins, how to fit through the door when pregnant with twins, patterns for easy and attractive maternity wear made from circus tents. And on and on and on.

It occurred to me that I was going to make myself crazy if I didn't take a little break from Dr Google. Luckily we had a family trip to South Dakota. What a coincidence. (Sorry I didn't mention it earlier. I am a bit of a worrier and I didn't want any robbers to google "bloggers who are on vacation" and come across me.)

So for the past week I've been driving back and forth across South Dakota with my family. For that entire time the only moments we were more than an arms length away from each other was when the kids would run away from us at various national monuments. This happened a lot. At first we were pretty uptight about it ("No you guys! Hold our hands the entire time!") but over time we relaxed ("You guys, put on your shoes before you go running over to the edge of that cliff. Or don't. Whatever.")

Being that close to my family for a week was interesting. I am a person who needs her personal space, especially when I'm pregnant. Luckily my family is pretty awesome and we managed to have a great time in spite of my occasional desire to run screaming into the Black Hills. Luckily South Dakota has a lot of prairie dogs and I find them very soothing. Just watching them relaxes me.

Since I'm dealing with a lovely case of morning sickness I got a prescription of Zofran to help with the puking during the trip. It did it's job and it only had the barely noticeable side effect of making me unable to poop for eight days.* Every so often I would feel movement in my abdomen and I would think "The babies are kicking me!" but then I would remember I am only about 8 seconds pregnant and what I most likely was feeling was my intestines slowly and gently bursting.

So all in all it was an awesome trip. I'll share some pictures later (because I know you're on the edge of your seat) but don't look for any pictures of me because of all the pictures that were taken on the trip there is not a single one of me. That's sort of depressing.

One quick story. At one point we were driving through a herd of wild donkeys and Joseph yelled "Hey! Look at all the jackasses!"** Ok, maybe that's only funny to me. Actually, maybe it's not not even funny to me. I kind of get annoyed when people think it's cute when kids swear. On the other hand it was kind of cute because he didn't know it was a swear word, he just read it in a book and thought it was the right word to use. On the other hand maybe I've spent way too much time talking about this.

And one more thing. While we were gone my parents re-did Joseph's room. They repainted it and added custom build bookshelves and a desk and it's the most awesome room ever. And my mom cleaned my house from top to bottom. Coming home to that was pretty sweet.

And one more thing. Elle drew a picture of a buffalo that kind of looked like a cave drawing and it was so cute it made me cry. Now I have to go and google "twin pregnancy and stupid emotional reactions".

*I'm not exaggerating.
**This is my reaction when I watch Fox News.

One year ago today Joseph was in the hospital and he peed in my mouth.
Four years ago today I had stretch marks.