Uggh!

Can I tell you? I SOOOOOOO don't want to be a whiny pregnant woman. I'm so grateful to be pregnant with twins and that they're very healthy. I'm also SOOOO very pleased that I'll finally have a little girl to put in pigtails and ruffles and pretty pink ribbons. And I'm extremely grateful that the twin venture is not going to be nearly as costly because one of them is a little boy who can wear the barely worn hand-me-downs of his two year old brother. I'm grateful to have a wonderful husband, a lovely home, my health and that of my family, and two wonderful big boys who are excited to be getting new siblings.

BUT... The end of a twin pregnancy sucks! Granted I'm one of the fortunate few who has not been forced into bedrest (allelujah!), but it's nearly impossible to breathe and walk at the same time. AND acid reflux is constant EVEN when I take the Zantac (or whatever the hell that anti-reflux pill is called). It is freaking impossible to ever sit down or lay down comfortably no matter how many pillows I employ. My back hurts CONSTANTLY. And I'm so sick of caring whether or not anyone around her has clean clothes, clean dishes, healthy meals to eat, a ride to school or really almost anything else. Granted, hubby would pitch in and do it all, so it's not as if it's his fault I'm bitching. But he also works a 75 hour week (not counting his 30 minute commute each way) and I cannot in good concience leave him to do everything. Also, don't know if I've mentioned it, but I'm a perfectionist and anything hubby or the twelve year old do is not good enough for me so I'd rather do it myself.

Can I tell you that I've never been overly fond of Walmart, but hate it even more now because it's the only reasonably close (meaning less than 45 minutes) store to us and it's a Super Walmart so that I have to walk a country mile just to get a couple of grocery items or a spool of thread. I'm slightly miserable today. Physically. I woke up with a back ache and NOTHING is helping. I love my two year old, but today he is exhausting me. I know it will soon get better -in fact we have only 7 weeks to go from today.

So I'm really not looking for sympathy. I'm just taking this opportunity to bitch, because I'm trying to avoid making my family miserable.

What's making you miserable (or at the very least peeved) lately?

3-D Ultrasound Images of our Twins

Hmmmmm.... not sure how well this will show up. It's supposed to be a view of the 3-D ultrasound of our boy/girl twins. They're due in 8 weeks. I may end up removing the post. I had so much trouble with blogger failing to upload the previous two pics that I tried a whole different tack and this isn't looking too good. Let me know if it's worth looking at or maybe I should remove it.

Lazy Blogger Am I

So several times this week I sat down to make a post and simply couldn't get down to it for one reason or another. It wasn't a terribly exciting week, but it did have some notable and bloggable moments.

For one thing, Wednesday was my 28 weeks check-up at the OB/GYN. Only 9 weeks to go. And my little girl twin looked right at the camera/transponder/whatever, so we got a beautiful picture of her face. You can see her eyes, nose, mouth fairly clearly. I was amazed at how well it showed up for a 2-D ultrasound. Doc says they're both heads down. Baby Girl (aka baby A) is 2 lbs 11 oz. already and Baby Boy (aka baby B) is 2 lbs 7 oz already -a little on the large side for even a singleton birth. Since my other two boys were 8 lbs (three days late) and 7, 12 (two weeks early because Doc thought he'd be a 10 pounder otherwise), I'm really not surprised. Guess I have a great big wide a** for a reason. Baby making hips. The only problem is, when you're not making babies, these wide hips are the bane of my existence. I'd look great in any outfit, if only I had a removable caboose.

Thursday was hubby's birthday. I had taken him out for lunch on Sunday after church, but still wanted to make his actual birthday special, so I spent the day making him an extra special birthday cake -Buttermilk cake, orange custard filling, and white chocolate sour cream frosting. First time using any of those recipes (courtesy of Joy of Cooking, 76th Anniversary Edition), and it was all quite quick and easy. It always helps if you put out your baking ingredients a couple hours ahead so that they reach room temp. For dinner I made him Penne Alfredo w/ Shrimp and 9 grain garlic toasts. I was just glad I had the energy to make the effort. Cooking is a real passion for me, but since I've been twin-preggers, I can barely get through a cooking session without utter exhaustion. It helped that I did the cake in stages -the custard the night before so there'd be plenty of time to cool. Mixed up the cake and sat while it baked a half hour and again sat while it cooled. I made the icing last and that was amazingly easy. I wasn't thrilled with the icing -I wouldn't have thought that sour cream tang would break through the richness of the white chocolate quite so sharply, but maybe it's me. I am my own worst food critic. Hubby loved it. I was really knocked out when he went back for seconds. Even the picky 6monthsawayfrom teendom 12 year old liked it. The cake was tender and light and the custard had a very delicate orange flavor and lovely creamy texture.

Friday, yesterday, I spent helping out my friend with her college English Literature and Composition homework. I've gotta say I enjoyed it, though meeting all of Prof's demands was mildly annoying. It's not easy to put something together to the teacher's expectations when you've not sat through the class. The paper related to Midsummer Night's Dream by Willy Shakespeare. Comparing and contrasting the female characters and their perceptions of love and noting the effect of Athens' Law on their pursuits of love and happiness. I've got to say that Hippolyta was quite a pain in the rear to evaluate, as she barely speaks throughout the play and most of her lines are not only brief, but mildly elusive. As part of the class requirement, they'd also seen the 90s film w/ Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline, so my friend took much of her inspiration about Hippolyta from this. I wasn't as comfortable with that, since I'd never seen the film and wasn't sure of the teacher's expectations with regards to the performance.

After we separated for Comadre to go home and finish her paper, I was blessed with a dead battery. We'd been working at my house and I had to leave to wait in line to pick up my middle school child, so she followed me and sat in my car and worked on her paper there 'til it was time for the gates to open. When she left, I turned the key in my ignition and got a hearty racket of clicking. I'd known my friend's door was ajar, but hadn't realized that could so thoroughly drain the battery, though I had also forgotten and left on my exterior lights (it was trying to rain almost all day yesterday).

Today, I have made myself quite a honey-do list -except instead of honey doing it, it's all tasks for me. Tomorrow is my baby shower and I want to bring some awesome cookies (they're jamming it tea party style LOL) and I always bake some kind of pastry, donuts, pound cake, coffee cake, etc. for our Sunday-morning-lazy-coffee-in-front-of-the-Today-show-before-we-drag-our-sorry-butts-to-church. I have a recipe for "Special Sour Cream Coffee Cake" that uses pecans and cinnamon and I LOVE pecans and cinnamon so I'll have to get on that. I'm thinking maybe two kinds of cookies for the shower, but I don't know if my energy will hold out -nor my supply of pecans and chocochips, etc. I know I haven't enough pecans for my Lethal Layers (from Diane Mott Davidson's Goldy series) as well as the coffee cake, so that's out. Guess I'll be recipezaaring it this morning. Have a lovely weekend. I'll have to update you on the shower when it occurs.