Catch up time

Soooo... I haven't been around here much for a few weeks.

Been slightly bummed and majorly uncomfortable. Nearly three weeks ago I woke up in pre-term labor. For those who may not be aware or have perhaps forgotten, I'm carrying twins. 1 rambunctious boy just over my diaphragm making breathing a full body workout and 1 sweet little girl smashing the pee out of me just about my bladder.

I went to the hospital and was monitored to make sure it was true labor. It was. They forced liquids into me by spending four nurses and a little more than an hour trying to get a vein (mine are tiny and quite deep) for the IV and gave me procardia (to slow/stop the contractions) and a steroid shot (to hasten fetal lung development). After the second dose of procardia my contractions finally slowed to where they were willing to release me, but I was placed on bedrest. Did I mention I'm a control freak? Well, this has been a gigantic adjustment for me. I normally do everything myself because no one else does it my way. Now I'm allowed to do almost nothing.

We've been blessed in that a group of 5 or six ladies from church have been taking turns coming in to help with our toddler during the day and they've been bringing casseroles or fixing something in the crockpot everyday so that poor hubby doesn't have to figure out dinner at the end of a 15 hour day. My 12 1/2 year old has been responsible for dishes and floors. My husband feeds our toddler, serves and cleans up dinner, bathes the toddler and wipes down counters, tables, etc. He also now has to pack his own lunches, do the shopping, do the laundry, fix his own coffee and wait on me to a certain extent. I think I have the hardest job because I'm the one who has to sit back and bite her tongue while they do everything as if they've never even seen anyone do household chores before. Okay, maybe not, but you'd really have to know me to know how crazy I'm getting over the mess of this house.

I"m really relieved that the twins are staying inside me a little longer. I've actually even been able to stop taking the procardia since last Saturday because I haven't had any more contractions. BUT I am extremely uncomfortable. Both babies are around the 6 pound mark. Their every move HURTS. They've both "dropped" so that they're crushing my intestines which makes bathroom trips real interesting. I can barely sleep for discomfort. But I'd still half way like them to hang out until the 36th or 37th week. Just for the added assurance of their health being more perfect. On the other hand? A tiny part of me is LUSTING after the day when they are finally out.

Also, I'm SOOOOOO Bored with staying at home. There are so many things I'd like to be doing. But then again, I couldn't handle them even if the doctor allowed it because I'm in bodily misery. Other than doctor's visits I haven't been anywhere in ages. I'm glad my babies are staying healthy and safe. I'm super grateful for that. But I wish I could I-Dream-of-Jeannie my way a couple of weeks ahead.

Entertain me. PLEASE. Tell me funny and embarrassing NOT SCARY pregnancy and child birth stories. They don't even have to be your own. I'd be happy to hear your sister-in-law's or your neighbor's nieces' best friend's story. Just give me something funny please.

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.

Do you get frustrated with friends?

I have this friend. She's sort of my best friend. I can't say she's my best friend because she kind of ties for that position with another friend that I've known since forever, but she is a VERY close friend.

This friend of mine is a doormat for her entire rather large extended family. She is one of 7 adult children, the youngest of whom is nearly 40. She has her own little family that includes her two girls and her hubby. She is the ONLY person in that entire family who does anything for anyone. As a matter of fact, she does EVERYthing for EVERYone. And none of them are ever willing to help her with anything. And she gets annoyed with them and stressed out, but still won't say no to them.

In the meantime, I can see the negative effect it has on her girls and her husband. A little over two years ago, her sister took it upon herself to move herself in, along with her newborn twins and her deadbeat abusive boyfriend. Since the day they were born, the twins have become my friend's full-time job. No kidding. Even when the sister is there, she (the sister) does practically nothing -this laziness extends from actually caring for the babies she so desperately wanted, to housework, cooking, laundry, etc. Not only that, but she has never paid a dime toward rent, food, babysitting, utilities, the several loans my friend and her husband have taken out to get her a used car, storage shed, etc. The deadbeat boyfriend eventually moved out, but he never paid either -not even child support. Whenever my friend's sister got her hands on any money, she used it for a membership at Curves (not diapers and milk, but something for herself) or diet pills. She continually takes off in my friends truck and returns hours and hours later with no explanation of where she's been, no phone call, and an empty gas tank. AND? She doesn't even mention the empty tank, so my friend has actually run out of gas on the way to pick her own children up from school. My friend and her husband have used up their girls' college fund, are behind on all of their payments -including house and car and OBVIOUSLY, her husband is very frustrated. The sister runs the house -she tells them where they can park in their yard (actually stepped out into the yard the other day to tell the husband that he was parked in HER spot), what television programs they can watch, and screams at my friend's daughters and husband all of the time. The sister has been working for months and has yet to pay a dime toward ANY of the expenses.

The girls -my friends daughters, who are also my goddaughters, are depressed -anyone can see it. The youngest has taken to reverting to baby-like behavior, the oldest is sullen and withdrawn and I know it's because Mom has no time for them. Meanwhile, they're in debt, the house needs multiple repairs that fall into the DIY category, but none of my friend's family is willing to help her husband accomplish the jobs.

On top of all of that, she's the only person in her family (eventhough her two brothers LIVE WITH her parents) that can repair things at her mother's, program the cable box, hook up TVs, put together armoires, chauffeur, her parents and brother to and from doctor's appointments, and break up fights between her parents (sometimes physical fights).

And I get frustrated when my friend cannot take 15 minutes to talk to me on the phone because she's feeding the twins -at 6PM, when their mother is home (or should be) doing nothing productive.

I have talked to my friend on a limited basis, but it doesn't seem to get through to her. She's doing serious damage to her children and her marriage. I don't want to be too pushy about it, because I'd hate to lose a friend, but I just don't understand why she won't help herself.

Does anyone else have experience with a friend like this? Any suggestions?

Am I screwing up already?

I've only just recently returned to blogging and am only a few posts in, but I've already missed several days. I really want to be committed to this thing. I think it'll help me to feel a little more connected to the world once the twins get here and I'm trapped in this house with cabin fever, crying babies, wild hair, and a messy house.

But here's the thing, sometimes I'm either too tired or too overwhelmed by lists of things that need doing and OTHER TIMES I just don't feel like I have anything interesting to say. The comments are great, but I even think it's a little sad how much I look forward to the feedback, but I guess it's human to want that connection.

So my weekend? Not that exciting, but good. I had a bit of a rough day on Saturday. I'm just far enough into twin pregnancy-dom that there can be some awfully uncomfortable times. Saturday was like that. I was having a problem with gas (ugh, I hate even admitting that I could possibly have gas! LOL) trapped in my tummy, on top of that I was constipated (another lovely 3rd trimester trick nature pulls on some of us) and twin babies were squishing all of my internal organs while Braxton Hicks contractions intermittitently squeezed whatever the babies hadn't already pulverized. I was not a happy camper. Soaked in the tub, that didn't help. Tried to lay down -way too uncomfortable. I couldn't even sleep right for most of the night. Fortunately, by dawn's early light I finally began to feel normal. Unfortunately, I was exhausted and the alarm was ringing for me to drag my sorry butt to church.

Sunday was a whole bunch better. After church we did a very tiny grocery shopping trip, took hubby for a birthday lunch (robbed Peter to pay Paul for that one), and then came home, popped corn, and watched a DVD with the kids. I think one of my favorite things about that day was that hubby didn't spend most of it working on little projects. It seems like we rarely get to just sit a veg. And with Danny and Amy soon to make us a family of SIX, we probably won't have many more days like that for quite some time.

So, what'd you do with your weekend.

Long time no see?

So I needed to skip a couple of days over here. For one thing I was kind of tied up with lifes little necessities, and then yesterday was just really one hell of an upheaval that I'd rather not get into right now. Suffice it to say that my family is well, the twins are fine, and I am physically fine -even if I could use a little mental tune-up.

So I had a very nice lunch with a friend here at my house this afternoon and I really enjoyed it. I feel so relaxed and happy. I even skipped my nap today and still felt rested. That was a nice feeling. I rarely relax and with the twins fighting for space, I rarely feel rested.

My poor little guy is irritable w/ a runny nose and I'm just praying he's not getting sick. This crazy Florida weather, 80 one day, 50 the next.

I'm excited about the refund checks that should be coming in the mail in June. I wish they'd be a little bigger. I do know that our household economy definitely needs some stimulation. I'm not sure what that will do for our budget deficit, but what can ya do, eh? After 7 years with this buffoon in office, it's going to take this country a long time to recover.

AND? I so do not want ANY of these "candidates" to rule my country in the near future. I don't really feel as if I have a clear choice. Each of them, no matter the party, has an offensive stance (to me at least) on some major issue that's a deal breaker for me. I've gotta get to the polls any day now and it's not an exciting prospect.