Short and Not-So-Sweet.

Yes, I am still pregnant. Apparently my cervix is made of steel. Not a bad thing when trying to stay pregnant, but I'm not doing that anymore. So now it sucks. If it's still closed when I go the doctor this week I might cry.

If you want to know what being 37 weeks pregnant with twins feels like, just imagine your stomach muscles being pulled as far forward as possible. So far forward in fact that your back muscles are tender to the touch. Add in frequent and painful contractions and you get one happy mama. Ha!

Thankfully, our steady stream of helpers are keeping the kiddo occupied and the house clean.

The end.

A day late and a dollar short

It just occurred to me that I forgot to post my 35 week picture last week. The belly is still growing rapidly. Yesterday I officially hit 36 weeks, which is the average length of a twin pregnancy. Once I get around to putting some real clothes on I'll take a 36 week picture and post it. Even though I'm completely miserable, I still want to hold out another 6 days or so til I hit 37 weeks. It's been my goal all along to reach 37 weeks so that my babies have the best chance possible of being big and strong and good eaters. Say some prayers for us!

"In the event of a hurricane, do NOT proceed to Labor & Delivery unless you are in labor."

Clearly, this statement needed to be written, or I'm sure my OB practice wouldn't have included it in their OB patient info book.

  I remember reading this page when I received the book back at the beginning of my pregnancy and laughing.  It went on to say that the unit gets too crowded with people who do not need to be there and runs out of room for those who do.  It then goes on to say that if you are not in labor and do not have a current medical complication with your pregnancy, you will be asked to leave and not given a bed.  Hil.ar.i.ous.  I guess I'm picturing people with little 30 week bellies running to L&D in the event of a hurricane, just because they're pregnant.  It's laughable really.  You can almost liken it to patients I've had in the past coming in because they have a cold or threw up once.  You just want to say to them, "You are pregnant.  It is not a disease.  There is no reason to be in L&D in the middle of the night.  In fact, I can do even less for you because you are pregnant.  Now go home and call your doctor in the morning ... if you can manage to live that long."

Don't get me wrong, with hurricane Irene giving us the side-eye, it's definitely a little nerve-wracking to be this pregnant (especially with twins) and to wonder if in fact all that barometric pressure hub-bub is actually true.  I definitely wouldn't want to deliver twins at home by myself if I couldn't get to the hospital.  But trust me, you won't see me camping out in the waiting room waiting to go into labor any time soon.  I don't think I could stand to be around anxious families for that long.  In fact, I think I might opt for that home birth instead!

Flutters.

There aren't many things I'll miss about being pregnant.  In fact, there's really only one. 

I've been laying in bed for almost an hour and a half.  Everyone else is sound asleep, but not me.  And tonight its not because of restless legs or contractions or ligament pain.  It's because of the flurry of activity going on in my belly.  Am I exhausted?  Yes.  Would I kill for some sleep right now?  Of course.  But I'm not upset about losing sleep tonight.  Instead, I'm savoring this feeling and tucking it away in my memory bank.

Feeling your child(ren) move inside you is an amazing feeling - a privilege I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to experience.  From the very first flutters, I've felt a special bond with these boys, just like I did with Brennan.  I'm their mom and I'd give up my life for them.  And those little flutters remind me of that every day, just like Brennan's hugs and kisses do now.  It's something no one else will ever experience with them.  The selfish part of me loves that fact and I don't feel guilty because I've given up my body for them, and will continue to do so.

So I'll take this lack of sleep and enjoy my boys tonight, because I know its just a matter of time before they'll be on the outside and I'll have to share them with the rest of the world.

Baby Barracuda

There are few things in this world that make my child's head spin like telling him he's going to go swimming.  He drops what he's doing and sprints around the house screaming, "waaaa waaaaa!!  Simmmm!!  Poooooo!!!"  (Water, swim, pool!) 

So in July we started Parent/Child swim classes, cleverly titled Baby Barracuda class, which involves kids ages 6 months to 3 years getting "acquainted" with the water (read: dunked and then sang songs to in order to calm down).  It's loud, chaotic, there are never less than 2 kids screaming, but we have a blast. 

Brennan and I used to go twice a week because A.) It was a way for him to burn energy that I could still keep up with him and B.) The glorious feeling of weightlessness while in the pool is indescribable when carrying around 2 extra bodies (not to mention a toddler.  Sidenote:  It blows my mind a bit that this is probably the only time in life I'll ever be able to carry all 3 of my munchkins at once.  Insane.  But, I digress...)

July was heavenly for me, but our little barracuda is a bit insane in the water and I doubt his brothers enjoy kicks to the head from the outside when they already have to deal with cranial blows from each other.  So it's Daddy's turn to tame the wild water beast.  The Saturday class consists of 7 little boys and one girl.  It's wild and crazy and so much fun to watch my boys swim (and especially entertaining to watch my husband try to sing along with the nursery rhymes he for some reason never learned ... our kids get Billy, Bruce, and Bob instead of the Itsy Bitsy Spider ... again with the digression). 

But as cute as it is, I miss being in that water and day dreaming that I weigh 120 pounds and do not have an abdomen that rivals my late grandfathers beer belly.  If these boys aren't out next Saturday, mama's parking herself in the corner of the pool to watch the madness occur!

Fluff

You may or may not know that we started using cloth diapers a few months ago. It first peaked my interest last fall, but we all know how chaotic life was then, so it fell by the wayside. Fast forward to January during my last visit with my dear friend Janelle before our move. She had mentioned her plans to CD (cloth diaper) her new baby and during this visit took the time to show me her stash and explain some things about it. I was intrigued. But again, with the chaos of moving and then finding out I was preggo and beginning to puke my brains out, it got put on the back burner.

Once I was a few weeks into my 2nd trimester and was starting to feel a bit better, we started to really discuss the logistics of having twins. The fact that we would soon have THREE kids in diapers sounded expensive. When I sat down to do the math, I realized that it didn't just sound expensive, it was DEFINITELY going to cost us a pretty penny. Depending on the kind of diapers you buy, the average amount spent to diaper a baby from birth through potty training is right around $2500. And Brennan wasn't able to wear anything but Pampers without getting a nasty rash, so even with coupons, it was expensive to keep his butt dry. Depending on what kind of CD you choose to use, you can spend anywhere between $200 and $1000 on a stash for one baby, washing diapers every other day. So even if I chose the most expensive kind and bought enough to wash every other day (for 3 boys) I'm still saving a nice chunk of change. And for those of you wondering about the water bill? Washing every other day, we've barely noticed an increase in the bill. We're expecting about a $10 bump per month once the twins are born. Laundry soap? You can choose to use pricey CD soap or regular laundry soap. Either way, you use a very small amount because it can cause build up on the diapers and cause them to not work effectively. Again, we haven't noticed that we're spending more on detergent at all.

By this time, Janelle had given birth to her sweet little bundle and was enjoying wrapping her little bum in cloth everyday. She shared lots of info with me, which was a major help to kick off my research into the world of CDs. I read everything I could, did tons of research, joined a CD group in Facebook through a friend, and decided it was time to jump in.

I bought a few different kinds of diapers and began experimenting. I'll admit, it did take a few weeks to get into a good routine for laundry and just navigating the in's and out's of CDing. But all in all, it was really easy. Diaper laundry really takes minimal time. With one kid in CDs, I do diaper laundry about every 1.5-2 days. And it's the easiest laundry EVER. Because there's no sorting or folding. It's by far my favorite load of laundry to do! And no, I'm not up to my elbows in poop, nor do I come into contact with it any more than I did when he was in disposables. Nor does the poop get into the washing machine. You simply dump it out of the diaper into the toilet and rinse with a diaper sprayer if you so desire. Or you use biodegradable, flushable liners so that the poop doesn't even touch the diaper. Easy peasy.

And the real beauty? I haven't had to shell out any money to buy diapers in MONTHS. It's awesome. Not to mention the fact that I'm not filling landfills with plastic and chemicals. That's just an added bonus! (Please know that I'm not judging anyone who chooses to use disposables. Heck, I used them for the first 20 months of his life! And it's everyone's own personal choice what to put on their kiddo's bum. I'm just pointing out the truth - they sit in landfills and will still be sitting there when our kids are diapering their kids. Sad :( I'd be lying if I said that that was the primary reason for switching. It's not - it was totally a money thing. But doing my part to save the planet feels very very good.)

I really just scratched the surface of this topic, but I feel like going through all of the details in one post would make for a realllllllllllllly long and boring read. So I'll post more about the details (the downfalls, different types of diapers, etc) later. If you have questions, feel free to comment and I can try to answer them in one of my next posts!

Please excuse me while I rant like a crazy woman.

I have a complaint. It's not that I don't like facebook. I do. I sometimes feel like it's my link to the outside world when I'm stuck at home with a huge belly and a crazy toddler. But I think that people abuse it.

Some people choose to post every detail of their lives on facebook. Others choose not to. Either is fine and it's obviously a personal preference. However the lines blur when those who post everything on fb decide to post details about other people's lives on either their own fb wall or the other person's wall. Quite frankly, this drives me bat.shit.crazy.

Now, I realize that it may come off as bitchy and that people generally have very good intentions and are just excited about good news. But I can't help but wonder if these people can't stop themselves for a split second, get a hold of their excitement, and think about the people they are posting about. Maybe they don't want this news on fb yet because they'd like to make the announcement themselves. Just because you heard it through the grapevine, doesn't mean it's necessarily "facebook public" yet. Or maybe these people don't want it on facebook at all. Ever think of that?!

I say this because a very close friend just had a her first little bundle of joy. She didn't want people to know she was going in to be induced and told a VERY select few of us, who she knew could keep our mouths shut. So today she had the baby and one of her relatives posted it on fb. Now, this relative is SUPER sweet and I'm sure was just excited. But I felt the need to say (first, congrats!) "are you sure they're ok with you posting this on fb? don't want you getting in trouble!". Apparently they were either not OK with it yet or she thought twice about it because the post was removed within 10 mins of making it. This however did not stop the other person who commented on the post from going straight to the new mommy's wall (where NOTHING had been posted yet) and writing a gushing congratulatory post. And 20 mins later, another relative posted the news on her own wall. Ugh. I gave up at this point.

Again, I'm probably coming off as bitchy. But think about how this new mommy probably felt. She went to great lengths to keep things a secret so that she could maintain some privacy and ultimately spread the news herself. Instead, some well-meaning folks stole all of that from her in a few sentences. How unfair is that? Not to mention the fact that she and her hubby come from very large families and how pissed would YOUR grandma be if she found out from someone on fb that you had a baby before you (or your parents) had a chance to call her? Yikes.

So the take-home message for today is: if you hear good news about someone else, stop and think before spreading it all over the world wide web. You could put a damper on a very special day in someone's life by not controlling your excitement. My rule of thumb? If someone hasn't mentioned it on their own fb wall, then it's not yet "facebook public" and I'm keeping my cyber-voice shut.

That's all for today. Thanks for listening :D

My name is Kelli, and I hate clutter.

I can't help but wonder when I turned into a neat freak.

I mean, I'm certainly not as much of a clean freak as a lot of people I know. Yet slowly but surely I've begun to turn into my mother. I have to empty the dishwasher and vacuum the family room first thing in the morning. I can't stand clutter on the counter tops. I have to get up and do the dishes immediately after dinner. And I can't relax at night until the dishwasher is running, the counters are disinfected, Brennan's toys are cleaned up, and all of the clutter is put away. There's just something so refreshing about waking up to a clean house. Oh my God ... that's my mom's line.

None of these things are especially neurotic in my opinion, but if you knew me at all in my previous life (a.k.a. any time before moving to Florida/getting pregnant) you'd be AMAZED at how irritable I get when I'm not able to accomplish these tasks. I mean, I was a class A, award winning SLOB. Just ask my parents, sisters, college roommates, husband ... any of them will tell you that my room rivaled the look of the houses on Hoarders.

And then I got a little better when I had Brennan. The thought of letting my kid live in filth grossed me out. But the clutter didn't necessarily bother me. And then ... we moved to Florida. And I got pregnant. And a switch flipped. And I became the crazy anti-clutter, things must be cleaned my way lady.

I don't see this as a bad thing in the least. Part of me thinks that since I'm now a SAHM, I take the responsibility of keeping a clean house, and a routine, a lot more seriously because I have the time and energy to do so. Working nights, and an irregular schedule, leaves you with zero energy and makes it very difficult to get into a routine. Now that that lifestyle is behind me, I'm finding it easier, not to mention more enjoyable, to stick to a routine and provide my family with a clean environment ... even if they just mess it up.

The thing that's throwing me for a loop lately is the fact that I'm having difficulty keeping up with it. And people that come to help don't necessarily have the same cleaning motivation and priorities that I do. So things aren't getting done in the order in which I'd like them to. And many aren't getting done at all. And I'm having to take a deep breath and convince myself that the world will not end. I just need to let my inner-control-freak calm itself. People are here to help and don't necessarily need to do things my way, as long as Brennan is taken care of.

But that doesn't mean I can't count down the days til my Mom comes to help me clean this place ... and do things the RIGHT way ;)

The final countdown.

On Tuesday I will officially be 34 weeks pregnant. Hallelujah. Not that I'm ready for them to be born at 34 weeks, because I still want to squeeze a few more weeks outta these boys. But for me, 34 weeks = relative safety. Sure, it means a little time spent in the NICU, which of course I don't want. But if it happened, I wouldn't freak out. I'd be sad yes, but frantically neurotic, no. They couldn't come right home with me like I'd hoped, but they'd be fine. And then we could all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

With that said, I'm still plugging along through this pregnancy. I feel giant and more uncomfortable with each passing day. My uterus is measuring 42cm, which is bigger than most full-term singleton pregnancies ever reach. I've gained 40 pounds (yikes) and still have 5 more to go to make it to the goal set by my OB. I can't sleep because my legs would like to run a marathon at night (restless legs = awful) and my giant belly makes it very difficult to find a comfortable position. Not to mention that I probably have 9 pounds of baby resting on my bladder, which requires hourly trips to the bathroom. If I sit for too long, my upper back hurts. If I stand for too long, my lower back hurts. If I lay on one side for too long, my side and hip hurt. My crotch hurts no matter what I do.

When I think about the fact that I could have to live like this for another 4 weeks, I want to curl up into a ball and cry. But one thing keeps me going -- these boys. I want them to have the best possible chance at coming straight home with me after they're born. That means NO (long term) NICU TIME. Which means that I will suffer through all of this garbage for 4 more weeks, even if it kills me. But I've also seen plenty of 35 or 36 weekers go home with mom, so that thought keeps me motivated to keep plugging along for just another week or two. Thinking about what's best for my boys keeps me sane. So that's what I'll keep on doing.

I'll leave you with a 33.5 week belly shot ...

... someday I'll wear makeup and do my hair again ...