Category — Things That Piss Me Off

This pregnancy is posing a lot of issues for me — issues I didn’t have or feel with the twins, so this is all a bit scary. To explain:

When I found out we were having twins back in April 2008, I felt like we’d been somehow “chosen.” Silly, I know. But I saw it as a gift, a great responsibility with which I’d been entrusted. I took it as my sole duty to nurture and grow those babies to the best of my ability.

Despite having battled serious body issues throughout my life, I felt little trepidation about the weight I purposely gained. It was all temporary, I thought. When the stretch marks appeared, I took them in stride. When I explored my post-partum body, I accepted its changes for what they were and promised myself I’d do the best I could to improve it.

At 16 months post-partum, all was beginning to feel fine and well. I was back in the gym, just a few pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. I’d finally pulled out my “skinny” clothes, even fitting into some of them. I had weaned the girls from breastfeeding so I could get back on Lamictal, a medication for bi-polar disorder that I’d had a ton of success with.

I finally felt like I was getting my body and life back.

In the back of my mind, I was dreaming of the surgery that would re-join my stomach muscles. In an even further recess of my mind, I thought maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t have more kids. Our girls were perfect and awesome. Why mess it up?

And then . . . Well, I got pregnant again. I really, really wasn’t ready for it. It’s not that I didn’t or don’t want or love the baby. It’s that it wasn’t planned and really caught me off guard.

So this time around, I’m having body issues. 21 weeks into the pregnancy and I’ve gained about five pounds. This is nothing compared to the twenty-ish I’d gained by this point with the twins, but every ounce of this new weight is filled with panic and self-loathing.

That nagging bitch of a voice in my head questions, Five pounds so far — so what does that mean for the rest of the pregnancy? How on earth am I going to keep my weight gain below 25 pounds? 20 pounds? 15? I don’t want to puff up, I don’t want a fat face, I don’t want melting thighs and a monster ass.

The bitch goes on. My stomach . . . Ugh, my god, my stomach. The silvery-white stretch marks circling the center of my abdomen, scarring the folds of loose skin left from my last pregnancy, are turning faintly purple. The weakened skin is going to give out. Again. And stretch even more. Again.

I panic. I self-pity. I don’t understand. I thought I paid my dues with my first pregnancy. I sacrificed and worked hard and did everything right. I let my body do what it wanted and needed. I grew two full-sized, healthy babies, delivered them vaginally, nursed them for almost a year and a half, stayed home with them to raise them in the best environment I could give.

And this is what I get? Anxiety about weight gain, depression, stress and more stretch marks?

I realize all of this is unhealthy thinking. Frankly, it’s shameful and embarrassing to feel any of this at all. It’s so superficial, so shallow, so silly.

I’m supposed to be jolly and maternal. I’m supposed to give motherly smiles to strangers. I’m supposed to be glowing, goddammit.

But that nagging voice, that belittling bitch that tells me how worthless and disgusting I am, is seeping in.

I thought I was too fucking old for this shit. I know better than this.

These are just feelings. They are temporary. I love this baby, her little punches and kicks, the weight of her growing body, the thought of her in our lives. I will grow her and adore her and do a good job with her, too.

But these damned feelings…

So I tell my little girl I’m sorry and I love you and This has nothing to do with you.

My only defense right now is not thinking about it too much. It hurts — hurts to feel it, hurts to admit I feel it.

I promise I’ll try to be sarcastic and funny again soon. Right now, I’m just working through this the best I can.

Maybe my expectations were too high.

A few days in a waterside cottage sounded perfect. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, pool, small beach. Close to a historic downtown area and a few minutes from other quaint beach towns. My girls. My man.

It should have been paradise.

Day One

We left on Saturday before noon. The girls had their swim lesson in the morning, then we all splurged on lunch at Five Guys. (Only the best burgers ever, in case you didn’t know.) The girls fell asleep in the car almost as soon as we hit the road. Everything was poised to be awesome.

The drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived at the Lovely Vacation Cottage several hours later. Exhausted, we decided to take it easy and stroll down to the small strip of beach on the Intracoastal.

Aside from a trashcan lid and miscellaneous beer cans and condoms littering the sand, it was pleasant, as evidence by the single photo we took the entire trip:

Then came dinner, which occurred to us 20 minutes too late. While we drove around frantically searching for something kid-friendly and semi-not-touristy, the girls mounted an ever-rising cacophony of hunger-induced screams, shrieks and wails. They threw their sippy cups and kicked the seats. They cursed our parents and damned us to hell.

Panicked, we ended up going to a fucking SMOOTHIE place NOT known for its food. The girls scoffed at our attempts to feed them, chucking bits of quesadilla on the floor and screaming for MORE SMOOTHIE MOTHER FUCKERS WAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Day Two

After our typical breakfast routine, we got the girls ready to go to the beach. Before we left the Lovely Vacation Cottage, I asked Chris where my camera was.

Him: “I don’t know where it is.”

Me: “Well, you packed it.”

Him: “I don’t know where I packed it.”

Me: “….YOU took it out of the drawer. YOU asked me if I wanted you to bring it. I said yes. YOU then PUT IT somewhere, supposedly IN something that would be coming with us on vacation. WHERE was that somewhere?”

Him: “I don’t know. It’s your camera.”

Me: “BUT I DIDN’T PACK THE FUCKING CAMERA.”

Him: “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Me: ‘TELL ME WHERE THE GODDAMN CAMERA IS, THAT’S WHAT YOU CAN TELL ME.”

He found the camera and off we went, seething and huffing, to the goddamned beach where we had a goddamned good time.

And didn’t take a single goddamned picture.

On the way back to the Lovely Fucking Vacation Cottage, Chris drove past some idiot doing an illegal three-point turn in the middle of downtown. Apparently, this pissed the guy off and he followed us down the road, cursing and spitting and shaking his fists at us, back to the cottages. I spent the rest of the vacation swearing there was someone outside the window plotting to shoot our family.

That night was also Father’s Day, so for dinner we headed to one of the nearby, so-called charming downtowns. Most everything was closed (Sunday), but one sports bar that was open was offering a free entree for dads. Obvious choice, right?

This was one of those situations where you get what you pay for.

The food? Awful. Service? Atrocious. Child behavior? Horrifying. The waitress left us waiting for so long that I had to, for the first time ever, extract a screaming child from a restaurant. And Chris, for probably the first time ever, told off the waitress.

And left her a $5 tip anyway.

He’s nice to a fault.

Day Three

Day Three was Pool Day.

Pool Day was Awful Day.

The pool at the cottages was NOT made for kids. The fact that it was small wasn’t a big deal. But the fact that its shallowest portion was four-feet deep WAS a big deal. And the fact that the concrete area around the pool was about eight inches wide and perfect for two toddlers to go streaking around, threatening to fall into the water and drown if we dared to blink, was definitely a big deal.

Oh, and the water was about 105 degrees. One hundred. And five. Degrees. Farenheit. It was 90 outside. We got OUT of the water to cool off.

After an hour and a half of sheer terror and panic, we took the girls back to the Son-of-a-Bitching Vacation Cottage and spent the rest of the morning letting them play in traffic. Seemed less dangerous than the pool.

When we went to the mall to waste some time that afternoon, I think Chris and I both knew our vacation had gone down the proverbial shitter.

That evening, after the girls went to bed, Chris looked at me and casually suggested, “Maybe we should leave a day early? You know, since the girls seem so exhausted and unhappy with the change in ….”

“GOOD GOD YES LET’S GO.”

Day Four

The morning of our early departure, we couldn’t get packed fast enough.

Of course, the girls had other plans.

They wanted to tear out of the cottage and play in piles of red ants. They wanted to throw the toys I JUST PACKED all over the floor. They wanted to trip and skin their knees and play with wasps.

Then there was the bar of soap.

After clearing out the bathroom, I let Chris know that I had packed all of our toiletries. Well, I guess I forgot to pack his beloved bar of soap because guess who comes stomping out of the bathroom with a bar of Lever 2000 held gingerly in his trembling hands?

That idiotic bar of soap launched a major standoff and several hours of clipped, terse, only-the-necessities conversation.

(Who travels with soap … and then takes it back home, anyway???)

Leaving before nap time also proved to be a mistake. I spent the first two-and-a-half hours of the drive wanting to jump out of the moving car with every scream and cry emanating from the backseat.

Instead, I climbed over the passenger seat to entertain my daughters.

Because I am a patient and loving mother, goddamn it.

I took a few days off of the Internet and lost all shreds of creative momentum I may or may not have had. I need to shake it off, get to writing again. Hence, the completely random post to follow.

South Beach, with Fetus

Before I got pregnant, I had a weekend to South Beach planned with some mom friends. (As opposed to non-mom friends, because boy is there a difference.) Then I found myself in a family way but couldn’t, in good conscience, back out. So I went.

South Beach when you’re pregnant and sober is just another overcrowded beach city. Let me tell you, I saved a shitload of money by not buying booze. On Saturday morning, my friends went to a pool and sipped mimosas in the water. I ventured off to the Wolfsonian Museum (by far my FAVORITE museum I’ve ever been in). My museum admission? $7.49. Their mimosas? $20. EACH. And they didn’t even come in a pitcher.

Also, nightclubs. We went to a club on Friday night. Yes, even I went. It was smoky, people were burning doobs on the dance floor and I saw no less than five bare vaginas at the strategically placed stripper pole in the middle of the club. There was house music. I left less than an hour after getting there.

I actually did have a good time, though. And side note of awesomeness? We stayed in the condo building where the chainsaw/drug-deal-gone-bad scene of “Scarface” was filmed. RAD.

Friends

Do you guys have friends? Like, real-life, in-the-flesh, live-near-you-and-see-on-a-regular-basis, call-whenever-you-need-them, spill-secrets-to friends? Specifically, if you’re a mom, do you have other mom friends that fit that bill?

I don’t think I do. I mean, I have some friends. I have some acquaintances. I have one or two mom friends that I hang out with on a semi-regular basis. Maybe I’ve even shared some secrets with them.

But I don’t have any near-me best friends. You know, like the best friend you can say “Your three o’clock!” to and they know that you’re talking trash on that skanky teenager wearing camel-toe booty shorts. The BFFs that I do have live far away and we talk so infrequently that I may even be unknowingly relegated to “good friend” status by virtue of that distance.

This seems to be a common issue with folks my age who have young kids. I get out quite a bit and mingle in all sorts of social/parent circles, so it’s not like I’m complaining without trying. Are there dating sites for people like me? You know, because being pregnant and a mom makes me totally desirable as a friend?

Emotionz

I don’t know where I’m at emotionally.

I’m down, that’s for certain. Part of it is “just me” as usual, but part is circumstance. We’re short selling the house and it sucks. Mentally, I’m so OVER this house and I just want to get the place sold and move on with my life.

I have a strong need to get the fuck out of Dodge, to travel, to live somewhere else, to meet new people. I’m antsy. I feel stuck. Lonely. Unfulfilled and unsatisfied. Mentally stagnant. Unchallenged.

Being pregnant is obviously tripping things up. It’s kind of stressful to be expecting a miracle when your financial/housing/emotional world smells like testicles.

And while the girls are just as awesome as ever, the whole twin toddlers thing can be pretty taxing. Oh, and I’m still nauseous 70% of the time, which means eating is spotty and exercise is currently non-existent.

I guess it’s a mish-mash of shit. A big, steaming pile of mish-mashed shit. Know what I mean?

Better things

I hate ending posts all pissy-pity, so here’s good stuff.

Some friends had a long-awaited and MUCH deserved adoption go through. I am in-tears-thrilled for them.

I think I out-drank my Starbucks cravings. (In case you haven’t, keep in mind that those frappes at McDonald’s are pretty comparable, seem to have more caffeine and cost half as much.)

Ironically…? I ended up passing my glucose tolerance test. Blood sugar was 111 after an hour, so I’m in the clear for at least the next 13 weeks.

The girls have learned to say “I know, I know,” arriba (up), Snow White (Elise’s favorite), thank you, bebida (drink), pee pee and caca. Obviously, we’re most proud of the last two.

Money be damned, we recently decided to book a family vacation — just the four of us, as it will be the only and last time we will ever go anywhere as “just the four of us.” We settled on renting a cottage at a relaxing fish camp on the Atlantic. It will be four days of beach, water, sun and hammocks.

And bathing suits.

Last year, I wore this horrific tankini. What, you don’t think it looks that bad? That’s because you don’t see the front of it. It was a last-minute purchase made under duress from Target — which, unless you have the body of a starving tween, is not the place to go bathing suit shopping under any circumstances.

At the time, I chalked it up to it being a mere 8 months post-partum that I had to purchase that thing. I called it The Year of the Tankini. You know, because the next year, I’d have my old body back and I could go back to wearing a sexy little two-piece.

So anyway. For this year’s tankini, I spent $100. This disgusts me. Because have you ever gone tankini shopping? It’s awful. It’s like the bathing suit manufacturers were blindfolded at a Kmart curtain clearance as part of a diabolical Project Runway challenge. You try on eight or nine of these things and you’re ready to throw your life savings at the first person who can hand you a tankini that doesn’t make you feel like your great grandmother vacationing in Boca.

For instance:

Seriously. The model can barely keep herself from laughing, this thing is so ugly.

Note to bathing suit manufacturers: Women who are shopping for tankinis are not buying two-piece bikinis for a reason. We need shape and support for our boobs and magical panels to flatten our bellies and flattering tops to avoid back tacos. Anything involving Hawaiian prints from the 1980s, tight elastic around the legs or ruffles around anything has no place on a tankini.

The suit I got isn’t too bad, all things considered. Aside from the fact that Chris said I looked like a shower curtain in it. And aside from the fact that the bottoms actually come up past what used to be my belly button and are about as comfortable as those scratchy underwear your grandma used to buy you from Pic N Save.

Oh yeah, and since I’ve apparently forgotten, I’m freaking pregnant. So by the time we go to the Awesome Fish Camp Vacation Cottage, I’ll have a baby bump with twin skin hanging off of it AND a diaper-esque tankini to really show it all off.

Yep, it’s Year Two of the Tankini and I’m embracing it with vigor.

Somebody. Help. Me.

P.S. Any unintentional insult to grandmas and great grandmas anywhere in this post is completely the fault of tankini makers.

Dear Bitch at the Outlet Mall,

Yesterday, when you and your mouth-breathing husband approached me and my twins at the outlet mall, I prepared myself for the onslaught of dim-witted questions that people like you usually ask:

“Are they twins? I’m a twin/my neighbor’s a twin/my husband’s cousin is a twin/my dogs are twins.”

“How old are they?”

“What are their names?”

“Are they identical? Really? Well, they don’t look it.”

You, in all your out-of-state largeness, managed to ask exactly all of those questions. And I managed to smile my way through them because I’ve developed a touch of patience and a lovely sense of humor toward folks like you.

But then, dear woman, you just had to show that you’re not like everyone else, didn’t you?

“Well, thank god it’s not me. I feel sorry for you.”

Sigh.

I’m not sure what hayloft in Omaha you were conceived in (no offense to my intelligent and awesome Nebraskan readers), but out here in Florida we don’t say things like that.

Out here, we say things like, “Well bless your heart!” Which basically translates into the same thing, but it sounds a lot nicer than “You and your shitty kids deserve each other.”

It’s a good thing you were significantly larger than me. Otherwise, it would have been my fist hitting your face, and your face hitting the floor, and my comparatively scrawny ass collecting my stroller and running for my life because holy shit, your husband looked like he ate fried bologna balls for breakfast and I’m pretty sure he would’ve come after me if I’d actually punched you in the face.

I hope you enjoyed the rest of your shopping experience at the Dress Barn and Giant Underwear Outlet. May your husband frequently forget to put the toilet seat down, you mindless potato head of a woman.

I’m sick.

In the head, sure. But, like, sick sick.

It started with a sore throat last Saturday. I figured it was from shouting all night at the noisy bar we went to in California. But the sore throat lingered. It turned into a nasty, dry cough. I almost threw up a few times from coughing (in my CAR, GROSS). Now, the plague has turned into a cold.

Oh, and Elise has had, shall we say, stomach issues all week — so bad that I’ve had to throw out a pair of pajamas (you don’t want to know) and give her several baths a day. And she won’t eat ANYTHING except breastmilk and yogurt.

Meanwhile, Althea has discovered the “tantrum.”

There’s a collection agency harassing me about  a medical bill from the girls’ birth (over a year ago!) and no one seems to know what the bill is for or what to do with it.

I bought a turkey and all the extras to cook a Christmas dinner on Friday — with no one here to eat it, because I had to cancel our guests due to my apparent bought with SARS.

All this while I’m on my period. I know, TMI! But it adds dramatic emphasis!!!

This week has been SO RAD!!!!!!

I’m drinking tonight, needless to say. Drinking and hitting the exclamation mark more than usual.

!!!!!!!!!

1. Aside from a few words that get me beer and food, I don’t know any German so I looked this post title up on Google Translate. According to a subsequent Google search, “Verdammt noch mal” means something in the vein of “Damn it!” “Damnation!” or “Dadgummit!” Close enough.
2. This post contains TMI for most men, every coworker past and present, and all family members. No, seriously. Proceed with caution.

Still with me? Okay.

***

For those of you unfamiliar with ovarian activities, mittelschmerz is a lower-abdominal pain that occurs with ovulation. I’d never heard of it until I was 29, when I tossed out my birth control pills and let my body do its thing.

Since going off the pill, I’ve discovered that my hormones and lady parts are certifiably WHACK. My uterus tilts to the right. My BO changes almost daily, with breastfeeding and according to where I’m at in my cycle. Pregnancy hormones make me incredibly euphoric.

And, with a menstrual cycle sans synthetic hormones, I get mittelschmerz.

I’ve since met other ladies who get mittelschmerz too. I don’t know to what degree they feel the pain, but Holy Mother . . . For me, the pain is un-fucking-real.

It begins with a noticeable cramp in my uterus. This lasts for a day or two. Then, I start getting what feels like a stitch in my side, just under my ribs. Depending on which side I feel it, I can tell if I’ll be ovulating from my right or left ovary.

***

Are you still there? I know, I told you. TMI.

Moving on.

***

The stitch grows into an awful stabbing pain extending from my lowest rib to what I assume is my ovary. No exaggeration, it feels like a scorching knife being plunged at a diagonal angle into my side, 24/7. The pain is always there. This is the worst part. And, unfortunately, it lasts from two to four days.

It gets so intense that it hurts to walk, breathe and sit. So I’m pretty much screwed. Sometimes, I just have to curl up into a fetal position and moan.

On the one hand, mittelschmerz is super convenient for family planning. Who needs an ovulation predictor when you’re fucking INCAPACITATED on the couch because a microscopic ova is being released from a walnut-sized ovary?

On the other hand . . . Well, the “other hand” feels like having my reproductive organs sawed into with an electric turkey carver.

***

La-di-dah. You’re more than welcome to click away now if you’re freaking out.

***

It’s hard to get people to truly understand or even believe how serious this is. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Mega doses of ibuprofen, pain pills, rest, ice, heat — this stuff doesn’t even begin to touch the pain. I just have to suffer through it every month.

Between the breakouts, the BO, the ovary pain, the PMS-y mood swings, the weight gain and the actual Monthly Visitor, I feel like I’m constantly in one state of menstruation or another.

***

Hey, I warned you. Don’t bitch at me now.

I was raised mostly in Southern California. Where I lived, there were vast fields of strawberries and thick orange groves that would perfume the whole city during orange blossom season. We would throw open the windows at night to inhale the sweet balm of nascent citrus. The smell was intoxicating.

Then it was all bulldozed and replaced with a few hundred strip malls, gas stations, freeway overpasses and overpriced cookie-cutter homes. Because that’s how people in the O.C. roll, bitches.

Anything nature-y or farm-y or down-home-y is very foreign to me. I was pretty shocked when I moved to Florida. There’s, like, green stuff here. Endless stretches of flat, verdant land, thick swamps, Spanish moss swaying from ancient cypress trees.

What struck me as much as the landscape was the people. Let me tell you, anyone who thinks Florida isn’t part of the American South is very, very wrong. I thought big-wheeled Chevys with Confederate flags and gun racks were the things of an Alabama or a Texas. Now I know.

Anyway. To the subject of this blog post: The Effing Pumpkin Patch.

The Effing Pumpkin Patch was my idea. I figured, now that we have kids, we need to do things like go to The Effing Pumpkin Patch and take some effing pictures. I found out about a popular one out in BFE (and believe it or not, no matter where you are in Florida, you can get to a local BFE in an hour or less). So we went.

The directions to get to BFE were simple enough. But with me driving, we did no fewer than 1,800 u-turns before we finally got on track down a two-lane rural road — and promptly screeched to a halt. There was a bloody accident, followed by a slow-moving line of cars filing into a giant field to park. It took half an hour before we got to the farm.

The Effing Pumpkin Patch was, in a word, PACKED. Like, nutso, OMFG claustrophobia, 40-minute line for a pulled pork sandwich, I hate this fucking stroller, will-you-please-get-the-fuck-out-of-my-WAY packed.

I love parties, but I hate giant, overwhelming crowds. I get incredibly impatient and grumble obscenities at old people. It’s just not pretty.

So yeah. I hated every second of it, from the moment we entered BFE to the glorious second we finally pulled away from the burning armpit of hell.

If you’re not feeling me yet, take a look at the line to exit the farm.

You can’t see the end, can you? That’s because it it goes allllllll the way to the edge of the field, then wraps allllllll the way back to the front to dump you out onto the two-lane country road.

Kinda makes you want to run someone over, doesn’t it?

Oh, and about the whole Florida-is-the-South thing?

Dude on a tall unicycle made to look like he’s riding a horse? Check.

Scarecrow family sitting on a barn? Check.

Emaciated donkey ass? Check.

Confederate flag on a Dodge? Ding ding ding!

For as long as I live, I will never go to another pumpkin patch. Ever.

Then again, I guess there were a few highlights.

I’ve written before about things that piss me off with having twins. I know, I shouldn’t be so bitter. Twins are awesome and people are naturally curious. Hell, I’ve been guilty of saying to another twin mom on the street, “Oh, twins! How old are they?”

BUT.

There is one question that is simply idiotic. Unnecessary. Crazy, even.

The question to which I refer?

“Are they twins?”

The first time someone asked me this, I was so caught off guard that I stammered a polite, “Y-y-yes, they are.” But when it happened again and again — almost every time we go out now, actually — I got a little snarky. “No, they’re not.” “Nope, I found one on the street.”

And that’s only because I don’t have the guts to say what I really want to say: “Funny thing, actually. They look exactly alike, they both emerged from my vagina on the same day — but I have no idea who they are or what they’re doing in my stroller!”

Or maybe: “No, they’re three years apart, but they sure look like twins, don’t they?”

Or: “Eh, not sure. We’re still waiting to get on the Maury show to find out.”

What’s even more astonishing is that I’ve actually had this conversation:

Lady at the grocery store: “They’re twins, aren’t they.”

Me: “Yes.”

Lady at the grocery store: “Yup, I knew it.”

Me: “Um . . . Hm.”

What I really wanted to say: “Can I get your name? Because the next time the clue on Jeopardy is ‘The biggest fucking moron in the world’, I can answer, ‘Who is . . . YOU!’”

And this conversation:

Chick at the post office: “Twins?”

Me: “Yep.”

Chick at the post office: “I can tell. I’m an identical twin.”

Me: “Ah . . . ”

What I really wanted to say: “Well hell’s bells! We’ve been wondering this whole time. We should have asked you first because darned if the doctor couldn’t tell!”

I could understand this question if my girls looked different from each other — one had red hair and one had no hair. One was fair and one was tan. One was small and one was large. But my girls look very much alike to the average (or below average?) stranger on the street.

So.

This is me, trying to keep a smile on my face. This is me, trying to feel proud of how cool my twins are. This is me, trying not to throttle the next douche nozzle that asks if two babies who are clearly the same age and who look almost exactly alike are twins.

The girls had their (late) nine-month appointment on Friday. Elise is at 17lb 1oz and Althea is at 17lb 2oz. (For the first time ever, Althea outweighed her sister!) Elise was twisting around during her measurements and measured about 26 3/8 inches long (pretty sure that’s wrong), while Althea measured 27 inches long. Both had 17″ heads.

The pediatrician was the “partner” pediatrician of the practice, the same guy that kinda sorta pissed me off at their four-month checkup. I didn’t like him much the first time we met him and definitely didn’t like him much this time.

Both times, he’s questioned my ability to successfully breastfeed the girls.

“Well, they’re in the 25th percentile  blah blah blah. At this age, babies need at least 16 ounces of milk a day blah blah blah. So the question is, are you producing four cups of a milk a day?”

I exhaled so that my flapjack, B-cup boobies would disappear. Because I knew he was looking.

(BY THE WAY. Breast size has basically zero to do with milk output.)

The babies aren’t gaining weight as rapidly anymore. The doctor therefore  gave me a sideways warning about “needing to do something” if the girls don’t gain weight more quickly by their 12-month appointment.

First, isn’t it super common to slow down weight gain as the babies increase movement? Both of the girls are crawling like crazy and standing all the time. They’re burning more calories than I am. They haven’t lost weight. They’ve gained since the last appointment. They just aren’t gaining like crazy anymore.

Second, I thought the growth charts were CHARTS, not CONTESTS. It isn’t a race to the 100th percentile, right? Aside from my post-baby muffin top, I’m not a large or tall woman by any means, and Chris is a natural stringbean.

Third, I fucking HATE that the human body’s ability to naturally care for itself is so constantly questioned by modern medicine. Advances in medicine are awesome — hell, lifesaving – for countless people/babies/moms, but why does that have to mean that other folks have to undergo or face the threat of unnecessary intervention? For what? To fund pharmaceutical statistics so that Glaxo can make another overnight vaccine?

Can you tell I get a wee bit defensive and suspicious of “modern” medicine every now and again?

Like any 21st-century mother, I posted about my hatred of the AAP on my Facebook status. (Unlike a 21st-century mother, I did not post to Twitter because, frankly, I’m too lazy to keep up with anything that requires a character count without paying me by the word.)

Anyhow.

I plan to start checking out other semi-crunchy pediatricians before the girls turn one.

Um and holy shit the girls are going to turn one.  Suck on that, doctor.