A twins parenting (?) blog

Today marks 17 weeks for this pregnancy. Yes, I’m still pregnant, people.

On the one hand, I fell silly updating for a lame ole singleton pregnancy. On the other, it’s a singleton pregnancy! A miracle! And JUST ONE!!! So easy!

My hormones seem to be a little more manageable this past week or so, which is promising. I hope I can stop being a lunatic for the next 23 weeks.

Physically, there’s some weird shit happening. The pain from a separated pelvis that I had with the girls has been back for a few weeks. The intensity comes and goes. My stomach muscles have completely given out on me. They never fully repaired after the last pregnancy, and my growing uterus this time around has already separated the tenuous union that existed.

I’ve noticed a lot of differences with this pregnancy in general. My skin is incredibly dry — highly unusual for me, as my skin is normally available for offshore drilling to supply oil to small countries. And the nausea (which is thankfully GONE) was much more intense with this pregnancy.

But other things just don’t change. I’m already at the peeing-every-15-minutes stage. Pregnancy insomnia has already set in. I don’t think my belly is any smaller with just one baby, either. Seems my uterus has muscle memory or something.

The best news to share is that Friday at 9 a.m. is my BIG ULTRASOUND. First thing in the morning. Bitches better not be running late. I’m practically tearing my hair out with anticipation. Every bone in my body is saying it’s a boy. We haven’t even discussed girl names because it’s a boy.

I think.

Only 82 hours till we find out.

When my husband and I bought our house five and a half years ago, we were, like many first-time home buyers, horribly clueless.

Oh sure, I’d spent three months glued to HGTV. But back then, I wasn’t paying attention to (or they didn’t even have) shows like “House Hunters,” “Property Virgins,” “Holmes on Homes” or “My First Place.” Nooooo. I was watching useless crap like “Divine Design” and “Color Splash” — shows that provided approximately zero help in the home-buying process.

But I learned oh-so-much about faux finishes for bathroom walls!

We felt a tremendous amount of pressure to buy immediately. We were moving for our jobs and it was the peak of the housing market. It was the era of multiple bids and pending contracts within hours of a house being listed. Our boss had us convinced that we needed to BUY BUY BUY or we’d be living in a VAN down by the RIVER.

And of course, we knew everything so we didn’t dare ask our elders their opinions.

Our Realtor was of no help, either. She was acting as the agent for a bunch of us at the same company and was just raking in the commissions. She didn’t give a shit what we bought — we were just a guaranteed check in her bank.

Anyhow, the  house we bought was the last of eight we viewed. We kind of had an idea that it needed some upgrades, but weren’t too concerned because we loved the location: close to downtown and our jobs, 15-minutes to the beach, quiet street in an established neighborhood. We figured you can always change the kitchen, but you can’t change the location.

Boy oh boy, were we clueless. Because a new roof is fucking expensive, yo.

Problems started before we even moved in. The house was tented for termites. They said something about some damage to the doors and shed. A leak in the patio that never quite stopped. A pool pump that blew out before our first year was up. A roof that, we realized too late, was horribly outdated and very expensive to upgrade. Kitchen cabinets that fell off the hinges. A pool screen that tore at the slightest breeze. Plumbing issues. Terrible energy efficiency. Damp closets. Dented gutters.

The list goes on.

Over the years, our house has fallen into a state of . . . well, shit. Less than a year after moving in, we lost our high-paying jobs that got us into this mess in the first place. We really started living leaner and couldn’t scrape up money to do renovations as we’d hoped. We did what we could, but the toilet wouldn’t fill back up. The sink constantly clogged. The windows wouldn’t lock. The kitchen sink drained into the dishwasher. And was that Styrofoam acting as a shade on the hall lights???

Why hadn’t we noticed this stuff when we bought the place? And, more disturbingly, why hadn’t this come up in the home inspection? Why hadn’t the Realtor clued us in on these very expensive house repairs and upgrades?

Then I got pregnant. With twins. I went on maternity leave at 28 weeks. I didn’t deliver until 38 weeks and stayed home for nine weeks after that. We forged by on my disability pay.

We’ll make it, we thought. The cars are just about paid off. We have no credit card debt. We’ll budget.

Then my job was downsized and we couldn’t afford full-time daycare on a part-time salary. I was basically forced to quit and stay home with the kids, instantly bringing our income down by almost half.

Oh yeah, and the market and economy took a gigantic dump and our house lost about 70% of its inflated value.

So here we sit, with our house on the market as a short sale and an ever-growing list of things wrong with it.

For example, on a single day this week, the following happened:

• The kitchen sink clogged, backed up into itself and overflowed the dishwasher, spilling sulphuric swamp stench all over the kitchen floor and forcing me to call a plumber.
• The roof started leaking in the middle of the house. During rainy hurricane season. In Florida.
• A large chunk of one of our trees blew off during a storm and landed just feet from our new minivan.

Sometimes, I’m convinced we have some kind of hex on us. Back in 2004, Hurricane Frances hit our rental house in Gainesville, downing a tree onto the back part of the house and flooding the entire place. The house was declared uninhabitable. We lived in a hotel for a week and had to find a new place to live.

Oh, and I drove Chris’ new car into a pseudo-lake-thing that had formed as a result of the hurricane flooding.

It was epic.

Anyhow, I’m freaking out that this house won’t sell. I mean, who the hell buys a house that has rain dripping onto the sofa and a front door that barely opens because of termite damage?

And if the house doesn’t sell soon, that means serious upheaval when I’m either massively pregnant or horomonally unstable after birth.

Either that or foreclosure. Which would be a real blast!

So yeah. I hate bringing this stuff up because it just is what it is. We made a pricey mistake, we learned a lot and we’ll hopefully do better next time. Nothing we can do now but hope and wait and clean the house when someone wants to see it — which is a pretty hilarious concept when you have twin toddlers destroying everything in their path.

But in the meantime, can someone figure out what the hell this curse is that we’re carrying around and let me know what kind of chicken semen I need to eat to get rid of it?

Along with my conviction to cook at home most of the time (which, by the way, has been mostly successful so far), I have declared war on baby speak.

The girls grunt, whine and cry when they want something. They’ll run to the fridge and cry while trying desperately to pry it open. They’ll let out a little “Nnn! Nnnn!” when they want us to do or get something. Then we spend the next eight minutes trying to guess what they want.

Maybe I’m asking too much, but I would think at almost 20 months old, my kids could respond to very simple sentences with familiar words by saying or nodding “yes” or “no.”

Here’s how it goes:

The girls run to the fridge and pull at the door while screaming/crying. I walk over and say:

“Quieres leche?” (“Do you want milk?”)

Blank stare.

“Quieres leche?”

Stare.

“Quieres LECHE?”

Stare.

“LECHE? LECHE? Queires? LECHE?”

Stare.

“QUIERES???? LECHE????? LECHE????”

Stare.

Sigh. Why is this not working?

Take out the sippy cups.

“QUIERES???? LECHE?????” while emphatically nodding and saying “Sí? Sí? Quieres leche???”

Stare.

“QUIERES???? LECHE????? SI??? SI????”

Stare.

Take out the carton of milk.

“QUIERES???? LECHE?????”

Stare.

“SI?? SI??? QUIERES???? LECHE????? SI???”

Stare.

Finally yesterday, I held onto their little skulls and nodded their heads up and down while saying “Sí! Sí!”

I then repeated “Quieres leche?”

To which they each grabbed hold of their chins and pushed their little heads up and down.

That’ll show you and your idiotic yes/no questions.

I also noticed that they can point to all their body parts when you ask them “Where is your hair?” Etc. And they will point to a baby doll’s hair and say the word for it. But when you point to somebody’s hair and ask, “What is this?” they don’t respond.

I don’t know anything about language development. Am I expecting too much in either case (responding to simple yes/no questions or using an existing vocabulary word to respond to a “What is this?” question). I try not to think about this stuff too much — why the hell am I wanting them to talk, anyway? — but I really  have no clue what I’m doing over here.

I have a serious, non-ironic-about-gender-stereotypes-etc., question:

How do you run your household?

You give me a single project and tell me to own and love it, I can do it. But give me a department to run and it’s going under.

The problem here is that running an house is like managing a department of some sort. Maybe not anything super important, like IT or accounting. But something like …. human resources? Because we’re humans and we’re like resources?

I have no idea. But this department is definitely not meeting quotas and whatnot.

The main topic of this post is cooking. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? We blow a depressing amount of money on take-out food. The girls almost always eat at home, but by the time they’re in bed and the day is done, I’m beat. I go through fits and spurts, but for the past few months we’ve been eating out probably four to five times a week.

(And don’t tell me to eat with my kids. Who the hell over the age of eight eats dinner at 5 p.m.???)

Anyhow. That’s a lot of money. And money is something we definitely don’t have to burn. Especially since we’re planning to finally take our honeymoon in two years, and by golly, that’s one project I WILL manage to achieve.

Vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

Oh, and the whole short-selling-the-house and three-kids-on-one-income things. Those are a real financial drain, too.

I’m trying to say that I’ve rededicated myself to cooking at home again, and I didn’t set my sights low, either. I decided to plan out a month’s worth of meals.

Note the key words there: Plan. In advance. A month.

Naturally, I don’t expect myself to actually succeed at this for a full 30 days, but I’m going to try, by god.

Vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

So, back to my question: How the hell do you do this? I’ve planned four days so far and I’m exhausted. How do you do that whole thing where you buy your groceries once a week and know exactly what to buy and the chicken lasts three days for three different meals and there are coupons and stuff?

I go to the store as often as four days a week to buy food as needed and there’s never anything to eat here except 18 bags of chip crumbs, some dented cans of crushed pineapple and three gallons of olive oil.

If I can make dinner with these ingredients, let me know. Otherwise, share your household management tips. Please. Even if you don’t have any. A mutual lack of housewifery skills will at least make me feel better.

I have nothing to write about.

No, really. I don’t.

Okay, lemme think. Ummmm…….. There was that one thing that seemed pretty interes–….

Nope. Still nothing.

The girls are still cute. Here they are in my in-laws’ dog bed. (???) Well, not my in-laws’ dog bed, but their dog’s dog bed. You know what I mean.

And speaking of dogs, our dog is leaving tomorrow. Rather, we’re giving him up. A million reasons why, but him being 90 pounds, dangerously oblivious and aggressive-acting toward the girls has a little something to do with it. It’s really Chris’ dog and I’m not sure how it’ll hit him — Chris or the dog — tomorrow, but having known the dog for almost seven years now, I may feel a little tug at the ole heartstrings too.

Since we’re on the topic of the heart, I might as well tell you all that I’m going back into therapy. Like, real, talk-your-shit-out therapy. I’ve been to psychiatrists over the past few years, but have neglected the actual non-drug-related maintenance of my well-being for many, many years. I have two appointments this week with different therapists. I need it pretty bad. Not taking any head pills, plus the craziness that is this pregnancy, are really turning me into a horrible human being.

About the pregnancy….Well, the nausea is mostly gone. I can eat again. So that’s good. But man, when they say every pregnancy is different, they aren’t kidding. With the girls, I was euphoric. The massive surge of hormones was the best antidepressant I’d ever had. This time around, I’m a MESS. With a capital M-E-S-S. I’m super depressed, haywire, unstable. My moods turn on a dime. I’m having frequent headaches and migraines. I’m exhausted, uninspired and disorganized. It’s incredibly hard to deal with this nonsense when I already have two kids and a husband who need someone who isn’t a nutcase.

Okay, maybe I had a few things to say. I’ll shut up now.

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.

Short post.

1) I’m going to say this quietly so as not to jinx it.

(I think the nausea is gone. It’s been a good 4 1/2 days. I’ve been eating regularly and going back to the gym. I feel pretty decent. Shhhhh! Don’t tell!)

2) We are getting the hell out of here for some much-needed vacation time. It’ll be our first and only, purely-for-pleasure vacation as a family of four. There will be hammocks involved. I may or may not get around to updating from the field.

So go ahead and rob my house. Just try it. There’s a half-wild rabid dog just waiting for your arrival.

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.

Dr. Fabulous sent me to have an unexpected nuchal translucency scan on Squiggy on Monday.

It was so different from the one I had with the girls. Theirs took a good while and the tech let us view them in 3D/4D. I guess with a singleton pregnancy, no one gives a shit about you…? The tech spent eight minutes taking the measurements — and 20 minutes talking about his semi-failed music career as a penis pianist. Bastard.

Anyhow.

Squiggy looks good. His nuchal fold is practically non-existent, so no apparent worries. We met with Dr. B, our perinatologist from the last pregnancy. She was so happy to hear about the girls and how well they’re doing. I’ll bet happy stories like ours make her day — she probably deals with a lot of tragic cases.

Here are the ultrasound pictures. I’m still thinking boy. He looks so different from the girls. Also, he appears to already be drinking a beer in one of the photos. We’ll find out on July 16.

Yeah, so I’m still pregnant. I know, I forget sometimes too. Except for the whole part where I’ve been looking at the underside of my toilet bowl for the past seven weeks or so.

I am not a very good housekeeper, let’s put it that way.

I’m mostly 11+ weeks along now. I say “mostly” because, based on my last Monthly Visitor (that’s my last period), I’m 11 weeks 2 days today. But I Hatch Eggs (that’s ovulate) late in my cycle, so I’m only 10 weeks 6 days based on that. That puts my due date between 12/20 and 12/23. We’ll go with the former, earlier date for simplicity’s sake.

Moving on.

This pregnancy has sucked approximately 18 times more than the last one. It’s taking forever. Obviously, this is not good, seeing I have 29 more weeks of this. I’m significantly sicker and much more tired than last time. Until a few nights ago, I couldn’t even eat dinner most of the time. The sickness seems to be easing up but good Christ, this fetus has it in for me.

Other things:

• Sense of smell was pretty intense for a while there. My own husband smelled like putrid death/expired salad dressing for several weeks. (Yes, I knew I was pregnant in that post. GRILL!!)
• My guts seem to have retained the memory of their former, displaced locations. My uterus might not be that big, but my intestines, lungs and stomach have already shifted to their official pregnancy locations, causing my abdomen to puff out, bloat and generally make me weep in despair.
• I can’t eat chicken again. Same as last pregnancy. Because when I think of cooked chicken, I think of raw chicken. And raw chicken makes me think of something worse — slightly undercooked chicken. And that is just fowl.
• My sense of humor has apparently been reduced to poultry puns.
• My gut tells me it’s a boy. Based on the size and shape of my gut, I’d say it’s pretty trustworthy.

I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this pregnancy. We have some stressful house/money stuff going on, on top of my increasingly-awesome-yet-more-complex twin toddler situation thing, which makes it difficult to just lie on the couch and die every day.