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I have a ton of updates for you and very little time so I will post them tomorrow. Besides, I know what you REALLY came for today:
26 weeks, 4 days
and here's the first (and possibly the last!) ever frontal baby bump picture:
The manager at the company cafeteria commented that I was "all belly." I felt like saying, "Dude... you ain't seen nothing yet."
12 weeks to go.
Have I mentioned our evil cattens lately?
I found an empty paper towel tube in the hall this morning and in my usual 5 AM "just woke the fuck up" state wondered where it came from. I didn't remember putting one in the trash, the cattens' favorite place for fishing for stuff they shouldn't have. (Yes, we know a lid helps. We lost it somehow and are getting a new lidded trash can soon.) So I did what I always do when faced by a possible evil catten act of wanton destruction — put off dealing with the inevitable, got myself a cup of decaf and went to check my email.
At this time, Mark decided to switch back to our room — he sleeps in his old room when my tossing and turning have gotten to be too much for him — and I heard his shuffling steps in the hall, followed by the sound of the closet door opening and closing.
A few minutes later, after Mark had settled into bed, I heard the sounds of faint scrabbling and scratching. I also heard the soft padding sound of multiple feet that can only be described as the "curiosity of cats."
Fearing a repeat of the Nexium incident, I got up to investigate. Sure enough, three of the cats were hanging out in front of the closet door, listening to the commotion inside. Being that it wasn't all four, I knew it wasn't a mouse they were after and realized that Spot had gotten his nosy little ass locked in the closet again.
I walked over, let Spot out and followed the fleeing troop to Mark's room where I finally got my explanation for the empty paper towel tube.
The cattens instantly fled under the bed and left Stranger and Spot to take the blame for the mess. Spot, having already been embarrassed by being accidentally locked in, leapt up to the food bowl and ignored me, while Stranger sat there with his best, "But I'm your favorite..." look.
It didn't matter. I knew who the real culprits were. I'd caught them in the act before. The straw pilfered out of a glass in the sink. The steel wool debacle. The used Q-tips stolen right from under my nose in the bathroom. The knocked over dish of salt and the trail of teeny cat paw prints in the white crystals. The mini binder clip stolen in plain sight — and subsequently retrieved because they decided to noisily play with it at midnight. The scratched and gnawed wood on the kitchen chairs. The pilfered (and as yet unrecovered) diamond pendant. (Well, I didn't actually witness this one but I can hazard a guess...)
Luckily it was only the tail end of a roll of paper towels they shredded so the clean up won't be bad, but still. This goes on the list.
It's not like we don't buy the cats "enrichment items" for their own use. There are scratching pads and posts, soft furry pads to lie on, little "dens" for them to sleep, toys when the dog hasn't pilfered them... Three hots and a cot. The cattens are loved, mostly, and admittedly at times more by Mark than me. I'm not loving this phase, their "terrible twos" as Mark puts it.
Still, I won't get rid of them. I took responsibility for their lives so I'm stuck with them and they're stuck with me, like it or not. And I do love them, for the most part. I know that eventually they will mellow out like Stranger and Spot have.
I just wish they'd get over their adolescent destructo phase really really soon.
I'm 26 weeks today and the sea monkeys are still safe and sound. (Knock on wood.) Next week I officially enter the third trimester and from there it's hopefully 8-11 weeks (35 - 37 are considered "near-term"; 38 is considered term) before Aden and Hunter show up in this world. Which is a really mind-blowing thought.
It was crazy at work last week and I'm just hoping to make it through this one fairly unscathed. I was pretty much falling on my face by Thursday night from the exhaustion I felt. The early part of the week is always doable but by Thursday or Friday, I'm usually crabby and miserably tired. I'm beginning to wonder how much longer I'm gonna have to do this for...
I would love to know when I'm going to go on leave. My guess is that if I haven't given birth by then, I will ask my doc to approve my leave at week 35 or 36. She has to fill out my leave paperwork so that I get paid for it, so her buy-in is absolutely necessary. Most of the moms at work are telling me to hold off on leaving until they are actually born so that I will have a full three months with my babies. But I'd really like to have at least a week home to get some of the last minute stuff organized and ready. Also not commuting would be a HUGE PLUS!
I have another prenatal visit on Wednesday — I get to take the oh-so-fun gestational diabetes test at this one — so I think I'm going to ask my doc again about what they recommend. I've been really lucky not to need bed rest (again, knock on wood) but I'm kinda hoping for a reprieve from this exhaustion...
We also have the second part of our Parenting / Childbirth for multiples class on Wednesday night. At this one we get to see both a vaginal and c-section birth. The class will also cover some of the must-buy twins items and getting started with breastfeeding so I'm looking forward to it. Mark is not too crazy about watching the videos but as far as I'm concerned, I just want to know what to reasonably expect.
Aside: This may seem blasphemous, but frankly I don't care how the babies come out, as long as they come out alive, kicking and healthy and I don't die having them. Everything else is gravy. Drugs? If I need them, pump 'em in. Cut me open? If that's the best way for the babies to come out, go right ahead. Vaginal is the way to go? I'm ready to push until they do. Whatever the decision, I want to be informed but will rely on the experts at hand to guide me and get my babies here safely.
Prep-wise, we got the shelves up this weekend so I could get the last of my knitting stuff (magazines mostly) off the floor.
That only leaves the pile of "stuff that must be shredded" before I can consider the room ready to start bringing baby furniture in. I'm planning to tackle that task next weekend. For some reason I'm not at all into doing it, mainly because I remember how time-consuming and boring it was last time I had a major pile of shit to shred.
Aside from this, I finished updating our baby registries (Target didn't carry our stroller / car seats so I had to create a second registry at Babies r Us for them). I might need to add a thing or two after our parenting class, but I think that it's pretty much done. A close friend and a co-worker are each planning on throwing showers for us — one geared towards friends and family; the other for work — and had been gently nudging me for a few weeks to get my registry together. I honestly didn't want to think about it anymore so I decided to finish it as best as I could. I mean, it depresses me to see how much of the essential stuff we have yet to buy.
The only "recommended" stuff I didn't put on the list were clothes / outfits and medicine cabinet stuff since a) I will get clothes from people one way or another whether I register for them or not and b) I'm not entirely sure what we need medicine-wise and I don't mind picking up the remaining "last minute" stuff on one of our bi-weekly Tar-jay runs.
Also in prep-news, Mark's dad located and bought a mini-van for us. We'd asked him to do the legwork for us and gave him a budget to stay within. He scouted out a good deal on a white 2002 Chevy Venture and bought it for us. (We're paying him back, natch!) Now Mark has to go down to West Virginia one of these weekends REAL SOON NOW to pick it up — something which I have to admit to not being very keen on right now. I'm really not feeling cool with him potentially being away from me for a whole weekend (what if I need to go to the hospital?) or with driving a car with temporary plates. I'm worried shitless about something happening to him even though it's highly irrational. I mean, really, who would carjack / kill the man driving a 4 year old mini-van? Still, my dreams have been haunted by this and other scenarios for the past few nights.
All this prep-work and parenting stuff aside, I know that you guys really come here for the knitting content. The winner of "When Bad Things Happen to Good Knitters" is Rachel O. Rachel, just email me with the address to which you want the book sent and I will get it out of the mail to you this week.
And, last, but not least, the first of the Harvey Kimonos is off the needles:
It desperately needs blocking and finishing but the knitting is done. That's four baby sweaters down, two to go.
Off to work on Harvey number two!
Today marks the beginning of my 25th week and I am beyond grateful that everything is going okay with my pregnancy. A fellow "Bellybean" on the boards I frequent lost her baby over the weekend and it has brought some of my fears back into very sharp focus. I am incredibly saddened that such a nice and caring woman had to suffer such a terrible loss. She and her husband had to jump through hoops for years to get to this point, only to suffer the loss of their baby girl at 19 weeks. Once again I think of all the ignorant, hate-full people who can get knocked up no problem, and crank out kid after unwanted kid or the news stories about some mom killing her baby and I wonder why there is this injustice. Why the folks who really want them have to struggle so...
Every time I feel Aden or Hunter move, I am reassured that they are still okay and pray that they decide to hang out for the long term. I consider myself very lucky and blessed right now.
Our appointment last Wednesday went pretty well. We had a growth measuring ultrasound so we got some more stats on the sea monkeys. Dr. Death was actually the doctor who read my ultrasound report and he told me that we were doing really well so that meant a lot to me! I didn't think anything but bad news could come out of that man's mouth...
Aden
Hunter
Aden and Hunter were measuring perfectly at 24 weeks even and were 1lb 5oz and 1lb 3oz respectively. My cervix was still long and closed, and my blood pressure and everything else were good as well. I gained 5 lbs since my previous visit at 22 weeks. (I guess the weight gain FINALLY decided to catch up with me and I'm probably going to watch my diet a bit more closely going forward.) But unlike other women I know, my doctor didn't yell or berate me for gaining too much between visits. All he asked me about was whether or not I was feeling depressed or extraordinally fatigued. I told him that I'd been up since 4 AM so yeah I was beat that day but I wasn't depressed in general, just really crabby. He smiled, told me that crabby was good and sent me on my way after telling me that I'll be having my Gestational Diabetes screening at my next visit.
After all the stories I've heard about it, I can honestly say that I'm not looking forward to it... but whatever it takes to get to a healthy 38 weeks.
Mark and I have our first "Multiples Birthing" class this Wednesday and in light of this operation "Baby Ready the Apartment" began in earnest this weekend. Remember this?
Well, that is no longer. What we have in it's place is this beauteous arrangement:
We still have to put up the shelving over these to hold some stuff but I'm beyond thrilled with their capacity. Everything except for my cross-stitch stuff and quilting fabrics fit in these so Mark and I are extremely pleased.
Here's how the rest of the bedroom turned out:
My sewing table and Mark's side of the bed. Yes, that's a dog bed and pillow for Maia on the floor. The magazines in the crates on the floor will go on the shelves once they are installed. Unseen in this picture is my blocking board which is now living under Mark's side of the bed...
My desk. The storage bins on the left of it contain cross stitch stuff, fabric and supplies for quilting and scraps of good yarn (who can throw out a 1/4 ball of Koigu?)...
My yarn stash. All of my yarn — sans Grandma P's acrylic which is living in the front hall closet since I couldn't bear to throw it out — is living in Ziploc bags in these drawers. In addition, the top drawer on the left is dedicated to my beading and jewelry making stuff. The top drawer on the right contains all my lace yarn and about ten WIPs. Speaking of WIPs... That humongous Lands End tote and the grey containers house all my other WIPs (yes, I have that many!). The drawered storage units on top house all my notions and circular needles. There are KnitPicks' Options needles and Denise interchangeable needles sitting on top of these, along with my most used reference books and my spinning supplies. Half of the bookshelf is taken up by reference books: stitch dictionaries, techniques, etc...
These pieces are all from the "Malm" line...
A shot of the front of the room from the back.(There's a new end table next to the glider.) I'm trying to give you some idea of how large the room is...
The new TV media unit and my other bookshelf of craft books...
Our bed without Mark or Maia in it! This is my side of the bed, as evidenced by the step stool and Moby...
My brand new glider. (I plan on knitting a throw for it... the blue thing is a temporary measure to protect the wall in case we rock too far back.) The bookshelves shown on the left here will be moved out into the hallway to make room for the cribs or we might move the glider / nursing area there and put the cribs at the very front of the room where the glider is currently...
The last remaining bit of clutter that will be tackled within the next week.There's tons of paper to be shredded and filed which are currently in the bins on the left. This might be another location for the nursing area or the changing table once the bookshelf on the left is moved out. We have to see what the dimensions of the pieces we're buying will be...
Ikea and Tar-jay freaking rock... as does Mark. He put together all this furniture pretty much single-handedly. I helped by sorting screws and some minor holding of pieces but he put together both dressers, the media unit, the glider and the new end table pretty much on his own. The bulk of my work involved reorganizing and figuring out what we should chuck. Broken VCR? Gone. Non-functional CD player? Trashed.
All in all it was an extremely productive — and exhausting — weekend.
In knitting news, I am 8 rows away from finishing the second sleeve on the Harvey Kimono. I'm thinking that I will do the blocking after it's joined so I will be working on the neck edging and joining tomorrow. My guess is that it will be done by Wednesday.
And speaking of Wednesday, don't forget that the book drawing will be held then, so if you want to enter, drop me an email by tomorrow night.
Growing, growing, growing... Keep those babies growing...
24 weeks; six months; end of the 2nd trimester. However you want to count it, we have viable fetuses now. I'm officially out of another danger zone. And I can truly say that I'm a little relieved. There's still a long road ahead but now I know that if things progress sooner than expected, my little ones stand a chance of surviving — with loads of medical intervention, of course.
Although I have 14 weeks (I hope!) left, it suddenly feels like things are a lot more pressing. Much of our timing is geared around the fact that twins usually do come early, so we're being guided to do stuff earlier than most folks would. Case in point, Mark and I have our "Birthing Multiples" classes at the end of this month. Taking these classes earlier than 28-30 weeks is apparently not the norm for most pregnancies, but apparently the sooner the better is the norm for multiples.
Other signs of earlier than usual prep are around me. There is a tentative baby shower being planned by a friend of mine for sometime next month. The frequency of my appointments will be changing in as soon as a few weeks, depending on what my ultrasounds show. Hell, even Daylight Savings Time came early this year.
Additionally, the upcoming seasonal change from winter to spring adds to this feeling of rush... I always feel a burst of "must get shit done" after a long winter of hiding. But my main motivator right now is my ever-growing belly. I have found out the painful way that I can not bend at the waist at FUCKING all anymore. Picking up stuff from the floor has changed from a simple bend and grab into a chance to practice my squats. And let's not mention things like trimming / painting toenails, putting on socks or lacing up shoes.
Also on the list of things I can't do are carry or lift things over 40 pounds, walk very fast (Ever see a penguin run? No more jaywalking for me!) or vacuum. Housecleaning has actually been out of the question for a while now due to exhaustion, so Mark and I broke down and have hired a maid to come in every two weeks to clean for us.
I don't like being physically hampered in any way and this has been an especially bitter pill for me to swallow. As my mobility and ability to do physical things decreases at a seemingly ever increasing pace, I find myself getting more and more frustrated. So I want to get as much done as I can before I am relegated to the "lie in bed and point" stage.
To that end, Mark rented a house on wheels (a Honda Element nicknamed "Event" by the happy folks over at ZipCar) this Sunday and off to the Ikea in Elizabeth, NJ we went. We took off at roughly 10 AM and would have made it there in good time if I hadn't confused Mark as to which exit we were supposed to be getting off at. (Repeat after me, 13A not 13!) We wound up going one exit past and asked the toll clerk how to get back to where we needed without having to jump back on the Turnpike. She gave us some directions and told us to look for the Ikea signs.
What she neglected to mention was that these signs were the size of a postage stamp.
After finally spotting one and following it to a four-way intersection where going straight would have us going the wrong way on a one-way street — ya gotta love looking straight ahead into a "Do Not Enter" sign — we blindly guessed as to which direction we should go and had a nice 15 minute drive in some dodgy and industrial looking parts of town. Somehow Mark finally got us to Ikea without incident, where we immediately got some grub — mac 'n' cheese for me and Swedish meatballs for Mark — and got our shopping on.
Roughly four hours later, we netted:
Two Malm 4 drawer dressers to store my yarn (these will potentially be repurposed for the kids' rooms when we buy a house / move)...
a Malm TV storage unit (the doors fold flat along the sides which is supernice and the top drawer actually flaps down to reveal your DVD player, etc.)...
a Basisk wall lamp to put over the bed so that we can stop fighting about who forgot to turn out the overhead light...
4 Slinga brackets, 2 Tryggve shelves, and a few Knuff magazine holders (for saved issues of Interweave Knits) and Branäs baskets to hold knicknacks that won't go / fit in the dressers...
and, last but not least, some Tupplur bedding (we only had two sets sheets for our new King-sized bed), an Oxel boxspring cover and much needed Bumerang hangers for the hall closet.
Aside: We really fell in love with the Värde cabinets that Sogalitno showed us through her previous link and are planning on getting some for storage in the kitchen after the washing machine gets put it.
All in all it was a good and efficient haul that did not break the bank, although some of the furniture almost broke Mark's back. The "Warning: this package may be heavy" next to the boxes the dressers came in was a bit, um, understated as Mark found out when he had to load two of those puppies onto our handtruck. (They weighed 80 lbs, each.) And let's not talk about how much the TV storage unit weighed.
Mark had to load and unload (read: wrestle) these boxes pretty much single-handedly in and out of the car while I stood helplessly (and frustratedly) by, and then get them from the street into our building and up to our apartment. The thought that the elevator might be out when we got back home crossed my mind several times but luckily it was working when we got home.
Now the boxes are sitting in our bedroom waiting for us to assemble them next weekend. They'll be joined by boxes for this at some point today:
and this:
It's a glider and a small end table intended for our nursing area.
Edited to add: The end table didn't make it here today. The glider showed at 3 PM and since then I've been sitting around wondering when the table was going to show up. Finally, at 8:00 PM, I received some news on it's status. Apparently it got damaged in transport and the delivery was cancelled. Great... I wonder how long it's going to take for them to ship the replacement?
The plan is to set this up at the front or the side of the room, depending on what space / our furniture arrangement allows. And while this furniture is technically for our nursery, I'm counting it as part of the "home improvement" phase we're in. Why? Cause I'm oddly superstitious. I don't actually want to set up stuff for the babies until I know that we're not setting ourselves up for disappointment. In some Jewish traditions, this is actually normal, with the nursery not being set up until after the baby is born and all gift giving being done after the child is home.
Still, I'm not Jewish and it's not reasonable to leave everything until the last minute — especially since we don't have any immediate family close by to help — so we're buying stuff, albeit slowly. Our next purchase will probably be the apartment-sized combo washer / dryer we're going to need along with some stuff to help better organize the kitchen so that Mark can cook more easily. Once that's done, all that will remain are the baby items like cribs, etc.
It's feeling really real and really close now.
In knitting news, I finished the back and fronts of the Harvey Kimono and am now working on the first of the sleeves:
The instructions call for blocking everything prior to joining and finishing and then reblocking. I'm not sure I'm going to go that route, though as it seems a bit unnecessary to me. Still, I have to get through the sleeves before I make a decision and may change my mind about how I feel by then.
Don't forget that the book giveaway is still on, so if you haven't entered you still have time. Just drop me an email — address is in the sidebar on the upper left — and I will put you in the running.
