Season's Greetings (It's a Movember Thing)

Merry Christmas from the Slapstick Motherhood Family

Love, Simon, Isaac, Lily, Brian, and Brian's Mustache.

Alcohol: Making Parenting More Bearable Since The Invention of Babies

Oh No!
Your baby of choice just took a shit with enough PSI to leave a skid mark from his butt hole to his shoulder blades! What are you going to do?!?

Hi. I'm Lily.
You might remember me from such blog posts as Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Delivery (Srsly, Don't Read This Post), Circ? You Mean Like Cirque Du Soleil?, and the ultra-classy In Which I Explain Why You Might Find A Baby In My Clothes Dryer.

Washing your baby can be exhausting, time-consuming, and downright dangerous. But if you follow these patented tips, your baby-washing experience is guaranteed to be much more enjoyable, and might even result in a clean(ish) baby.

Step 1: Gather your supplies.
Washing a baby takes an obnoxious amount of equipment. And since it's generally frowned upon to leave your baby unattended in the tub (although I consider it tough love), you need to have all your supplies within arms reach. These include diapers, wipes, clean clothes, shampoo, baby wash, a wash cloth, and a cup or similar container for rinsing. And vodka. Because it's five o'clock somewhere.

Step 2: Grab your baby
Be warned: babies can smell fear. Grab your baby with confidence; any hesitation on your part and the baby will figure out it's about to be bathed and let out a shriek that doesn't quit 'till the skin between its teeny, tiny toes is dry. Once you've grabbed it, hang on tight - those things are more slippery when wet than a baby seal involved in a upper class ponzi scheme. And again, dropping your baby is frowned upon in most cultures, so best to get a good grip.

Step 3: Get peed on
It's gonna happen eventually (multiple times) so you might as well get it over with. Just make sure you keep your mouth shut and try to keep his wiener aimed away from Grandma's priceless hand-crocheted decorative toilet seat cover. And if its a girl...well...all bets are off. Better get your poncho.

Step 4: Wash like you've never washed before
You know all those spots on yourself that you kind of gloss over in the shower because you have to be at work in like 28 minutes? Well, make sure you scrub 'em good on baby, or they'll develop some kind of horrible rash or fungal infection, and you'll have to display your lackluster parenting skills for the world to see as you parade them through the pediatricians office. You might as well hold up a sign that says I'm Going To Hell Because I'm incapable Of Cleaning My Infant. Trust me - there are plenty of less obvious ways to screw up your kid. Wash them properly and then feel free to use them as pawns in your ugly divorce. I wont tell.

Step 5: Look the other way
Because your baby probably definitely just peed in the tub again and do you really want to stop bath time so you can dump and refill that bitch while tipsy and struggling to hold onto your squirmy seal-baby? ...I didn't think so.
What?
It's sterile!!

Step 6: Get that diaper on QUICK
In case you didn't realize, bath time - and parenting in general - is 90% about dodging bodily fluids. And your wet, naked baby has a back-up supply of piss that would rival any dog at the dog park. The good news is you've already changed enough diapers to consider going pro, so you SHOULD able to get that thing on in under 5 seconds. The bad news is that the vodka you consumed while washing baby has significantly dulled your cat-like reflexes. Just try to get the diaper on the butt instead of the head, and we'll consider it a draw.

Step 7: Sniff your baby.
Go ahead. You've earned it. Your baby now smells like dreams and rainbows and unicorns. Sniff him good. Oh yeah. Just like that. Breathe it in, because in about 5 minutes he'll smell like day-old formula and fart again, and you'll go back to handling him in a Hazmat suit.

So there you go. From a dirty to clean baby in 7 simple steps. Also, depending on how much you drank during the process, your day just went from shitty to vodka-tastic in 7 simple steps.

So really, everybody wins. Your baby gets thoroughly cleaned and sniffed, and YOU get to have a few cocktails and make some bad decisions.

Cheers!

Why God Hates Us: A Social Commentary

Let's talk about someone else's children for a change.

When I checked my email this morning, Yahoo! News informed me that Michelle Duggar had had a miscarriage.

Now, I have paid a little more attention to the Duggars these a past few months than I should have, mostly because A) 19 Kids and Counting is on ALL THE TIME, and when one is on bedrest or feeding babies at 2:00 am, one cannot be choosy when it comes to television programming, B) there was a small chance that I was going to be hugely pregnant for my friend's Halloween-themed wedding (Hi Nora!), and I was boning up on my potential Halloween costume (read: Michelle Duggar), and C) watching someone handle 19 kids makes twins look like a cake walk, so it helps me keep perspective.

This family is more than a little perplexing. Not only because they continue to pump out children at an alarming rate, but also because they just seem so damn happy all the time, which makes me draw the conclusion that they're on something, and it sure as hell ain't God's love (I'm thinking more along the lines of Vicodin).

So when I'm watching Jim Bob and his clan in action, I can't help but think, why?? WHY would you have all those children? Why would you take on that kind of social and financial responsibility? And perhaps more importantly, how many loads of laundry do you do in an average week??? And don't give me that God crap. Even if there was a god who told man to procreate like rabbits, he told us to do it a long time ago, when the human population could pretty much fit in the Super Dome.

Oh, Jim Bob, how times have changed.

You see, we're experiencing this little thing called OVER POPULATION, where the planet cannot possibly sustain all these people. In a sense, there are not enough communion wafers for the entire congregation. So your insistence on not using birth control and spawning massive amounts of children who will be raised to do the exact same thing is not only antiquated...it's downright immoral (and I don't give a rat's ass WHAT your god tells you to do. Morality and religion are two different things).

So while my heart goes out to the Duggars (and it does - truly - because a miscarriage is always difficult to bear), I can't help but think that the universe is trying to tell them something. Maybe that 19 kids is enough. Maybe that her uterus is just plain tired, and needs a fucking break already. Maybe that they should count their (numerous) blessings and wrap it up next time.

Of course, people who take their marching orders directly from the Bible rarely listen to the universe, so I'm sure they'll continue to do the unprotected baby dance as soon as she's able. And I'm sure there will eventually be a 20th Duggar to exploit.

But it just goes to show that fanatical religious views doesn't exactly align with what's best for the planet...or your fellow human beings, who, BTW, are already consuming more processed foods and breathing more polluted air than they would like. So next time you think God tells you to do something, take a long hard look at what he's really asking you to do, and I think you'll find that maybe he loves you, but he clearly hates the rest of us, otherwise, he'd tell you to keep it in your pants.

The moral of this story? You can listen to God, or you can listen to scientists, and from what I can tell, scientists are the only ones who don't hate our species.

Also that God seems a little passive aggressive, if you ask me.

Psych. It's Totally My Job To Enterain You (A List!)

This past Monday, the boys were 2 months old.
Can you believe it?
In the time it takes most women to get around to washing their favorite bra (don't lie - we all do it), my little meatloaves grew about 4 lbs...which is more than what they weighed when they were born!

*sigh

In those two months of parenting (well, okay 3 weeks NICU support and 5 weeks of real parenting), I figured a couple things out.
Mind you, only a couple.
But here they are, so that those of you who are pregnant or thinking of having kids can learn from my mistakes.

1. You only ever have two hands.
When it comes to babies, the more hands you have, the better. Which is great when people are around, but when it's just You Vs. Meatloaf (or meatloaves, in my unfortunate case), two hands is about 4 less than you need. So here's the thing: Sometimes, you just gotta let them cry. I'm not talking about letting them cry while you catch up on episodes of 30 Rock (although I've been sorely tempted)...and I'm not talking about letting them cry because they've wriggled themselves half way out of their bouncer and are precariously close to taking a floor dive. I'm talking about letting them cry (from a place of safety) while you finish preparing their bottles/take a quick shower/poo/finish switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Is their unaddressed crying going to lead to deep neglect and abandonment issues that may or may not cause them to grow up to be serial killers? Maybe. But whether they're developing a psychosis or not, again, you only have two hands, so it's probably best not to worry about it. Finish eating your slice of cold pizza and THEN go feed your little Son Of Sam.

2. There's dirty, and then there's DIRTY
Everybody knows that babies = gargantuan amounts of laundry. So in an effort to save your sanity and a few loads of wash (think of it as a 'green' initiative), you have to decide where exactly to draw the line in the sand when it comes to so-called 'dirty' baby laundry. Before you throw that bib in the hamper, think to yourself: does it really need to be washed? Is the damp spit-up touching your baby's chin or hanging out harmlessly on their chest? Could the bib potentially be dried and turned around, thus creating a new, relatively clean surface? How many clean bibs are left before the laundry reaches that critical point where you are elbows deep in vomit with nary a burp cloth to be found? Of course, a lot of this depends on how much of a hassle it is to throw the laundry in the wash. If your washer/dryer unit is conveniently located in your kitchen, it's a lot easier to do multiple loads than a house like mine, where venturing into the cold, dank, stinky basement to do the laundry is akin to The Lord Of The Rings: The Cat Piss Edition. But either way, it's best to think of "dirty" as a spectrum, rather than a fixed point. Trust me - the planet thanks you for your conservation.

3. That soft spot on their head is super creepy.
No explanation needed. Just sayin'...

4. Breast feed, breast feed, breast feed.
I'm pro-breast feeding. But not for the health benefits or the mutual bonding. In this case, I'm all about the dolla billz, y'all. Formula is MAD EXPENSIVE, and they eat more of it than you can imagine. I personally tried my damnedest to breast feed. I started pumping the minute they were lifted out of my abdominal cavity and didn't stop the whole time they were in the NICU. Unfortunately, by the time they were home, I was pretty much sucked bone dry. It was devastating....but not NEARLY as devastating as it was to find out that one can of Similac Neosure cost about $15 and we were going through a can every 48 hours. Imagine how much they'll eat when their stomachs are larger than the size of a marble?!? So yeah, breastfeeding is the way to go. And if you MUST go the formula route, remember to save the receipts so you can whip them out when they start complaining about the costs of keeping you in a nursing home. Payback's a BITCH, yo.

5. Think negative.
I've come to realize that the absolute worst thing you can do while waiting for your little bundle of joy to arrive is to reassure yourself that whatever comes your way, you can handle it. Instead, I want you to imagine the absolute worst scenario: the baby (or babies) is(are) screaming, the living room has been overtaken by laundry, there's a pot boiling over on the stove, the phone is off the hook, and you're in a corner having a nervous breakdown, pulling out your hair and sobbing uncontrollably. Now, keep imagining this scenario every day until you actually give birth. Rest assured, I'm not telling you to do this because that's how it is. No...I'm telling you to do this so when the baby comes home and it's not quite as bad as you imagined....well...that rocks. You see, it's all about perspective. When I use my vacations to go backpacking, it's to help me appreciate the little luxuries in life. Like eating off a plate. Or going to sleep without worrying about bears ripping through your tent and mauling you to death. The same can be said for child rearing. If you are 100% prepared for the worst experience of your life, then you're pleasantly surprised when there are moments of calm and you find yourself managing to get through the day without considering suicide. See? Perspective.

That's it for now. I'm guessing the babies won't be sleeping for that much longer (always a safe assumption), and I should probably prep for the next round of feedings, changings, and burpings. But keep those items in mind, should you find yourself with a bun in the oven; the difference between an awful day and a great day is often simply how you approach the obstacles set in front of you.

On Why It's Not My Job To Entertain You

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately.

Every day I have 28 hours' worth of things to do and 24 hours to do them. Feeding and changing babies takes 6-8 of those hours, and talking them down from epic temper tantrums takes another 3 or 4 hours. Working takes 5 hours (yes, I'm back to work. Can we say masochist, anyone?). Sleeping takes only about 4 of those hours, I'm deeply troubled to say, and then there's the requisite hour of me-time where I sit in a corner, hold myself, and rock back and forth. Housework is squeezed into what's left of the day (which ain't much, I can tell you. I haven't seen the counter top or a clean pair of underwear in a month).

Note that I didn't say anything about eating, showering, letting the dog out, or giving the cat her insulin shot. Quite frankly, there's just not enough time for those things. Needless to say, Milo's been doing the pee-pee dance for 3 days now and the cat is looking disturbingly sluggish.
But it's all about priorities, yanno?

I'm still loving motherhood, but now that the novelty has worn off, I love it like a person might love running a marathon...which is to say, quite a bit, but if someone wants to take over for a bit, they're more than welcome.

And after all, parenting is just one big marathon, isn't it? Where you dig deep and keep going despite the suffering, always keeping one eye on the prize (which is, in this case, relatively well-adapted offspring who leave the nest, hopefully with a full scholarship) and doing your best to ignore the fact that your body is screaming for you to give up, acknowledge that maybe this wasn't the best decision, and go find the nearest bar.

But the babies...they sure are cute. Which makes it worth it, even when they're pooping on you and sneezing in your face and having mental breakdowns at 3:00 am.
And then there's the tax write-off...
Cha-CHING!!

So who knows when I'll be back to post again.
Probably when the planets align and Aquarius is in the house of Saturn and the Eagles win the Super Bowel.

Until then, if anyone needs me, they can find me at home, because I never, ever leave.

Binkeys Rule, Parents Drool

All hail the binkey

Reliever of woes
Grantor of serenity
Deliverer of peace
Giver of precious minutes to facebook-stalk old highschool friends and lady-scape the privates.

I don't know what kind of messed-up baby crack they put on those binkeys, but whatever it is, I need to buy stock in it.

Binkeys are amazing. They can turn your screaming, tomato-faced infant into a limp bag of happy baby in approximately 3.4 seconds. I could probably submerge the kids in a tub full of ice water and dead puppies, and as long as I shoved binkeys in their mouths, they wouldn't cry.

Personally, I don't quite see the appeal.
But there you have it - babies are weird. They're soothed by the oddest things, like being thwacked on the back repeatedly hard enough to dislodge a lung, or flying through the air in various swinging contraptions.
What's tantamount to an old-school beating or a roller coaster ride to us puts babies to sleep faster than a Nyquil cocktail with a Lunesta chaser.

Go Figure.

In other news, I almost microwaved a fork yesterday.
Not even with a plate of food or anything - just a lone fork.

I think I might have been preparing soup, but things were so hazy after getting scant amounts of sleep, I very well could have been readying a bowel of Windex. Not that the babies are up all night, but they're up often enough where REM sleep is a thing of the past. And without REM sleep, people do funny things.
Like remove a dirty diaper from a child and dress them without putting a new, clean diaper on, resulting in an impromptu pee party mid-feeding.
True story.

So I'm mildly concerned about my ability to effectively parent, but I figure if I endanger the kids, they really have nobody to blame but themselves. If they want better parenting, they should learn to sleep through the night.
Simple as that.

So that's the status in our household; very little sleep, and a general atmosphere of poor decision-making.
It's a lot like college, except now I'm the one cleaning up the vomit instead of producing it (which is - admittedly - a lot less fun, and gives me a new appreciation for the Rutgers janitorial staff). But, also like college, everybody is relatively unscathed at the end of the day, so I guess I'm doing an okay job.

The babies, however, seem a bit...underwhelmed...with my caretaker abilities. The looks they give me when I accidentally drop a poopy diaper on their heads or poke them in the eye with the bottle nipple suggest that they are 100% aware of what is required of a mother and I'm not making the cut.

They're like, Mom, can you please get your shit together?!?
And I'm like, I know, I know. Sorry about that.
And they're all, Didn't you learn how to do this before you took the test
And I'm all, Uhhh, well this is awkward. They actually don't make you take a test first
And they're all, Are you fucking kidding me?!?
And I'm all, 'Fraid not
And they're all, So any jerk-off can have kids?
And I'm all, Yep.

And then they roll their eyes and mutter something about how that explains everything.
Which is pretty rude, but what can I say? My kids can be assholes sometimes.

So in summary, it would appear that binkeys are better at parenting than I am, and my children have already learned how to curse through facial expressions.

And I think I speak for us all when I say this is not surprising in the least.

I Scream, You Scream

If you know you're a mom when you can ignore a little spit-up on your shirt, then you know you're an exhausted mom when you can ignore the fact that your kid just pissed on your jeans and continue to wear them for the next 3 days.

We're on week 2 of solo daytime parenting duty and I'll tell you - it's something else.
It's equal parts magical and suicide-inducing.
Like spotting a unicorn at a Barbra Streisand concert.

When they're both sleeping, it's awesome.
When one is awake and fussing, it's manageable. Almost cute, actually. I get to cram them into my Moby wrap and use it as an excuse for not cleaning the bathroom.
But when they're both awake and fussing, it's game over. I never, ever want to hear someone complain about how hard it is raising their single infant, because I swear to all that is holy, I will roundhouse kick them in the teeth Chuck Norris style. Because I'm pretty sure it was two children screaming simultaneously that caused the Heaven's Gate cult members to drink the Kool-Aid.


Today is one of those tandem fussy days.
Fantastic.
"And how," you might ask, "are you managing to blog if they're both incensed about the condition of their tummies?"

Easy.

I'm ignoring them.

Okay, I'm not so much ignoring them as acknowledging the fact that nothing I can do will help them feel better. So I can either choose to stare at them while they fuss and squirm and chant supportive phrases like "it's okay" and "I'm sorry you don't feel well" and direct them to the inspirational poster of the kitten dangling from the branch with the words Hang In There printed at the bottom...

...or

...I can wish them well, get a second cup of coffee, and let the interwebs take me away from this horrible, horrible place.

Don't worry - I'm checking on them. When they stop screaming, I hold a mirror under their noses to make sure they're still breathing. And I'm providing binkey retrieval services for a small fee, which I'm taking out of their college funds.

(Psych...AS IF we had college funds set up for the babies. It would totally cut into our beer fund.)

But I'm learning that with babies, a lot of the time, there's just nothing you can do.
They cry.
You cry.
Everybody cries.
And at the end of the day, everybody is still alive and relatively in one piece. Which is the ultimate goal of parenting, isn't it? To get through the day without death or dismemberment?

Some might call me a bad parent.
Negligent, if you will.

But I prefer to think of it as fatalistic parenting.
If there's nothing you can do about it, then there's no point in getting all worked up about it.
Plus, anyone who wants to judge is more than welcome to spend a day in my vomit and poop-covered shoes. If you're not this close to gouging your eyes out with a spoon after 2 hours of surround-sound screaming, I'll eat my words.

...and then offer you my kids, because you're obviously better at this than I am.

In Which I Explain Why You Might Find A Baby In My Clothes Dryer

I've been alone with the twins for 2 whole days while Brian returns to work. Well, 2 days once this day is over (which I'm sensing it will never, ever be).

Managing the twins has honestly not been that difficult. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is lounging by the pool and 10 is climbing Everest in flip flops, I give solo twin duty about a 6.5, which is honestly better than I expected going into this mess.

However, I'm finding that managing the twins AND life is more like an 8.4. I honestly have no idea why it took me nine and a half hours to shower, go to the bank, and do the dishes, but I'm assuming it has a lot to do with the endless feedings and changings that occur in between these activities.

Naturally, I'm becoming a bit...frazzled.

For example, I keep losing babies.
Well, not so much losing them as forgetting where I put them. A few days ago I glanced over into the kitchen and was absolutely shocked to find a baby, sitting in a bouncer on the counter top.
No joke.
Apparently I had put him there earlier while I was attempting to make dinner, and since he wasn't complaining, I kind of, sort of forgot he was there. I also was surprised to find that I spent about 5 minutes cooing and talking to a pile of blankets which I thought was Isaac yesterday. It wasn't - Isaac was later located in a bassinet in the living room. And I'm sure the blankets enjoyed the one-on-one attention, but seriously?!? Someone hand me an espresso and some blow, because I need to wake the fuck up before I find myself printing out Missing Child flyers and signing up my Diaper Genie for ballet lessons.
I'm hoping this happens to all parents (or at least parents of multiples), but if it doesn't, may I say in my defense that I have yet to find a baby in a truly inappropriate place, like that time I found that I had put the smoke detector in the fridge. So far, there have been no babies found in large appliances, so I figure that's kind of a win.

Go me.

I also keep confusing the babies for the dogs.
(I know, just when you had talked yourself out of an anonymous call to CPS, I go and drop that bomb)

I do this utterly disgusting thing where I pick at my dogs' eye boogies and then let them eat them.
(yeah, yeah, I'm a horrible person. Spare me your speech on animal cruelty and hygiene - I've already gotten it from my family and friends).
Well...apparently I tried to offer Simon one of his eye boogers the other night. It was only for like a split second, and then I realized that my children were NOT my dogs and therefore might not have a palate for eye crusties. Unfortunately, I received a look from Simon upon being offered his own eye gunk that suggests that he will remember this moment for years to come, so I can't say he's escaped completely unscathed from my horrible parenting.

And we're ONLY on day two, folks.

And then we were at the drive-through at the bank today, I was taken aback when I realized that they didn't include the dog biscuits that they usually enclose with the transaction receipt. For realz, I actually raised my hand up to hit the call button and request the treats...
...until I realized that it was because I had babies in the back seat, as opposed to dogs.

(It was right about then that I suspected that I was losing my mind)

I'm 83% sure that with a proper nights' sleep and maybe the daily assistance of an illegal immigrant, I would lose the babies less and stop mistaking them for Milo and Jericho.

That said, I'm not expecting a proper nights' sleep for the next..oh...15 years, and I can't afford help, even if I can get away with paying them a ridiculously low amount.

So, I guess I'm stuck with having to triple check that the babies aren't wearing dog collars...or that I haven't just tried to burp a pile of dirty laundry.

Chrisabaptismapalooza

This may come as a complete surprise to you folks, but I'm not a religious person.

I know - you're absolutely shocked. I'll give you a minute to collect your jaws from the floor.

Maybe I'd be a more religious person if I wasn't such a hardcore scientist.
Or if there was a religion that encouraged swearing and mud-wrestling.
Or if those communion wafers tasted better.
I dunno.

Oddly enough, I grew up in a religious household. From age 0 to 6-ish, I was practically raised in our community church. My dad was the choir director, and my mother was the secretary. We were, like, "the cool kids" of the church. We wore letterman jackets and gave lesser parishioners wedgies and swirlies. We gave other "popular" church-goers high-fives and drank 40s with them in the parking lot.

Okay - I might be exaggerating a little bit.
God generally frowns on wedgies (although I know for a fact that he is pro-high five).

But yeah, I was definitely raised Presbyterian for the early years of my life.

Which is weird, because my immediate family is now comprised of two athiests, a buddhist (Hi Em!), and a "meh, whatevs" (otherwise known as agnostic).

My husband's family, on the other hand, is Catholic. Especially his mom. She's extremely non-pushy about it, which I truly appreciate, but a mass-goer, nonetheless.
It hasn't really been an issue in the slightest..
...until now, what with us having chitlins and all.

The issue, of course, is the big C.
Or...B?
Christening? Baptism? I dunno - whichever one is Catholic.

The Holy Dunking, if you will.

Which of course leads to the age-old question:
Does one have one's children chriabaptimatizied for the sake of one's inlaws?

Normally, I would say Hellz To The No. I don't believe in Christianity and certainly don't intend on raising my children to be Christians. More importantly, I don't believe in compromising my religious beliefs (or lack thereof) for others.

But the thing is...if my mother-in-law truly believes that her grandchildren are going to go to hell because they were never sprinkled with holy water...
...well...
that's a pretty awful thing to have to come to terms with, whether it's actually going to happen or not.

So there's a good chance our children will be dunked.
Unfortunately, I have to be in attendance. Trust me - I looked it up. It's in the rules.
I'm also not allowed to roll my eyes during the ceremony or smoke a doobie behind the church beforehand.
(that's not in the rules, per se, but Brian assures me that it's a "given")

Apparently, I'm also supposed to throw a party afterwards. I mean, don't get me wrong - any excuse to get your cake on, right? But having to shell out money for a party for a religious ceremony that I don't believe in kind of rubs me the wrong way.
It's like saying "Hey, we just doused your kids in tap-water. Hooray! Feed us!!"

So that's where we stand at the moment. I have reluctantly agreed to allow a perfect stranger to spritz water in my kids' faces and feed everyone who wants to watch.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...religion is weird.

Dear Neighbor, *#$&% You

Dear Neighbor,

So, you've noticed I'm an animal lover.
That's fantastic.
Your powers of observation are impressive.

I am, indeed, a lover of all things fuzzy (or I thought I was before I moved in). Animals are great. My pets provide me with unconditional love, affection, and floor-cleaning services (I can't remember the last time I had to worry about dropping crumbs). They don't judge me or criticize me. They love me for who I am, and all they ask for in return is a little attention and regular feedings.

Well, except for our evil cat, who has asked for a pony for Christmas...to slaughter.
She may be getting anger management classes instead.

So it's 100% understandable why you would think that because I love animals, I welcome your pack of mangy, rabid he- and she-devil dogs racing across my property to assault me, my family, my pets, and any guests who might have the audacity of approaching my front door.

OF COURSE you wouldn't think to question whether or not I enjoy your dogs' extended visits to my front and back yard. I mean, who wouldn't love being barked at incessantly every time they leave or return to their house? Who wouldn't welcome watching as their dog flips out and tries to break through the living room window because there are several small dogs just on the other side, standing on the window box, aggressively screaming at the household inhabitants? Who wouldn't love having to wait 6 to 8 hours at a time to let their dogs out in the back yard because your pack of vicious animals are still outside and will charge the fence, teeth bared, if they happen to see any dogs on the other side?

Yes.
It's totally and completely understandable why you wouldn't stop and think for half a second that maybe your neighbors don't enjoy being aurally and physically assaulted on their own property by your gang of fluffy, shrieking canines.

Granted, you've taken steps to control these aggressive mutts. You mentioned the other day that you reduced the radius of your invisible fence from half-way across our property to your own property lines, or thereabouts (and may I congratulate you for finally realizing that your property does not extend past my master bedroom, bathroom, and office). Unfortunately, being that your dogs come straight from the bowels of Hell, they don't feel pain and - I'm not sure if you've noticed this - pay about as much attention to the invisible fence as they do to your demands to return to the house.

And speaking of your attempts to call off your intrusive little furballs...a word to the wise:
if your dogs haven't returned to you after 5 minutes of you standing barefoot on your porch, half-heartedly calling to them and shaking a box of dog treats, it's safe to say they're ignoring you and maybe you should put some shoes on your feet, drag your fat ass away from your front door, and come and retrieve your dogs before I drop-kick them on to route 70.

Understandably, you are confused about which types of animal interactions I enjoy.
So let's set the record straight.

Well behaved dogs who are happy to see other people and animals = good.
Aggressive dogs who charge and/or bite other people and animals = bad.

Dogs who remain on their own property = lovely.
Dogs who are left out unsupervised for hours on end to wander around, shit on, and piss on other peoples' property = not so great.

Dogs who allow my dogs to roam their backyard in peace = bombastic.
Dogs who throw themselves at my fence and shriek at me and my dogs any time we happen to be outside = srsly, WTF.

I hope these examples are clear enough. From your lack of reaction to my dirty looks and plaintive requests it's pretty obvious that you require less subtle forms of communication. And honestly, if you have any questions about what sorts of behaviors I find desirable, please don't hesitate to ask. I want to be sure that you're aware of exactly how much your dogs (and by association, you) are assholes.

In the meantime, please review my definitions of "good" and "bad" pet situations and compare them to the actions of your own satanic animals; I think you'll find more than a few similarities that may prompt you to take some drastic and unconventional approaches to dog ownership. Like, oh, say, fencing in your dogs. Or using a leash. Or (and I know this is kind of a crazy idea) supervising them when they're outside and retrieving them when they start to harass others.

By taking these extreme actions, I believe it's possible that maybe one day your pets and the rest of the world can live in harmony.

But if not, and you find that maybe - just maybe - you did such a poor job raising these dogs that they now are beyond hope and need to be put down...

...allow me to volunteer my services.
I have a duffel bag in the garage, a creek in my backyard, and my fees are reasonable.

Love,
Your (formerly) animal-loving neighbor.

I Heart Fall (An Ode To F-Bombs)

Everybody who knows me knows that fall is my absolute FAVORITE season. If I could, I would make tender love to it and then buy it a steak dinner afterwards. And not just a sizzler dinner. I'd spring for the Ruth's Chris steakhouse fillet. WITH APPETIZER and a shared dessert.
THAT is how much I love fall.

Also...everybody who knows me knows that cursing is near and dear to my heart. My boys' first words will probably be in the form of 4 letters, and I couldn't be more proud of that.

So when somebody combines fall and cursing, I start to schvitz a little. I get all warm and fuzzy and my outlook on life is a little less stabby.
My heart grows three sizes, and my shoes feel like they fit just right.


There is a man who shares my obsessions. He, too, feels that fall and cursing is a beautiful combination. He managed to capture the essence - the very marrow - of fall...with enough F-bombs to make me positively swoon.

So without further ado, allow me to present McSweeney's glorious ode to all things crisp and fall-like.

In my family, this prose is legendary (foul mouthed trash talk has a genetic component, apparently). We recite this composition every year, usually once we've consumed a healthy amount of Merlot and brazenly wielded sharp, pumpkin-carving tools (yes, in that order). And every year, I post this work of literary genius, hoping that somewhere out there, someone's day gets a little brighter just by reading it.

If you don't like cursing, you shouldn't read it. Of course, if you don't like cursing, then why are you reading my blog?!?
Also, if you don't like fall, you shouldn't click on the link or read my blog, mostly because I don't like you and you may or may not be the anti-christ.

Go ahead...close this web page and delete this link from your favorites list.
I'll wait.

For those of you who are still reading - those of you who obviously love cursing and/or fall - I salute you.

Now go get your motherf*cking asses over to McSweeney's page and help me celebrate everything that is wonderful in life.

Because the air is crisp, the mums are abloomin', and squirrels are slap-fighting over acorns.

It's fall, f*fuckers.

Baby Apocalypse: Day 7

It's been 7 days since both twins have been home, which will henceforth be referred to as la casa de caca, on account of the 16 diapers we blow through in an average 24-hour period.

These kids.
Oy.
How can something so cute and adorable and little and precious create so much poo?!?!
I'm not even mad...I'm just impressed.

Don't get me wrong - they're wonderful. They have the softest skin ever, and these teeny tiny little fingers, and these beautiful eyes and they make the funniest faces in life. But then, while they're staring up at you all quiet and beautiful and holding on to your index finger, and you're totally having a pampers commercial moment and thinking that life just couldn't get any better...
...
...they release explosive diarrhea that you can feel through the diaper.
Or they suddenly scrunch their face up and get all red and scream for no goddamn reason whatsoever.
Or they puke, without changing facial expressions at all. Just a sudden oozing of formula out of their face holes and holy crap on a stick, someone get me an old priest and a young priest!!

Feeding has been, by far, the biggest challenge. Feeding them one at a time takes up a huge chunk of the day. Like, literally one-third of my waking life - which is about 22 hours and change these days. Feeding them at the same time works famously if you have two sets of hands, but I refuse to get in the habit of depending on Brian for these things, because he'll be doing that whole "breadwinner" thing soon and I'll be largely on my own.
I tried feeding them at the same time by myself once.
It involved 2 boppys, 2 bottles, 2 hands (and I cannot stress enough that I only have 2 hands), and 2 screaming, sputtering infants that needed to be burped.
In other words, it was an EPIC FAIL, and both me and the carpet now suffer from PTSD.

But I guess trial and error is the cornerstone of parenting.
Well, that, and gin. Or whatever hard alcohol you happen to have lying around.

Kidding!
I'd never drink hard alcohol while actively parenting.
(Everybody knows I'm a beer and wine kinda gal)

But it's not all bad.
There are long periods of time when the kids sleep, and life feels relatively normal. Brian and I have our morning coffee. I blog and prowl facebook. Laundry occasionally gets washed, and I've even managed to squeeze in two glorious horseback riding sessions in exchange for two nights of Brian meeting his dad and brother at the bar for Happy Hour.

Of course, this is all about to change.
Again.
Brian is going back to work full time next week, and I'm supposed to start freelance writing again in December. What little downtime we have will be jam packed and we'll barely be able to breathe between juggling work and babies.
It seems like every time I get comfortable with life, the next few weeks promise to up the ante.
I suppose it's better than everything happening at once (which must feel like being dropped in the deep end of an olympic-sized pool with concrete shoes), but I'm terrified, none the less.

Shit is always about to get more real up in this joint.

But I'll survive, because I've yet to hear of a case of somebody dying from too much baby screaming.

So that's life right now.
Change diapers, feed, burp, repeat.
It's not bad - just different.

And now I'm off to catch a quick nap before the twins wake up and realize they haven't eaten in, like, two whole hours and flip their shit.

Baby mamma out.

Babies, Babies Everywhere (And God Do I Need A Drink)

OMG you guys.

Everywhere I turn, there are babies.
Isaac came home yesterday and shit has been WILD. I'm up to my knees in vomit, up to my elbows in dirty diapers, and up to my eyeballs in sleep deprivation.

And I'm not even lying when I say that I may have forgotten that I'm supposed to bathe these kids for, like, 3 days.

It's great. It's terrible. It's grerrible.
Or...grerribizzle, as Snoop Dogg would say.

We had our first pediatrician visit today.
It was successful, in that everybody made it there and back alive and relatively in one piece.
It was not so successful, in that Simon peed on himself, me, and the doctor.

With Brian home, things are manageable. just barely.
But I'm already terrified of what will happen when he goes back to work.
Do you have ANY IDEA how loud these kids can scream?!?

So I just wanted to update you guys on my life, so you would understand why I may not be blogging much in the near future.

Great.
Isaac is crying.

Okay, gotta run.
Wish me luck, because I'm gonna need it if we're going to make it through this without permanent damage.

All of us.

In Which I Explain Why Getting Vomited On Is A Good Thing

I have no subject for this post. And it's impossible to be funny on 3 hours' sleep, so you'll just have to bear with me today.

Or not. See if I care.

Okay, I care.
Don't leave.
Come back (and if you bring a hot meal, you can be my BFF).

Simon came home two days ago.
It's been wonderful and exhausting and elating and absolutely chock full of bodily fluids. But for once they're not mine. They're his, so they're cute and endearing, as opposed to vile and un-maidenly.

Must be nice.

Motherhood is a weird thing. Sure, I've been a mom for 24 days now, but it was kind of a provisional role. Occasional changings and feedings, interspersed with long periods of non-parenting and Ghost Hunters marathons. Now...it's the real deal. And shit is about to get even more real when the other peanut comes home, but let's not go there.

It gives me the agita, just thinking about it.

So we're bumbling along, doing all the stupid first time parent things like getting peed on and trying to figure out why in the hell is he still crying?!?!
Yanno, stuff like that.

I've learned that babies spit up about a gallon of their food per day, which is odd, because they only eat about 16 ounces per day. The math doesn't exactly add up, so I'm assuming the explanation involves a little particle physics and maybe a worm hole.

I've learned you can never have enough burp cloths and towels and blankets and socks (don't worry - they were clean) to clean up this aforementioned vomit and hence, you will have to do a load of wash on a daily basis to keep stocked. Your laundry, on the other hand, won't see a washing machine for...well...ever. Forever. You'll never have clean clothes again. They've been sacrificed to the Gods of Parenting, so you might as well get used to wearing your skivvies inside out if you want "clean" underwear.

I've learned that wearing your child is socially acceptable, provided you have one of those trendy Moby wraps.
Baby.
It's the new black.

And I've learned that once you bring a baby home, you will never see your spouse again. You will sleep in shifts and barely manage to mumble some sort of greeting twice a day when you meet in the hallway. But that's okay, because even if you tried for a second to have an adult conversation or - god forbid - get a little frisky, the baby's spidey sense would go off like 5-engine alarm and he'd be screaming within seconds.

But all joking aside, it's honestly not that bad. I was prepared for extreme sleep deprivation and massive amounts of tears (mine - not theirs) and general chaos and misery. And yeah, you definitely don't get the sleep you need and your life revolves around feeding and changing diapers.

But the thing is, that's kind of how I wanted my life to be. Anyone who goes through invasive fertility treatment has fully considered the parenting lifestyle (or at least, I would hope so) and made a decision that the sacrifices are totally worth it.

So I'm changing diapers and feeding and hovering and obsessing about my kid's bodily functions by choice, and therefore even in the darkest times, it's still WAY BETTER than not having kids.

Of course...ask me again when we have double the babies and I might have a slightly different outlook.

But so far...so good.
WAY good.

And besides, wearing babies is totally slimming for your hips and thighs.

A Day In The Life Of A NICU Mom

So, I get this one all the time:

"Well, at least you can rest up now while your kids are in the NICU."

And when this happens, what I really want to do is stare deeply into their eyes and slowly and deliberately smack them in the forehead with my open palm. However, the only thing I really can do is just blink at the offending party as if they had just said, "banana-rama slipper face monkey sucker," ...or something equally ridiculous and nonsensical.

Because rest is exactly what I'm not getting, but people always think they know shit.
Sheah. As IF.

My day starts at 5:00 am, where I wake up (for the third time that night) soaked in a cold sweat from my hormones re-balancing and leaking boob juice onto the front of my shirt.
Great.
So I get up, strip off my vile, disgusting, clammy pajamas, breast pump, shower, make coffee, and give the cat her insulin shot.
And now it's only 6:00 am. The sun won't be up for another hour.
Life is awesome.
Since I've got an hour and fifteen minutes until I have to leave, I squeeze in a little bit of work. (because I'm an idiot and agreed to take on some hefty assignments before the kids come home).

At 7:15, I drive through rush-hour traffic, brandishing my fist of rage or the even more popular finger of justice, and make it to the hospital by 7:45-ish. At 8:00, I feed one meatloaf, usually after much drama because I attempted to change his clothes and ended up with a head through an armhole or a butthole, or disconnected his leads, which sent the nurses running for dear life because they though he was coding.
We feed from 8:00 to 8:30, snuggle from 8:30 to 8:45, and then it's time to traumatize the other meatloaf by accidentally poking him in the eye with the thermometer or otherwise endangering him.
Feed, snuggles, apologies for bodily harm, etc.
Since I have a whopping HOUR until it's time to do it all again, I head down to the cafeteria for some grub (because feeding babies makes mommy hungry).

Back upstairs for more traumatizing/breastfeeding.

Now it's 1:00.
I get home by 1:30 and daydream of napping, but instead I sit back down at the computer and frantically attempt to finish this work before the kids come home from the NICU and shit really hits the fan.

So I blink, and it's 4:15. Time to head back.
Back through the rush-hour traffic, only this time I'm too tired to communicate my displeasure to the other drivers, so I just stare straight ahead and make every effort to stay awake and not hit any bicyclists.
Feed meatloaf 1.
Feed meatloaf 2.
Try not to kill them.

Now it's 7:00 (or 7:20, if we didn't snag the nurse before the shift change and got essentially abandoned for half an hour before someone realizes that we didn't actually intend on spending the night).

Back home, at which point Brian and I talk about all the things we need to do, like the dishes that haven't been washed in 3 days, or the laundry that's needed folding since I gave birth, and instead eat dinner and collapse in front of the TV/X-box.

Consequently, I get in about 15 minutes of Ghost Hunters before I drift off to sleep, only to be awakened by my 12:30 alarm because surprise, fucker, it's time to breast pump again.

So this has been my life.

I'm not saying it's going to get easier when the kids come home, but in terms of rest?
Yeah...notsomuch.

But the good news is that the boys are doing well. Isaac had a set back yesterday and couldn't advance to his 6 oral feedings (from 4). I tried to not let it get to me because they've been rocking it up to this point and steps back are inevitable. But when you spend all day and all night intentionally not thinking about how much it breaks your heart every time you leave them in the NICU, set-backs really have a way of turning you from a rational adult into a simpering child.

*sniff sniff

But they're fine. They're beautiful and well-behaved and just wonderful in every way. So I'll continue with this crazy, hectic schedule for as long as it takes, because, quite simply they're worth it.

Circ? You Mean Like Cirque Du Soleil?

I'm starting to learn that parenthood brings up a lot of questions that you never necessarily though about before and sure as hell don't have answers to.

Brian mentioned that his workplace was offering some sort of special on will-making this weekend. Personally, I'm not sure I want my will drafted up on some sort of buy-one, get-one free deal. I have a strong suspicion we'll show up and some dude who reeks of pot will be drafting wills on coffee filters out of the back of his van. And sadly, this will not have been the shadiest thing I've participated in.

Regardless, as we were holding the meatloaves, we started talking about our end-of-life wishes. I volunteered that if I was brain-dead, he should probably pull the plug, lest I contract some weird hospital virus and become a zombie and force him to smash me in the head with the nearest IV stand. Brian felt that if he was a paraplegic, he didn't want to live. I told him that he could still lead a fulfilling life as a paraplegic (I mean, look at Stephen Hawking). He thought about it and then said, "Well, I guess. Maybe I could get prosthetics."

I'll give you a moment to let that last statement sink in.

So we were laughing at the image of Brian asking the doctors to amputate his legs and arms and having prosthetic limbs attached and then still not being able to move them.

And then the nurse came in, and we were talking about the boys, and she eventually asked, "Are you gonna circ?" And I honestly for a second thought she was inquiring into my future plans as an acrobat for a traveling circus.


To which I laughed because, come on, have you ever seen me try to do a cartwheel?!?

But then she clarified that she was asking if we were going to have the boys circumcised...

...and I was completely dumfounded. Not only because I had never thought about it, but also because I realized that I didn't actually know if most of the men in the US were circumcised or not. Because I've really only seen one *type* of wiener, and I didn't know if it was the kosher type or the non-kosher type, if you get what I'm throwing at you. I mean, am I the only one who doesn't know this stuff? And if I am, WTF, man?!? How can a relatively intelligent, worldly, college-educated 29-year-old woman not know the difference between a circumcised and non-circumcised schlong? I blame the public school system. Mostly because everybody blames the public school system, and I'm always ready to jump on to the nearest bandwagon.

So I looked at Brian, panic stricken. And he looked at the nurse and said yes. and I was all, "well, that answers that question."Everybody says that parenting teaches you all sorts of things. So far, I've learned that Brian isn't exactly clear on the concept of prosthetic limbs.
And that he's circumcised.

It was an enlightening day.

(Brian: if you're reading this...sorry. This is kind of like an episode of When Keepin' It Real Goes Wrong from the Chapelle show. Feel free to smash me over the head with that IV stand.)

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Delivery (Srsly, Don't Read This Post)

Okay, let's do this.
It's 6:00 am, I've been up for almost an hour an a half, I'm jazzed up on coffee, and my ta-tas are feeling scrumptious from their recent pumping

(If you thought I was gonna ease you into the disturbing nature of this post, you were wrong. dead wrong. Abandon this blog, oh ye of faint heart and testicles)

So.
The birthing process.
Yeah....not so much miraculous. More like a humiliating disgust-fest the likes of which we haven't seen since Courtney Love slopped her way through MTV.


But where to start?

I could start in the Maternal Fetal Medicine office, where we went in for a routine ultrasound and came out with marching orders to head straight to the hospital to deliver. But there's nothing funny about being told that people are about to open you up and take out babies. ESPECIALLY when you were looking forward to a leisurely Panera breakfast.

So let's start in Obstetrics Triage where, after some routine placement of monitoring devices, a chatty, grandmotherly nurse strolled in with an electric razor and volunteered me for some Hoo-Hah landscaping.
Poor Brian.
It was SO CLOSE to every guy's porn fantasy. So close....and yet...so far. She chatted away about her grandkiddies, expertly grooming my nethers into a trendy surgical coiffe, while Brian looked at the walls...at the ceiling...at the monitors...everywhere but right in front of him, where a potentially hot sex scene had made a hard left turn into Nightmare-ville.

But it was just the first of a series of events that stripped away my femanine allure, piece by piece, until I was reduced to a leaking, sweating, emotional lump of deflated baby belly.
Seriously.
You know why so many teens date, get knocked up, manage to stay together until the baby is born, and then promptly break up?
It's not the responsibility of caring for an infant.
No.
No indeed.
It's actually because the hormone-filled boy stands by and watches helplessly as his once-attractive girlfriend with the skinny jeans and the emo hair hemorrhages and constipates and leaks boob juice and suffers through the awkward disturbance of every bodily process known to man.

You want to know what they don't tell you?

They don't tell you that it takes about 25 minutes to set up the operating room for a C-section and the entire time, you're laying on this narrow table, arms out crucifix-style, completely exposed from the boobs down, while 10 to 15 people bustle about laying out instruments and scrubbing your belly and what have you.

They don't tell you that, sure, spinal blocks are fantastic, but in return you have to spend the next 24 hours being wheeled around with your pee bag hooked on to your armrest.

They don't tell you that C-sections may spare your vagina the trauma of ripping and tearing, but either way, you'll bleed out your coochie like a motherf*cker for 6 weeks post-partum.

They don't tell you that the combination of abdominal stitches and days of narcotics tie up your bowels so badly that you'll spend an hour on the can with an unmovable lump of lead stuck somewhere between your out-hole and the toilet bowl.

They don't tell you that if you plan on breast feeding but your kids are otherwise occupied in the NICU, you're expected to place these suction cups on your boobs and sit around for about 10-15 minutes, every 3 hours, day and night, while you're essentially milked like a dairy cow.

And they don't tell you that a week or two later, even though your belly is starting look more like a human mid-section and less like a droopy sack of flour, and even though your bleeding level has been reduced from tsunami to babbling brook, and even though your boobs have gotten HUGE (which is a definite plus for us less-well-endowed ladies), you'll be sweating profusely every night that even if your husband wanted to touch you again (which is questionable, considering he witnessed the above insults), he couldn't because his hand would slip right off your slimy, clammy skin.

You guys.

And I thought pregnancy was humiliating??
Dude...that was just a warm-up.

People have done things to my privates that I never want to speak of again.
Brian has played audience to bodily functions that before this experience I swore I would never expose him to (because everyone knows that girls don't poop).
I have leaked more fluids from more parts of the body than I knew existed.

Honestly, the only thing in this world that would be worth the aforementioned physical assault of all things gross and disgusting is my kids.

So let's take a moment to thank God or Allah or whoever schemed up this whole reproduction thing for giving us the greatest reward of all time in exchange for the horribleness of delivery.

Was it worth it in the end?
Absolutely.
But I swear to God, I'll never do it again.

Well...maybe.

(Slightly Underdone) Meatloaves Have Arrived!!!1!

I'm sure there's a funnier, classier way to announce this, but I just don't have the time, energy, or emotional reserve to whip up a beautiful, sentimental post right now.

Let's just say that on October 5, 2011, two slightly underdone meatloaves were brought into this world via c-section because one of the meatloaves was refusing to cook.

Simon Wallace was born at 7:08 pm weighing 3 lbs 9 oz
Isaac Ward was born just two minutes later weighing 3 lbs 1 oz

Both are doing wonderfully, despite their early entrance. Although they're in the NICU, they're both making progress, have no problems to speak of, and are anticipated to come home within the next few weeks.

I'm a happy, albeit sore, mamma bear right now.
It's hard running back and forth from the NICU twice a day and breast pumping every 3 hours 'round the clock. Especially when one's internal organs were recently sliced and diced and restitched back together again.
At some point, I'll tell you all the nitty gritty details about the past week. Remind me to tell you how Brian's porn fantasy almost came to life (if the nurse hadn't been an overweight, chatty, 60-year-old grandmother of two). And remind me to tell you what it's like to experience the constipative effects of narcotics when one has abdominal stitches.
Oh, I'll tell you all about it, and the 300 other ways that one completely loses their dignity when going through the birthing process. By the end of that post, you'll probably have laughed, cried, vomited, cried some more, eaten a sandwich, and then vomited that sandwich up again.

But that's for another time.
For now, let's just say that my newly expanded household is rocking my world in all the right ways.
It's wonderful, and exciting, and terrifying, and everything else motherhood is supposed to be.

Welcome, Simon and Isaac.
There have never been two children more loved, fought for, or wanted in the whole wide world.
It's an honor to be your Mommy :-)

You Just Supported Al-Qaeda. Feel Better?

So...I don't know how to put this delicately. So I'm just going to come out and say it.

My friends are better than your friends.

Now, before you begin to argue, I'd like to point out that the past two weekends have been absolutely crammed full of people stopping by to just, like, give me presents and tell me how good I look.
Seriously, just imagine it:
Two solid weekends of loved ones showing up, feeding me, giving me gifts that are by and large far too generous, telling me I barely look 7 months pregnant with a singleton (let alone twins!), and then bouncing the minute I start to get fatigued. Some of these people even cleaned my house! You can't make this shit up!
And keep in mind that not once was I able to offer cake, mimosas, booty-shaped lolli-pops, or any of the other accoutrements that people typically expect in return for them shelling out $79.99 on an overpriced, crescent-shaped pillow.
At most, I was able to provide a hug and a glass of tap water.
Shit is GLAMOROUS up in here.

And take, for example, today's events. A good friend of mine who lives up in Newark (which might as well be the moon, considering she has to take the NJ turnpike to get here) rolled up in this bitch at 9:00 am to organize my nursery. And I don't mean the fold a few onesies while we gossip over coffee type of organize. I mean the flat out, military-style assault on all things baby-oriented type of organize where everything finds a home, from the smallest pacifier to the largest bassinet.

When she showed up, I had baby clothes, diapers, sheets, and toys strewn about the various rooms of my house in no recognizable pattern, and by the time she left, everything was in it's proper place...cleaned, folded, and labeled.
Yes.
She brought her label maker.

And then she refinished and restored an old shelving unit she found in my garage.
Yanno...for shits and giggles, because it would look cute in the nursery.

Because this girl is pretty much what would happen if Martha Stewart and MacGyver had a love child that was slightly traumatized at birth so that it grew up with a penchant for baby doll molds (no, I'm not kidding. Read her blog). She sewed my boys beautiful matching outfits and monogrammed baby blankets (to be revealed with the nursery pics) and then just moseyed out to the garage and started going at this decrepit shelf with a palm sander and a circular saw.

Bitch be CRAZY, yo. (And I mean that in the best, most awesome way possible)

And then her brother and his girlfriend showed up, who live in HOUSTON, BTW, but had flew out for the weekend. And even though he's a dude and therefore knows nothing about baby stuff (and probably cares even less), and his girlfriend had never met me and probably didn't give two shits that I was in the midst of a procreation emergency...these guys jumped in the fray and started helping.

So there I was, reclining with my feet up and a mocktail in my hand while my friend, her brother, and her brother's girlfriend were busting their assess preparing MY house for MY children, all the while being violated by my dogs, who were determined to shove their noses in every private part they could find. (Because I forgot to mention that whatever you do, you do not bend over in front of Milo).

To say I'm grateful is an understatement. I am awed and humbled by the generosity of everyone, friend or family, who has pitched in to help us make a home for our little meatloaves.

So, to all of you who have offered gifts, support, and love, I would like to say thank you from the deepest recesses of the place my heart would be if I had one.
I'm not one to get mushy, and maybe I've just looked at one too many sleepers with adorable baby animals on the heiney, but seriously. I love you guys.

And to the rest of you who are reading this?
Thank you too.
I may not even know who you are, but by reading this, you're supporting me.
Kind of like how every time you buy pot you support the terrorists.

And that certainly counts for something.

Fuzzy and Heavy

Well, bed rest could only have taken this blog in one of two directions, and to my surprise, the direction has been less posting instead of more.

It turns out, lying around being generally useless makes me fuzzy (figuratively, not literally. Rest assured, I am still managing to shave my legs, albeit with growing difficulty; it has to do with belly protrusion and optimal razor angling...it's all very complicated).

I'm growing duller by the day. I blame it on the endless marathons of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and lack of sleep from all the nightly baby punching (No, I'm not punching them. They're punching me. But don't think I haven't considered it 3 hours into their mixed martial arts sessions).

I honestly don't think I have an original, witty, or clever thought left in my head. If it doesn't have to do with onesies, labor, or Khloe and Lamar, it probably doesn't cross my mind these days. I kind of hate myself. I hate what I've become, and I hate what I've resorted to for entertainment. But this too shall pass, and I'll soon be entering a new phase in life, where I can stop hating myself and start hating normal things, like the price of diapers. And anyone who has the ability to just up and go out without securing a babysitter and checking their clothes for vomit stains.

The worst part about it is watching Brian bust his ass all day at work...only to come home and continue to bust his ass doing ALL the chores, preparing for the babies, and taking care of this grouchy, overheated, short-tempered beeyatch. I've always prided myself in my ability to pull my own weight and then some. But now, not only am I not pulling my own weight...I'm getting heavier by the day. Literally and figuratively, folks.

I went to my OB today and I had not progressed, cervically speaking. This should have made me so happy. It means the kids are safe and doing well and will be in the best environment for the as long as possible. But honestly, all I could think about is another month of bed rest, and what that meant for me. Being a parent is supposed to mean you automatically sacrifice everything for your children, without complaint. So why am I secretly wishing that they'd come, like, now, so I can fix a meal or get more milk without having to burden anyone? Does this mean I'm a bad parent? Am I destined to be selfish, to struggle with putting their needs before my own?

I dunno.
Probably best not to dwell on it. I'm sure at some point my mothering instinct will kick in. (right? RIGHT?!?)
But in the meantime, I just have to keep reminding myself that a few weeks (or months) of bed rest is a small price to pay for the two miracle babies that I'll get to meet soon enough.

Still...
The days are long.
And boring.
And I have all the time in the world to think about all the things that I'm missing out on. My favorite season and holiday are gearing up, and all I can do is stare out the window and watch the leaves start to change.
But there will be plenty more falls to come. More Halloweens to enjoy. More days to ride horses and hike and stack firewood and drink apple cider.
And those days will be all the more sweeter because I'll be sharing them with my children.
My children.

When you put it that way, what's a few weeks of bed rest?