I don’t know why I haven’t been able to blog more the past two weeks. Especially when I have photos to show you that are as delectable as this: 
Someday when they are 8 years old and clobbering each other with tonka trucks I am going to show them this photo and say, “See? Deep down, you really and truly do love each other. Now, go get the first aid kit.”
In just the past few days, the boys have started to do something remarkable. Well, it’s probably not all that remarkable on the twin developmental milestone chart, but sheesh, is it cute. Whenever we prop them up and have them face each other, they crack these ridiculously adorable smiles. We are sure of it now – they recognize each other and they are actually expressing real delight at the sight of one another. They smile at each other the way they smile at us when we come in the room. And we watch them do it and get all emotional and we say to ourselves, “Damn we’re lucky.”
And we’re lucky for this too:
Because I don’t care if he did eat my favorite pair of flip flops. He is the best dog ever.
Before we had children, we had a dog.
Mason was, and still is, a very good dog. We got him 2 years ago, after much begging on my part, when he was 12 weeks old (as he is in the above pic). Back then, he ate every pair of slippers and flip flops I owned. You might think I should have simply put the shoes away in the closet, and you are right. The only problem being he figured out how to open the closet. He also chewed big holes in the comforter and the sheets on our bed. Multiple sets. And he ate many other things no animal should eat, like the end of my laptop power cord and a phone charger. These issues were more problematic for the ensuing vet bills and endless worry about his health than anything else.
It was good training, I think, for what’s to come.
In any case, he did settle down a lot with that eating stuff he shouldn’t eat business. But he still does require quite a bit of attention, which before we had kids was never a problem. Alex and I are around a lot and Mason was accustomed to a couple of walks a day, an hour of playtime at the park and lots of affection in between.
He has been spectacular with the boys since they’ve been born. That said, he has two offenses in this regard. First, he tries to lick them every time we turn our backs. It’s more of an issue since the boys have started putting their fingers in their mouths, and the dog likes to lick their hands and faces and the tops of their heads. The other issue? He’s become a little thief, stealing their things when we’re not looking and piling them in the bed for snuggling. Here’s a glimpse of what he amassed in the course of a couple of days:
You’ll notice toys, shoes, clothes but the most wonderful thing of all to Mason are dirty burp cloths.
What can I say? The dog loves vomit.
by Myg on December 13, 2008
by Ms. Myg on October 17, 2008
WEEK 20! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!
That’s how I thought I’d feel, anyway. It’s a pregnancy milestone, right? The coveted half way point of your average full term pregnancy, a little more than that for us twin carriers. I’d long said to myself, “When I hit 20 weeks, I’m going to feel like this thing is really on.” But the 20 week mark came and went for me without any huge “Aaaaahhhh” moment.
I wonder if most moms-to-be have a particular moment during pregnancy when they go, “Holy shit – this little alien is going to be outside of my body and I’m going to have to deal with it!” I thought since the beginning of pregnancy that 20 weeks would be the point that happened. But if you’ve read this blog for the past month, you might recall that it actually happened at week 16. That was the week I woke up and realized I was going to be somebody’s mom. Two somebodies.
Week twenty did bring with it a surprisingly gruelling ultrasound session, one in which the tech marked down every single length of every bone in each of my boys’ bodies. You know what? That was a pain in the ass. It took like an hour and a half, and then the doctor had to come in and try to get better picture’s of Bing’s heart, because they like to get 8 views, and in his position they could only get 1. “It looks beautiful-perfect-in the one view, but we’d like to get at least a few more.” In what could be a sign of things to come, Bing said, “Screw you guys for interrupting my nap with your pesky technology” and would not offer himself up for a better view. The doctor said better luck next time and not to worry. So for once, I won’t!
At this point, it looks like Bing is a teeny bit bigger than Doot. The doctor said it wasn’t a difference that they were worried about because it’s a very small difference. Do you ever wonder how doctors do it? How they worry so little? They must practice.
However, I know that with twins, you do have to worry about one growing bigger than the other, so I’d rather at this point they were more or less the EXACT SAME SIZE. Is that too much to ask? Ah well, I suppose it’s one of the ways they’re asserting their individuality. No doubt one will have a mohawk in the third grade, while the other will be playing the violin. I do know that during the ultrasound Bing was caught kicking Doot. We’ll have a little chat about that when they get here. No kicking your brother just because he’s a mm shorter!
Other things my boys are up to in week 20:
- Growing! I don’t know why, but the ultrasound pics I have include magnification and other tech specs, but don’t put my babies’ size or weights down anywhere. Like, why do I care about Hz? I want to know about them. Internet wisdom and the Mayo Clinic tell my my boys are nearly 6 inches and half a pound each. My insides tell me they’re growing all the time.
- They are now noticeable. I mean to me. The movement I feel with them feels nothing like “popcorn popping” or “soda bubbles” or anything cute like that, that most people tell you it feels like. So much different, I didn’t understand I’ve been feeling them move for awhile now because I couldn’t recognize what it felt like. I normally don’t feel their kicks and punches, per se. I have felt them, I think, and can only imagine I will soon feel them regularly. Instead, what I feel is a sensation of my insides moving around. It feels more like my organs are migrating or as though I have indigestion in the wrong part of my body, to be honest. It feels like “there something IN there!” It’s not uncomfortable, except one night when I’m fairly sure Doot kicked me in the stomach and I woke up with a mouth full of stomach acid. I thought I was going to puke. I didn’t. Rah!
My week?
- Working SUCKS! I actually have a really nice job. Anyone would envy my job, if only it wasn’t going away. But a large part of my job is to train people, meaning to stand up in front of groups of people and tell them all I know about various subjects. Ego strokes galore, it’s a nice thing for someone like me who likes that stuff. Thing is, my fuckin feet hurt! Who knew I couldn’t think sitting on my ass? Who knew being pregnant and off coffee would be such a drag on my training style? One thing I hate is doing something I love half assed. I’ll cook half assed or clean half assed, but gas bagging? I want to blow everyone out of the water. I can’t do that now, plus, my body really hurts if I stand for too long.
- I can’t bend down too well. Oh, and I’ve started to waddle. Hat tip to Cheryl Lage again, who dutifully warns of this in Twinspiration. The saddest part of my newfound physical limits is the toll it’s taken on playing with Mason-the world’s cutest and most amazing dog. I can’t bend down, over and over and over, to pick up the slimy toy and throw it to him. And he has yet to learn how to bring it to me without dropping it on the ground. Good boy! That reminds me, here’s the gratuitous adorable dog picture (yes, from puppy years – I need to take some good new pics):
Mason at 13 weeks old
- Emotional. I cry! Wow, do I cry. Sometimes in the middle of the night I cry without any actual good reason. I am also a bit clingy. I am lucky because Alex is nothing if not patient with me and my profound emotional neediness during this time. Okay, writing this is making me cry. See what I mean?
- Sleep, I miss you so, so, so, so much. It’s going to be a long year or so for me I realize. I am trying to accept it. I do sleep, but I am not able to sleep as soundly as I once did. And I’m not able to sleep for as many hours either. I have been obsessively worried about sleeping on my back, as I still find that I roll onto my back in the night. I had lunch with a friend of mine today – a mother of 7 year old twins – who admitted she slept on her back the whole time. “It was the only way I could sleep at all.” That made me feel a little better.
And a bunch of other stuff, but my absent mindedness and ever present tiredness prevent me from thinking of what it is. Sorry!
In other news, one of my favorite pregnant bloggers, Amy of Amalah.com had her new baby boy! For super special adorable newborn pics, head on over here. They made me cry, of course. But in a really, really good way. Congrats to you Amy. I’m not long behind!
by Ms. Myg on October 7, 2008
As I write this, one of my favorite bloggers, Amy over at Amalah, is now sporting her Week 38 belly. I wonder if I shouldn’t read ahead so much. She’s 20 weeks into my future, sort of. This week she’s talking about false labor and, crap, does that sound like a drag. The kind of thing I suppose I should be aware of but really, I don’t want to be. Not yet. If it happens to me I’ll eat that sentence.
Once again I’m writing about Week 18 in the middle at the end of Week 19. I know I say the same thing every week but damn if it ain’t true. This pregnancy thing is just flying by. I know, I know. When I’m past the 34 week mark it won’t go fast enough.
Since I’m always now running behind on these things, I decided to cheat and put weeks 18 & 19 together. To be honest, I haven’t felt a ton of difference in between the two weeks, other than that gross armpit lump thing was really painful last week, but not so much this week. As an aside, I had a check-up with my OB/GYN today, and they haven’t gotten the report back from the radiologist on that. That’s annoying. I told her what they told me, and she checked the lump herself, which is a lot less swollen today. Her belief is that the tissue is indeed breast tissue because it reacts in a cyclical way and to hormones, but she is sending me on to a breast specialist just to be doubly sure. As she put it,
“With anything that has to do with the breast, I just prefer to go all the way with making sure it’s fine. I know they’ll send you back here wondering why I wasted their time, but let’s get it checked out anyway.”
I like this doctor and that attitude is exactly why.
I’m writing this today with wonder dog Mason laying on top of my feet. I wonder if he has any idea what’s coming. Somehow I think he must. Okay, now that I’m talking about him, I must include another gratuitous cute puppeh pic:
That’s him as a 13 week old pup, but I swear to you, even at 18 months he is still this cute. And he’s kind of laying like this right now, on top of my feet. I love the feel of puppy face on my toes.
And about those other little pups, the ones growing in my belly, conventional wisdom tells me that over the past two weeks:
- They’ve got skins. Not just that, but these skins are covered in some sort of waxy goo called vernix caseosa. That makes them all greased pig like, which will come in handy as they slip through the tunnel of motherly love.
- They’re about 6 inches, 7 oz. a piece by now. Seems like only yesterday they were one sip shy of a latte.
- They look like – wait for it – babies! They supposedly have lost their alien resemblances, other than their family ones I mean. Now they just have to grow, grow grow. And I along with them.
As for moi, the last two weeks I have been:
- Tired. On the days I don’t have to be anywhere, I will still take a 2 hour nap. The weird thing is I actually feel a little worse when I wake up, too. But I can’t seem to stop myself from taking them.
- Speaking of sleep, I am now waking up every couple of hours just to roll over, because my body is awkward enough now that I can’t do it while asleep. Thus, I’m not getting enough uninterrupted sleep at night. See bullet above for relevant consequence. Did I mention that I really love to sleep? I can, no lie, under normal circumstances sleep 9 hours straight in a night. Now it’s more like 2. I think that’s taking a toll. Maybe it’s good practice for what’s ahead.
- Ambivalent. Can I say this? Overall, in a grand scheme big picture way, I am ecstatic to be a mom and to have these little two space monkeys here in a few months. But at age 39 it is so god darned difficult to fathom what kind of life change I’m really in for here. I look at my friends’ families, which are all swell, but I have a hard time picturing myself in them. What is this going to be like? I want to get psyched up, but I find myself teetering between psyched up and psyched out a lot.
- Worried about post-partum depression. I’m a licensed mental health professional, so I have a license to worry about my own mental health.
- Worried and frustrated about money. My job situation is precarious right now because of budget cuts. My hours have been cut and we’re losing a lot of our income and will need to pay for our health insurance come January on top of a shrinking income. Thank the lord for progesterone, the stress killing hormone, because without it I think I’d be quite hard to live with right about now.
I also had an AFP test, which came back normal, which is good. What’s that? From About.com:
The AFP test, sometimes called the MSAFP or maternal serum AFP, is where a blood sample is drawn from the mother to check the levels of AFP. AFP is a protein secreted by the fetal liver and excreted in the mother’s blood. It is generally used for detecting neural tube defects, but it can also indicate: abdominal wall defects esophageal and duodenal atresia, some renal and urinary tract anomalies turner syndrome, some low birth weight fetuses, and placental complications. A low level of AFP could also indicate Down Syndrome.
I knew Down’s wasn’t an issue, but it’s good to know all that other stuff appears to be normal too. As I am now exhausted from writing this, I’ll sign off for now.
