Odd Things 4

Odd things this week?

My doctor told me:
At 30 weeks I will be too tired to do anything but live
Not being able to get enough breath is normal...it will get worse
"It says it's twins"
The OB who calls everyone "fat" will give me a free pass since he is a twin

My knees still get pins and needles in circle patterns.

I can balance a can of pop on my belly!

People are still wondering if I'm pregnant or just super fat in the belly region!

My dreams are ridiculous! Last night I had a dream that I had an unsuccessful c-section. It wasn't a scary dream, these things were normal in this dream-world. They sent me home and said that instead the c-section would act as an inducement, and if the babies start coming in the next few days, come back to the hospital.

The little girl I babysit claimed me a couple days ago by licking me twice. Once on the arm and once on the collar bone. She's one. That's how she recognizes things. :)

I think that's it for now. I'll have to make notes this coming week for next week's installment!!

Things That Make me Laugh

Sometimes you just need a laugh. I thought I'd share some things that make me laugh! Things like the look on my husbands face when I put The Lost Fingers on really loud. Or when my mom calls Potato Wedges "Wedgie Fries." Or some of the outfits X picks for himself...but you can't tell him that it makes me laugh because it is a cardinal sin to laugh at him apparently. It also makes me laugh when he tells me not to laugh at him. It's good times.

Other things that make me laugh are some pretty funny websites. Well, they're funny to me, maybe you have a higher sense of humour, but mine is pretty lowbrow apparently. For example:
Click here to see more, but I warn you, I picked one of the "cleaner" ones. So funny. I really have to be careful some days when I'm reading the autocorrects. M, of course, looks at me like I've completely lost my brain which makes me laugh harder. Sometimes I really do feel like a lunatic.

My grandmother is on the World Wide Web now too! (Shout out to Nan! Hi Nan!) She sends me some pretty funny forwards like this gem:

How to Make Twins

Bahahaha! Made me laugh a lot! I've been wanting to get a shirt for me that would explain what's going on in there! I've seen some pregger shirts with "what's kicking" and I have a "baby on board" shirt, but that doesn't really do it for me this time!!

My last offering to you is this dusted off piece of nostalgia from the vault. M and I were looking at "old" videos last night and were killing ourselves laughing at our now grown up 5 year old! This one was taken in 2008, so he's just over two in this video! I hope it works! Enjoy!

Pictures!!

Some of you have been asking for specific pictures, so I hope this suffices! This is the beautiful dress that I just couldn't leave behind at the yard sale on Saturday! I asked the lady if her daughter had been a flower girl, she answered that she is going to be a flower girl, they had purchased 3 dresses and decided against the 2 they were selling! Crazy. So it's never been worn, it has a matching cap and has a matching pin-on corsage. I really love it. I have 2 years to find another that I love. Who knows where they'll wear them!!

Today I had my monthly check up with my family doctor. I squeezed as much information out of her as I could! With my brain the way it is right now I sometimes forget the questions I intend to ask! The ultrasound results were in, so I asked about the size of them. They are measuring 2 days different now. Perfectly normal. My new due dates are Oct. 1st for twin B and Oct. 3 for twin A making me 21 weeks, 3ish days along. And here's what that looks like.

And this is what I see!! It's a little scary to look down sometimes!

I'll be seeing my family doctor one more time and then I should have my first appointment with a OB in July. It is the OB who will give me a delivery date and schedule another ultrasound! Sweet!

On a sad note, my phone died today. I'm not sure what happened! But I'm assuming the white screen of death is very bad. Too bad there are no providers in town who can give me as good a deal! Might have to use this as an excuse to go down to Edmonton!! Not a terrible thing!

Keep Swimming!!

So there was no rapture. Unless EVERYONE I know was also left behind. And that's just not possible because I know people who have seen Soul Surfer like 3 times! Okay, maybe I'm being bad, but you know what I mean. There is a lot I want to say about this you know, but I feel maybe I would bore you. Bottom line I've come up with, the Christian life is not an easy one to lead. Sometimes our lives get so complicated, difficult, convoluted, and just plain screwed up that we will pray fervently for, then believe in, the easy out. For this group of poorly-led people the rapture would be the easy out (they are obviously pre-trib believers). So now that Saturday has come and gone we have to add these people to our already lengthy prayer list. And I personally will hope that someone takes that man off the radio! Let's not give him the chance for a third strike (his first was back in '94)! So we all have to keep swimming. Maybe someday we'll all learn to swim together in the right direction.

So off of the heavy! Mom, X and I went yard saling yesterday! X is becoming a pro at it! I think in the last two weeks he's spent about $3 or so and has many new games, cars, toys and so on to show for his efforts. Keeps him busy in the car while we look for the next place anyway! My big score came at a place getting rid of some girly clothes. There was this dress. I bought my first frilly dress! It's size 18mos, and there was only one, but I could not resist! I have about 2 years to find a second equally wonderful dress to wear at some fabulous ball or something! 2 other ladies came to the yard sale while mom and I were going through all the clothes. Since it was mostly baby stuff at this yard sale, the conversation was obviously baby-oriented, so that I am currently pregnant with twins came up. One of the ladies got SUPER excited and said "OH! TOUCH ME!!!" I thought, why not? So there I am in the middle of a stranger's garage in an embrace with another stranger trying to send twin vibes into her womb!! Sometimes, when they're not totally weird, I love crazy strangers.

Today we went back to the Alliance church. For the first few minutes I was there I thought maybe somehow they had gotten wind of my blog! No less than 4 people warmly greeted us as we entered the building! But after that we were ignored again. Ah well. X wanted us to go back because of the kids program, but alas, there was none today. The special speaker was a pro motocross racer though and he had videos, so it wasn't a total loss for my 5 year old boys boy! Apparently next week my mom is using the power of veto and we are going to a church where there are zero children, but the people WILL talk to us! We'll see if that works any better. We'll probably be back at the Alliance church the next week!

Have a happy day off tomorrow! I know I'm sleeping in!!!!!

Odd Things 3

It's Friday! Hooray! Well really, Friday doesn't mean a whole lot to me at the moment as M works shift work and rarely starts his weekends on the weekend. Lately Friday has simply been the day before yard sale day! Last week was not quite as successful as our first week, I scored one snuggli and one of those contraptions that you line the child seat of a shopping cart with, all soft, safe and with toys! So I'm gonna need another one of those! Hahaha!

As mentioned before, I'm making my Friday posts my "odd things" posts. Pregnancy odd things, the little ladies inside me are getting stronger! I can see the little waves of movement now! And it's very odd to have legs and arms in all four corners! Also, my heartburn came on with a vengeance last night, so hopefully I can keep that at bay a little, but we'll see if I have hairy daughters when they arrive!

Non-pregnancy-related odd things...well, the big one on my mind is that the end of the world starts tomorrow. That's odd. But apparently the Bible has guaranteed it! Now. I admit I do not have the Bible memorized. Also, I may have skipped a few verses here and there...but I'm pretty sure that if the Bible had mentioned May 21, 2011 I would know! The group that is touring the States, spreading the news, has put all their worldly goods on the line here, so I'm pretty sure they believe it 100%, but in the write-up on cnn.com I can't find the reason they believe it so ardently. Admittedly, I have not put a whole lot of time researching this group, I have heard them mentioned now and again over the last few months though. I think they started this journey in October, 2010, or something like that. What they are saying though is that tomorrow the rapture happens, then some terrible earthquakes, 5 months of hell on Earth and then the whole thing is over in October of this year. So it looks like we won't see the last Harry Potter movie. Show them to split it into 2 parts!

I'm not sure if we're going to turn green first, but anything is possible. Walking by M glanced over and informed me that this is the sun, well I'm sure the sun exploding will have something to do with the end of the world!

You know what else is odd? How annoyed I get when I hear that Adam Lambert song on the radio, "If I had you." Apparently he's had no vocal coaching at all. It is not that difficult to say "If I had you" without making it sound like "If I had Jew." But really, I can't get over my own level of annoyance with it!

Apparently nap time is over for the day, so that's the end of odd things for the day! I'll have to keep a list for next week! Hahahaha! Wait. If I'm here. There could be a whole lot of odd things to talk about next week!

Anniversary!!

Yesterday was my 9th wedding anniversary! Hoooray!! I was sick. Boo-urns. In case you are not aware, I am a terrible sick person! I groan, whine, complain, grunt, moan, and generally behave completely un-ladylike and not meant for company! Over the past 11 years of acquaintance Marvin has learned the proper response to my sick person attitude. He has sympathy, but generally ignores my moaning and such.


To my delight, the mom to the LG I'm watching now brought us a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling juice!! So sweet! I'm excited that this work opportunity has introduced me to a new friend. I've really enjoyed spending time with her during this "transitional" week before full-time work. Today is my first morning alone with my new charge and so far it's been pretty great for a first day. She asked for momomomomomom once, which I think is pretty funny as I believe her favourite word at home is dadadadadadada. Going down for her nap produced a few tears, but nothing too traumatic. Except to Marvin, who can't stand to see a little girl in distress. Boy is he in trouble.


But back to my anniversary! Marvin cooked supper (fries with the works....mmmmmm my favourite from "home") and after Bible study mom came over to babysit my sleeping son and we went out for ice cream! Hooray for catering to pregnancy needs! M also did the dishes. Isn't he sweet? Truth be known, he often does the dishes, but it was even more special that I didn't have to do dishes yesterday.


So I know this is completely random, but thinking I should add a picture to this post I did an image search for fries with the works and have really come to realize that most people in the world don't know what I'm talking about as this is one of the 50 or so images that came up:

Not even close. But a good anniversary pic. :) Ok. Fries with the works. A PEI specialty, invented by the owners of the G&E restaurant in O'Leary. This is slightly disputed by others, but I have to give the shout-out to "home" anyway. To make this super-fabulous dish you have to put healthy food concerns to the side...for the moment. Start with fries, then add hamburger, gravy and peas. Oh yeah. It's yummy. But M and I have tweaked it a bit. We don't use canned peas, but the fresh-frozen sort, we cook an entire onion with the hamburger and add some mozzarella, making it sort of a poutine/works mix. Next time we make it I'll be sure to take a picture so you can see how yummy.

If you're looking for healthier recipes, check out my bff's blog. She's checking out much healthier stuff than I am.

2 Babies!

Today was ultrasound day! Hooray! First there was the waiting. And then the drinking. And then the waiting. But here's something I probably shouldn't admit too freely. Back in the day when I was pregnant with X I was going for an ultrasound. "They" had me so paranoid about not having enough liquid in my bladder! But the thing was, it was either pee and reschedule, or embarrass myself. So I chose to pee. When I went into the ultrasound room, I told them it wasn't going to work, but the technician looked and said there was plenty of fluid! Seriously, they called me in 3 minutes after I peed. So, I was not so paranoid this time. I totally peed before they called me in, and the technician still made a big deal of doing the first round of important pics quickly so I could pee again! I know, I'm a bad person.

She asked if we wanted to know the genders of the babies (after confirming for me that there were still two and ONLY two) and I told her we did in fact want to know, but she still made me wait until the "medical" pictures were taken care of and she could call Marvin in and tell us together. She took the medical pictures pretty quickly actually, they had booked me for 2 hours, but she was done the "important" stuff in under one hour! I asked her what makes them label them twin A and twin B since she took the pictures of twin B first, and she explained that twin A is always the one closer to the "out" button. So it's not necessarily always the same baby that gets labelled twin A if you have multiple ultrasounds as they tend to move a bit.

Twin A is, at the moment, head down and to my left side.

Twin B is bum down and occupying most of my right side.

Now the technician couldn't really tell me anything about the size of them. She did tell me that since I was having twins I would be back for another ultrasound later on to make sure they are both growing at the same rate and that one was not "stealing" all the nutrients from the other. I asked if they looked "ok" now and she just said Mmmmhmmm. So, I'll take that as it is and ask for more details when I see my family doctor next week.

And now the reveal! Twin A, totally a girl. Twin B almost sure she's a girl too. Twin B was kind of in a more difficult-to-get-a-clear-picture position, but the technician said she thought girl, and from what she could (or couldn't) show us, I'm pretty sure they're both little ladies! Marvin took the news rather well, the look that crossed his face was one of grim determination. When we were driving away however, the near-by high school was releasing students and all of the sudden my husband is terrified of lulu lemon.

X's reaction was not so calm. He said "But I wanted a brudder! I don't like when girls are all over me!" Marvin convinced him that having a sister is not that bad, girls can play everything boys do. X is a little skeptical that girls play video games, but I think he'll be a great big brother! We also mentioned that his best friend F has a sister, and he likes her, so maybe it won't be so bad! :)

Now we have about 17 weeks (ish) to wrap our heads around "little girls" and how different it's going to be!! Oh boy. But I am super excited to see Marvin put together the double stroller and to start collecting girly things!! Heeheeheee!

Tea Time!

This morning was the second transitional visit for my new charge! She and her mom came yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours and then just for an hour this morning. I'm really happy with how good a match it looks to be. I've very much enjoyed visiting with another mom these last couple of days and of course having cheerios all over the living room brings back fantastic memories!!! :)

Another exciting thing that happened is that M and I got a letter in the mail today, from X!
They did letter writing at school last month. It says, "Dear mom and dad summer is coming." So great!! And everyone in all his pictures has those very long, dark, strong looking arms. I'm sure there's a child psychologist out there somewhere that could tell me what that means.

So now I'm watching the clock...I have to pee at 11am. Then drink 5 cups of water and don't pee until the technician gives me permission! Good times. Of course, I'll do some sort of update later on today. :)

Book Review #1

One of the good things about relocating to the near North (rather than the far North) is that I am not the only person whose spouse has brought them here. Soon after we arrived I was able to get involved in a book club with other spouses who have been relocated. Most of the time we end up talking about things more related to our husbands and their work than we do the book we pick, but we keep reading anyway. :)

I love books. I love to read. I love to write, and part of the reason for this blog is to get me back into writing, sort of like a daily exercise. While I enjoy the book club I also feel the need to talk about books a little more, so I'm going to do book reviews up here every once in a while. Sometimes I'll talk about the books chosen by my book club, sometimes maybe not. If you ever have a suggestion for a good read, please let me know!

This past month we read The Postmistress by Sarah Blake; as seen here!

The story follows a few American characters through the early part of WWII, before the US officially joined the war. The main characters include a postmistress, (big surprise) a doctor, and a radio news announcer. The first few pages are set in the closer past at a dinner party, then in chapter one it moves to 1941. At the dinner party a woman gets annoyed by how people are talking about WWII, so starts to tell her own story...

Never has a book taken me so long to read. The first half took me 2 months! Of course, I read about 8 other books in that time. The last half I read in a morning. I told myself I wasn't allowed to read anything else until I finished as the book club meeting was only days away! Now, it could be that I didn't enjoy this book because it's not like books I usually choose to read. But I don't really think so. I have never read such an apathetic view of WWII! I don't know. Maybe that's how the beginning of the war was in the states. But that makes it a little worse. If people could be so apathetic about that...what are we possibly ignoring now?

But really this book has got to be one of the most uninvolved stories I've read. I do not recommend reading it. If you want to read an account of WWII, stick with Anne Frank. Get involved and care about what happened, rather than ignore the situation with the bulk of the characters in the book.

Hopefully, next time I'll have more positive remarks!!

Pregnant Presents!

I don't know if I mentioned, but when my mom arrived up here a couple of weeks ago she had a bag full of baby clothes! One of my mom's crazy talents is finding fantastic sales, she just happens to be in the right place at the right time I guess! So she was there the day Walmart marked all their "last season" baby clothes down to $1. She brought 2 of everything! Such cute t-shirts, even a couple of Christmas shirts (they'll be 3 months this Christmas) and some of those sleeping baby bag things. So cute!

This weekend my sister came up from Calgary to visit for the weekend. A while ago I had asked her to keep an eye out for a good used double stroller for me. Up here on kijiji people are trying to sell the ones they special ordered from the states for almost the same price...I don't know why I would pay $600 for a used stroller, but I guess they think it's worth a shot! When Maegan came in she and my brother-in-law had bought a new stroller for us! Such a great surprise! I'm really looking forward to opening it and watching Marvin put it together! I figure that'll be worth at least an afternoon of entertainment! But what an unexpected surprise! I'm excited about how excited my family and friends are about this very odd pregnancy! Only 2 more sleeps until my ultrasound! I'm not opening the stroller box until then at least! Twins still seems a little surreal to me! I'm looking forward to having that confirmed! Hahahah!

Babysitting!

Another exciting thing that happened at the end of the week is that I put an ad up on Kijiji about providing childcare for one or two children through the summer! I had one call the same day and the next day a little girl and her mom came to visit!

I explained to X that I was hoping to babysit this girl before she came to visit. He asked a few questions about playing games and so on. When I explained that she is younger that he is he told me he wouldn't like me to babysit her. It turns out he thought it would be like getting a little sister a little early, that she would be here through the night. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to sleep if she cried. Right. There are a lot of concerning aspects of that statement. For example, he woke me up the other night at 3am to tell me he loved me. You reading this maybe think that's sweet. How about I call you at 3am so you can read it again to see how you feel at that point. There is also the whole twin thing on the horizon...he MAY find his sleep patterns changed forever in 4 months. We'll just see how that goes shall we?

After a visit with this LG, her mom, and a short visit with her dad, they called me the next day and said it would be a good match! So I'm excited! She is younger than X, but I think it will be great for him to play with her this summer and get used to how to deal with younger people! She's going to start a couple of hours a day this week and be full time next week. I'm thinking about re-posting my ad (as people up here don't read passed the first page) and seeing if I can get one more, maybe closer to X's age. But maybe I won't. We'll see how this week goes maybe. But things are moving along for us! I hope we can keep moving along in a positive direction!

Odd Things 2

I think I mentioned a while ago that my guilty pleasure is following celebrity news. I really like going to people.com on Fridays because on Fridays there's a section on funny quotes of the week. Yes. That's how guilty I am.

Anyway, I've decided that my Friday posts are going to be my "Odd Things" posts. they will most likely be odd things related to my pregnancy, but not necessarily exclusively. I'm assuming that there will be enough changes and strange happenings every week that I'll be able to come up with something to say! ;)

This week, the big oddness that I find is my ummm, how shall I say this, growth? The week that M was away for training I knew that he would notice a difference in my belly when he came back. He was gone for 6 days after all. This week I kept thinking how odd it was that I wasn't growing at all! Some days I even felt like I'd be able to "hide" the pregnancy again. Last night getting into bed felt a little odd in that when I settled it felt like a HUGE relief from a stress I wasn't aware of. This morning when I woke up it was apparent I had grown! Mom left here last night sometime after 10pm and came back this morning less than 12 hours later, she looked at me and said "whoah" and started laughing at me. Apparently the babies saved up their growth this week for one night!

My feet and ankles also swelled up through the day yesterday. I had hoped it was just because of the heat and that it would go away over night. Not so much. I'm afraid fat feet are here to stay. Sad, but inevitable. I can't remember when my feet swelled when I was pregnant with X, but I do remember they didn't go back to normal until he was a month old! Good times.

Can't wait to see what changes this week! Really. :)

Long time no see!!

Well between blogger being down for updates for a couple of days, and my sister visiting from Calgary for the weekend, it's been a "long time" since my last post! And so much exciting-ness has happened! I'll probably end up doing two or three posts today instead of one giant one! That would be better don't you think?

The first exciting thing that happened was that Marvin and I had our first real date in over 3 months! On Wednesday my mom came over to babysit and we went to see the movie Thor! Now if you know me, you know how much I love movies! I have to admit, first of all, I'm a little disappointed in the local movie theatre! For those of you out East, it's one small step up from the Amherst Theatre. Yep it's that good. And because the movie was in 3D our tickets were $15 each! Dude! Even with a free babysitter in town now, we'll still not be going out very often methinks! Anyway, one more complaint...I read a review of Thor written by a friend of mine before choosing the movie and he suggested that if there was a choice between 3D and regular 2D to choose the 2D as the movie was not filmed with 3D cameras, they just went back and added the specialness. Seeing it in 3D, I agree! So not worth the extra $3, just made it difficult to watch, not at all like seeing Avatar in 3D.

Ok, done complaining. I loved the movie! Funny AND smart. Great acting by a very talented cast, and of course I always love Stan Lee's cameo appearances in all Marvel movies. And as my friend mentioned in his review, if there was a movie called "Chris Hemsworth Walks Around Mostly Naked for 2 Hours" it would be a hit and I would go. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Kat Dennings in the movie, she was in "The House Bunny" and played Norah in "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." I really love her attitude! Anyway, I would totally recommend going to see Thor if you can. It's true that you can see some of the plot line a LONG way off, but you're still surprised!

Of course the date part was great too! It was fabulous just spending some time with Marvin. We skipped the whole eating out thing due to economics, but left the house early anyway and went to the library (again, if you know me, you know this is my favourite place to be) and we even got a little (slow) walk downtown in! I love the library here in town. It's in the local multiplex rec center, however you want to say it. It's a place that has a giant pool, a couple of ice rinks for hockey, a curling rink, an indoor track, indoor soccer fields, squash, basketball and volleyball courts, a weight room with personal trainers, etc. The library is two floors, downstairs for the computer and children's area, upstairs for the quiet zone and adult collections. I just love being there, so Marvin was being extra nice to me following me around while I chose some books and blu rays.

We ended the night at Tim Horton's, which is an ordeal here like nowhere else. Imagine. You put 90,000 Newfoundlanders, Prince Edward Islanders, Nova Scotians, and New Brunswickers in a town with 2 Timmy's. The drive thru line wraps around to the highway. I am not exaggerating. But it was fun for us, with no children (that can vocalize) in the car. Just to have some time. Excellent.

Date night is good. You should do it.

Odd things

So far this pregnancy has been much odder than my pregnancy with X. Of course, that it is twins this time certainly tops the list of odd things! Some odd things I do remember feeling when X was occupying my mid-section, like heartburn! Oh the heartburn! Everything does seem to be developing a little faster this time around! I know I didn't wear maternity clothes until I was 22 weeks with X. I remember, because that's when I told my co-workers at the library! I've been living in my maternity jeans since 14 weeks this time around!

The oddest thing though, which has me thoroughly perplexed happens when I sleep, or lay down on the couch. My knees fall asleep. Straight up. You know how your entire leg falls asleep if you sit funny for too long and then that pins and needles feeling comes? Every morning when I wake up I have two perfectly circular patches of the pins and needles feeling on my knees. It doesn't make it difficult to walk or anything like that, but it does last for the first half hour of my day at least! I find it extremely ridiculous.

I also don't understand how twins having a tussle in my stomach could possibly lead to blood coming out of MY nose, and yet....apparently this is a common side effect. I'll keep you updated on odd things. I promise. Only 7 days until my ultrasound! I really hope to share the genders with you!

On another note, I think I might start including book reviews in this blog. It will truly turn into a very eclectic blog, but hopefully you will continue to enjoy coming by to find out what's going on!

Church

By far the hardest thing about moving to this new Northern frontier for me has been the lack of a church family. Church has always been "easy" for me. I've always moved to new places with a built-in church family that I just had to get to know. Sort of comes part and parcel with being the pastor's daughter I guess. Now I'm not deluded enough to believe that having a church would make all my troubles disappear. Not even a little. More often than not church comes with it's own set of problems...and problem people. But I've always been lucky enough to find a group of genuine people that I could have intelligent conversations with, and was fortunate enough to develop real, and honest, relationships with in every church I've been a part of.

The first issue up here, obviously, is that I didn't move here with my parents. Hahaha. I'm not a ready-made part of any church here yet. The only other time I've moved somewhere without them was when I went to college...so I went to church with all my Bible college friends...not really a huge difference there. Ok, not a problem really. I'm a fairly strong, somewhat outgoing person, I can make friends without mommy and daddy. The second problem is that I was raised in the Church of the Nazarene. There are no Nazarene churches up here. Again, not really a problem, I am by no means blind to the faults of "my" denomination, nor am I hung up on labels. I also like to think that I am not narrow minded, that I am open to thoughts and ideas that I may not have heard before.

I really have very few criteria for a church up here. First, it has to have a children's program. X has been in church all his life and is accustomed to being loved by children, teens, and adults alike. He gets so confused when younger teens don't respond to his smooth pick-up lines at the park. Second, I cannot go to a church that is theologically redonkulous. Using words like this sometimes leads people to believe that I am not intelligent or serious about some things, but I assure you, I am educated and I am listening with a discerning heart. If you are stupid out loud, especially from a pulpit, I will verbally rebel. Third, I need friends. I need church friends. Young, old, married, not married, no kids, 8 kids, I don't care. My husband needs friends, my son NEEDS friends!

These do not seem like unrealistic requests to me. Before coming here I decided that I needed to be careful about choosing a church. I wanted to make sure if I needed to try a couple churches that I would give each church more than one "chance." It would be so easy to find fault in every place and keep "hopping." So I first tried the Alliance church. Since our schools (not MERGED, merged is a bad word) partnered into one, I thought that would be close enough to theology that I was familiar with, so a good place to start. Kids program, check. They are between pastors, so I can't really say anything concrete about the theology as they have had special speakers the 3 times I've been, but so far no red flags. Friends? No one has spoken to me once. I've got all the conversation starters built in, 5 year old kid, burgeoning pregnant belly, sitting alone (M isn't able to come with all the time due to his work schedule), but no. Dropping X off at Sunday school, picking him up, getting coffee from the lobby...no. the only conversation I've had is one lady asked my name and gave me hers then walked away. X loves it. Says his SS teacher is really nice. But I decided I'd given them their "chance" and decided to try somewhere new today.

We tried the Salvation Army church today. I've always been told that the theology between Nazarene and Sally Ann is very close. I've even known/lived with people who grew up Sally Ann, then started going to the Nazarene when THEY moved and found the transition easy and agreeable. Could be that the heavily Newfoundland-flavoured Salvation Army is different. I don't know. But if there is one thing I have completely fallen OUT of love with in the years of my experience, it is emotional manipulation. We were NOT leaving today until SOMEBODY went to the altar! 4 closing songs later she finally called for someone to come pray for her husband. Now really, this might be unfair. The Majors are on vacation, so again this was not the regular speaker, but when I go to a church for the first time and the message is out of revelation, it's about how the world is going to end (i.e. the signs are all around us and apparent, technology is evil and the earthquakes are happening because of technology) and all 7 churches of Asia are covered individually in detail? I get a little antsy. Throw in a couple derrogatory remarks about "the Muslims" and other religions, while saying the Pharisees were idiots, and I'm out the door. I'm afraid the decision was unanimous that this church will not be getting a second visit from us.

There was a good quote though. Almost good enough to be included in "Stuff Old Dude Says." "People are lost and dying while Jesus is knocking at the door to so many hearts. But the knob is not on the outside of the door so that Jesus can just walk in and intrude, he has to be let in, the knob is on the inside." My interpretation? "You're the nob on the inside and you're a nob if you don't let Jesus in." I know, I'm a bad person.

Solution? Not one yet. Best one so far is go to the Alliance church with my mom. X can have the great SS experience and at least my mom will talk to me. (Does that mean I do need my mommy to make friends?) And then find a small group somewhere, or a small church that meets not on Sunday morning, but is more friendly and accepting of discussion and of people like me!!

Woot!

I didn't blog yesterday because I couldn't think of anything to say during the day. I was mostly focused on the return of Marvin! Hooray! He came back! And he was happy to see me! And he noticed I got bigger! And he got kicked! It was all very very exciting! The electricity bill we got in the mail was not so exciting. I've mentioned our place is small yeah? Well they charge us more to deliver the electricity than they charge us for the electricity! We'll work it out somehow!

This morning my wonderful son, who yells at me on school days for waking him up at 6:50am because he HATES getting up for school and wants to sleep more, was in my room this morning at 6:17am wanting to know where the DSi was. I love him. He's special. So of course, I could not get back to sleep! I picked up my book and read until it was time to go to some YARD SALES with mom! Woot baby! I was looking for some pots for the pland slips that my grandmother sent along with my mom....I found awesome stuff.

This is awesome thing number one I picked up. Bahahaha! A 3.5 foot pre-lit BRIGHT pink Christmas tree! Hahaha! I love it. $3. Nice. I also got a change table that has 2 drawers and cupboard, so Xander can use it in his room until it is needed, a baby sling, a vcr, (remind me to tell you what happened to our other vcr someday) and a plant pot! I left this morning with $20 and came back with $10. Too awesome. I had to run downtown and pick up another plant pot, but I've got all the plants situated now. Here's hoping they survive! I have to remember to water them more ofter here than back East.

Until next time!

18ish weeks

So my fabulous friend Fran, who I've mentioned before, is posting monthly pictures of herself on her blog as she gets smaller. I've decided that I'd better do the same...as I get larger! I'm 2 days shy of 18 weeks today, but probably the twins are further along than that by 9 or 10 days. But that still means I have 5 whole months to go, as my terrific treasure Tiffany kindly pointed out last night! So gaze upon this....with sympathy!




My five year old son is the photographer! I am wondering if my husband will notice a difference after being away for 6 days! I'll keep you posted on that for sure! This is what I see..

Leaning forward while sitting is again no longer part on my list of things-I-can-do. My main talents now include napping, peeing with freakish frequency, and apparently dribbling some stew on my shirt! Hahaha!! I'm awesome.

I'll do what I can to remember to take these pictures every so often. I'm getting super excited for my ultrasound next tuesday! I'll be 19 weeks and 3 days, so we'll see what they say about the size of the babies!!

Happy Birthday to Marvin!

I love May. May is awesome. Spring arrives for sure, (there are even robins up here now) summer starts to become more than a promise, the fabulous shades of green are everywhere! May is also a month for celebration for us! I get to say "May the 4th be with you" to remember my husband's birthday too, so that's awesome. Then there's Mother's day which is fun, and it's our wedding anniversary on the 18th! Marvin is 30 today. Hahahahha! And we'll be married for 9 years in 2 weeks. Yes, for those of you who read my age in a previous post, and can do math, I am a bad person.

Well....I WISH I looked that good anyway!

Unfortunately this year Marvin is a 5 hour drive south this week at a training session! So no birthday celebration today. But X and I will bake a cake on Friday that we can have together on Saturday morning when M is back and X is awake!

Funny story about the first birthday cake I tried to make for Marvin. He likes to tell it, so I'll put it out there. Back in the day when we were still "just dating" we were visiting my grandparents in PEI. My grandmother has a fabulous kitchen, you know the kind, with metal measuring cups from the 40s and unlabelled jars of ingredients. I love being in my grandmother's kitchen. We make jams and pickles when I'm there at the right time of year, and I'm always amazed at how much food comes out of one oven for family dinners set for 17 or more. ANYWAY, I was going to bake a cake from scratch for what must have been Marvin's 19th birthday...maybe 20th. I had everything in the bowl ready to mix, and my Nan comes in and starts laughing at me! Then she pushes the bottle of sugar toward me and says taste this. That's right. Unlabelled bottle of sugar turned out to be salt. There was no cake for Marvin that year. And I think it's been mixes ever since! Hahaha! Poor Marvin. He loves me though!

Happy Birthday!!

House hunting!

We're presently living in a 2 bedroom "townhouse, " and since I have 2 babies on the way, this situation is not going to be ideal for long. Actually, it hasn't been ideal from the get go as we moved into this place blindly trusting that it would be worth the extravagant rent rate. It really isn't. But that's what you get when you live surrounded by the oilfields that apparently provide 70% of Canada's income. It's just understood that everybody has money to spend. We don't.

So my mother (who is looking for a 1 bedroom place of her own) and I spent today looking for affordable, decent, clean 3 bedroom places. Good times. Most 3 bedroom places around here start at $3000. That does not include utilities. I found one, not in the area my husband wants to stay in, that was listed for $2695 including utilities, so we called and went to go see it. Oh my giddy aunt.

It was terrible. It had lots of "great features" including a kitchen counter, windows (yes she mentioned the windows), washer and dryer, and built-in desks in the 2 smaller "bedrooms." It's also an end unit which is worth mentioning a million times. She didn't mention the smell, the cave-like lighting, or the random guy locked in his room so we couldn't SEE the 3rd bedroom, but did mention that the reason for the brown leak stains in the ceiling were completely fixed now. She was confused about why theu used brown caulking to fix it though.

Now that I think about it I suppose I could use the built-in desk as a change table.....

Baby weight and reading!

Hopefully my posts won't be so long from here on in! Maybe.

This morning was a bit of a struggle as X again declared he hated school and didn't want to get dressed! He claims they are not helping him learn to read. Well really, there's only so much you can do in a 3 hour school day with 20-odd 5 and 6 year olds! Especially when they are now incorporating daily recess to get them prepared for grade one. There's a funny joke in there about practicing recess rather than vowel sounds....

I just think X has had a little, well, a LOT of excitement recently and he's going to act out against school because that's safe. First we tell him I'm pregnant with one baby, then with two, then his "Charlotte Dodie" (my mother) arrives to stay on our couch while she looks for an apartment and now his daddy is away for a whole week! It's no wonder he was extremely random yesterday and a little emotional today.

While driving back home from dropping him off at school I caught the all-important celebrity news on the radio. Following celebrity news and looking at pictures on people.com is my guilty pleasure so I turned it up. The announcer opened with a story about Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon giving birth to twins over the weekend, one weighing 5lbs 6 oz, the other 5lbs 5oz. Then she exclaims how she can't imagine carrying that much baby-weight around! .....wait for it.... I'm doing the math... how many oz in a lb? X weighed that much! By himself! Oh my giddy aunt.

Info on my twins!

Over the past 4 weeks since I found out that I'm carrying twins there have been a couple of developments. Firstly, my fabulous friend Fran did some reseach because she's being vicariously pregnant with me! She discovered 4 different kinds of twins, depending on if the babies are sharing a placenta, or an amniotic sac, both, or none. There is also the possibility of conjoined twins. The only information I had until this past Tuesday I gleaned from the quick glance I got at the ultrasound screen in my hyper-emotional state the night I found out! Being as educated as I am in the radiology field I could tell right away that they are NOT conjoined. That's as much as I knew!

This Tuesday passed I had my first appointment with my family doctor since my ultrasound and found out a little more information! They are in fact didi twins...short for dichorionic/diamniotic, I think is how you spell it, meaning they each have their own placenta and amiontic sac. They are also measuring a day apart in size, meaning there were two fertilization processes making the probability of identical twins super minimal.

My doctor also informed me that according to the size of both babies she was changing my dates. When I had the ultrasound I was 13 weeks 5 days, Twin A was measuring at 15 weeks and Twin B was measuring at 14 weeks 6 days. So right now according to my original dates I'm 18 weeks 1 day along, but maybe according to the babies I'm 19+ weeks. I don't really know what to make of this seeing as how my first baby was born 11 days "overdue" at 10lbs 11oz. We'll just have to see what the next ultrasound has to say. My "detailed" u/s is booked for 2 weeks from now and I'm getting anxious!

Funny aside, at my first appointment with my doctor, which seems ages ago now, I told her that I want a planned c-section as my first delivery turned out to be an emergency c-section, and that while I was there I'd to the tube-tying thing. I'm 33. I'll be 34 by the time these babies are born. I know I'm not doing this again! So last Tuesday she confirmed the c-section planned, also I would get my tubes tied. So I corrected her...tube. I only have one fallopian tube, which plays a major part in likely theories on why I miscarried in 2004. TUBE?! How does this happen when you only have one tube? Like I would know better than she? Twins do not run in my family, nor my husband's. My maternal great-great grandmother gave birth to twins and my grandfather's niece had twins. This is not a pattern. Then my doctor says, this is why God made you this way. If you had two fallopian tubes there'd be 4 babies in there! I don't think my husband would have survived that alternative universe!!!

So now I've told you everything I know about the two tinies growing in my belly. I hope to know their genders and up-to-date sizes soon! I am beginning to feel more defined movement. I've been feeling shivery tiny movements for a couple of weeks, but now it's starting to feel more like the cartwheels I remember with X, so it could get interesting fast!

Conversations with X

My husband and I have been having a lot of fun sharing our new developments with Xander, our 5 year old son. We have a great video taken at about the 13 week mark asking him if he would like a baby brother or sister. His response? No. Babies just knock things over. Before we took the video he explained to me one day that he would like to have a brother, but not a baby, someone that was already his age. So we broke the news to him that I did have a baby in my belly (at 13 weeks we only knew of one) and it would in fact come out a baby. He came around, accepting the news, and the next day when my husband picked him up from school rather than me, he asked if his baby "brudder" was out yet and that's why mommy didn't come to school.

At 14 weeks it all changed. Although X was at the hospital with us when it all went down, he focused on playing his...well USED to be my....DSi. We waited a few days to explain the concept of twins to him, mostly because even though the doctor said everything was fine, I was yet to be convinced. After about a week we got another video where daddy explained that mommy had TWO babies instead of just one in her belly. His response? Oh man, I'm getting outta here. Apparently we've taken to teasing him about diaper duty just a little far. He's pretty convinced that every time a baby needs to be changed that will be HIS job. A nice dream for me....

Yesterday, I'm about 18ish weeks now, the heartbreak happened. I'm surprised I didn't see it coming because I've read so many accounts of this happening, but it blindsided me none the less. The three of us were sitting in the living room and randomly (if you don't know him you will learn that my son is EXTREMELY random) X asked me if I still wanted him to be healthy. I assured him that of course I want him to be healthy! X: But why? Me: What do you mean why? Because when you're healthy, you're happy, and happy is best. X: But you don't need me anymore. Me: What?! What do you mean I don't need you? X: Because you have a new baby. It's in your belly. (he's still a little foggy on the twin concept) At this point my husband thankfully entered into the conversation! Marvin: But you're our first baby buddy, we'll always need you. X: Are you sure? When we both assured him that we would always need him he seemed satisfied, but I will have to keep my eye on this!! Life is certainly going to change for all of us but we will have to be super careful to make sure our first "baby" always feels secure!