Thursday, July 11, 2013

Catch Up (not Ketchup or Kecap, but some of it is Manis)

I have not been purposefully avoiding the blog. It's just that since the Man got home, we have been going full throttle. This is what happens when two type-A personalities marry, find out they are having twins, have less than twenty four hours to process together (and then three weeks to process apart), and know that they only have a few weeks to get everything squared away: they hit the ground running. 

The first week he was back I found and bought the bunk beds. The Man dutifully used his huge muscles to pick them up and bring them home. Incidentally, there will be a lot of references to the Man's dutiful use of his muscles in this post. Prepare yourself. I also did twenty gazillion loads of pre-deployment training laundry. And started cooking real food again. Don't act so shocked.

That week we also had change of command at the squadron, I spoke at a VBS about growing up in Indonesia, and I had my twelve week check up. Did you know that they do ultrasounds at every check up with twins? I learn something new every day. Also, the nurse practitioner gets nervous when you're pregnant with twins and actually lose a pound between your 9 week and your 12 week. I blame Tiny. He likes to steal my food. And being his mom burns a lot of calories.

The first weekend we went minivan shopping. If we had been smart, we would've left the kids with someone, but we had tricked ourself into thinking we weren't really going minivan shopping, we were just doing some quick pricing, but it quickly turned into an all day long extravaganza of excitement. Yes, we play mind games with ourselves about the whole minivan thing. Thankfully, one of the dealerships had a parrot, one had a playroom, and the other had balloons (which is enough for a one year old). Littles had a great time exploring his future as a photographer and got this awesome shot of my flying pony tail reflected in the show car:


I am waiting to include a picture of the new minivan when I can pose on the hood, fully pregnant, with huge eighties hair, channelling the best of the car models. Possibly with an electric guitar. Don't kill my dream.

Then last week, Littles broke his brace so we had a quickie trip to OKC and back. I availed myself of the Chic fil-A in Lawton coming AND going and did not feel a smidge of remorse. It is times like that when I really do believe that twinancy is awesome. Why pick between the grilled chicken burger and the orignal? Have both! Yes, I can have my cake and eat it too, thank you. Anyway, the exceptional photographer in the family took this picture of me while we waited to get his brace fixed. The rest of the time I was sleeping off the two hour drive while he and Tiny showed off their dance moves as I dutifully sang Matt Redman's 10,000 Reasons over and over again. Yes, I sleep and sing at the same time. Don't you? PS That's Tiny's head in the bottom left corner, not my huge and really hairy knee.


Then we had a marvelous four day weekend that we put to good use: setting up the new bunk beds in what used to be the guest room, buying another mattress, buying more pillows and bedding sets, cleaning out the garage, moving the guest bed to the nursery, rearranging the closets, buying a new dresser, staining and sealing the new dresser, moving said dresser into the room and filling it with lots of little boys' clothes... And yes, you guessed it, when I say "we" I mean, the Man's rippling muscles and my moral support. Seriously, he doesn't let me do anything. Which means that we filled in all the little bits of time when we weren't working by getting in fights because I am hormonal and feel useless and I'm not so good at the useless bit. He was very understanding and took me to see buffaloes and eat massive hamburgers on Sunday to make up for all the trauma his thoughtfulness had put me through.

Here's the new dresser, complete with some "sport's stuff" per Littles' request. My favourite thing about the dresser: I have Tiny's diapers and wipes in it, and when I'm changing his poopy diapers, I can smell the fresh wood and varnish instead of the sewage that I'm cleaning up. Don't tell me if this is bad for the twins. I really don't want to know.


At any rate, this week has been full of fun stuff as well (the less details for you the better), but I will tell you that I diligently filed everything that has been loading up on our desk for the last four months. I hate filing and put it off as long as humanly possible and was only motivated to deal with it because in an attempt to make room for the twins, we had to move the desk into our room. Surprisingly, it only took me an hour and a half, and that was with multiple interruptions from my children who moved every single couch pillow into our bedroom. There have been multiple pillow forts lately. Also, I moved all of my nonmaternity clothes (and a couple of the maternity clothes that I've already grown out of) into our spider infested garage. Just wait until I spring that 20 week picture on you guys. You are going to flip.

But I have to say, the biggest accomplishment of our week was this:


For the first time in three and a half years, there's no one sleeping in the nursery. Tiny made it in his big boy bed all night last night. Sure, the blinds took a beating, and the Man and I had to do an hour's worth of hard core laying down the law (which is appropriate, since the Man is a cop), but we survived. We'll see how tomorrow night goes. But (cue Mariah Carey), Tiny will always be my baby.

At any rate, I'm sure you can understand now why there has been a little bit of a lull in these parts. When we get a break these days, I am using it wisely (by which I mean, sleeping, eating, or doing mindless Internet surfing). And really the only reason I made it to the blog today is that the Man has the car and the boys and I are "having a quiet day at home" which means doing a big fat load of nothing. I am pregnant, and I support that message. But I'm hopeful that now that the major stuff is done, we can chill out a bit and let things return to semi-normal.

Whatever that is...

5 comments:

Carissa said...

Wow! I'm impressed! Ya'll have been crazy busy....but doesn't it feel good to check off so many things on the "to-do" list!! It upset me to hear you had lost a pound....I will gladly bring over lots of baked goodies to help you with your calorie count!! lol

Abbey said...

:) :) :) :) :)
Can't wait to hear what you nickname the twins. :) And "twinancy" is a great word.

Lee V said...

Love everything about this post. I miss being your photographer but it looks like you're in good hands - the photo of you from above is beautiful. Kudos as always to your manly man for getting everything done and taking care of you - you have a really good guy there. Keep hanging in there and don't forget to take that car hood photo.

Blazing Birdy said...

I feel like I should attack my 6 months of filing now. And perhaps fit the 136 childproof latches we've been meaning to fit since last year... Well done on everything you've accomplished! I'm particularly impressed with the big boy bed sleep. PS - my heart leapt when I recognised that wooden climbing teddy to the left of the dresser - memories of playing with that when I was, um, four? Whoa.

Auntie said...

I'm glad you gave way to the mini-van.....I've lain awake at night trying to picture you getting all 4 into the Dodge.....wasn't God good to let you ease into the stage of life via an SUV for a year or so :)