Freaky Friday

I know that today is Saturday, however yesterday was Friday and trust me, it was FREAKY.

I had an ultrasound yesterday. It was part of an early genetic test that is a blood draw and an ultrasound. I forget what the name of the test is called. We decided to do it so we could have an early ultrasound. The midwives usually don't do those. With the way things have gone in the past year and a half, seeing the baby just would make us feel that much more secure.

The appointment was at 1. I get in there and they lay me down and get the goop and all of that. The tech puts the wand on my belly. She moves it around. I'm very nervous at this point because I just don't know what will be seen. I'm full of worries, which is understandable.

The tech says "hmmm". This peaks my interest. I say "hmm, what?" I'm looking at the screen and I see this.



I know that looks weird, right? You can see the little circle, and then a mass in the middle. However, it's not RIGHT for an ultrasound of a baby. What is hard to see is the OTHER circle on the right hand side of the picture. Let me see if I can make it more pronounced.



The tech looks at me and says "Well, it's twins. Did you know it was twins?"
"Uh, no, I didn't."
"Sometimes people come in knowing it's twins, sometimes not. They are fraternal. They each have their own placenta and sac, and that's a good thing. You don't have to worry about sharing blood flow or any of that."

She took more pics, and I got a couple of each baby.

Baby A, which is on my right side, though in the pic, he/she is on the left is a little smaller than Baby B. Baby A currently measures at 11 wks and 6 days. Baby B measures at 12 wks and 4 days. So about 5 days apart. My due date stays the same as August 12.

To say we are in shock seems like a silly assesment of the word. It may very well be BEYOND shock. Now that it's really sinking in, I'm starting to worry about things that I have no control over. Things like who is going to sit with our kids while I have the babies. What if I end up with a c-section. I really don't want major abdominal surgery. If I have a c-section, I'll have to stay at the hospital longer, who will take care of the kids for even longer? How will I care for 2 newborns and chase after Izzy and the rest of the kids while healing from a c-section?

Jason is worried about more practical, yet plannable and fixable things. He's worried about making sure we have enough car seats. What happens when all of us, including Katy, want to go somewhere, we'll need a 2nd vehicle or a bigger 1st one. Where will we PUT everyone? He's also worried about providing for all of us, understandably.

We don't know yet what the sex of the babies are/is. We'll find out if we can however.

I called the midwives office yesterday after getting home. I wanted to know if I was going to be switched to a doctor full time and all of that. I'll see a doc about every 3rd visit, but not full time. I'm really hoping for a vaginal delivery, and with having midwives, that will be more likely to happen. I'll also be getting a lot more of the ultrasounds. Possibly as often as once a month. So we will definately have PLENTY of opportunities to figure out who these babies are and finding the names to suit them correctly. Right now, we are sticking with one boy name and one girl name. We are considering a 2nd name for each sex, but really haven't gotten in to talks about it yet. I'm waiting until I know if we need an additional name or not.

I have decided that if we do have at least one girl, for the duplicate items we need, car seats and what not, I'll be going totally pink. I'm not a fan of pink personally, but I like the dress up-ness of little baby girls. Dress up-ness? I think I just made up a new word.

I have had multiple dreams about having twins, one boy and one girl. I was brushing it off, but apparently, I should have listened harder!

Here are the other pics of the babies. It says whether it's Baby A or B on the pics. Prayers and blessings everyone. Have a happy weekend.

What IS Happy Anyway?

I know I normally do Thankful Thursday, and I'll do it later today, however I want to post on something else at the moment.

My therapist asked me last time I was there if I was happy. Well, no, I guess I wouldn't consider myself "happy" per se. Content, definately, but I'm not sure about happy. I asked, what IS happy anyway? Why is it so bad to be content?

Being content doesn't mean that I don't feel joy or love or moments of laughter and elation. Content also doesn't mean I spend my entire time feeling down and out and trod upon. Some people are always overly cheerful no matter what. Some people are always angry and upset and feeling out of sorts. Me, I'm neither of those.

Can someone define "happy" for me? Does it mean you have no worries? Well, doesn't that seem kind of silly to you? Having NO worries, especially in this economy and with wars and all of that stuff going on? Does it mean ALWAYS having a smile plastered on your face and being super positive about everything? Don't those people just ANNOY you sometimes? As far as I can tell, those are the definitions of happy I've gotten so far.

I'm an optimist. When life takes a crap on me, I firmly believe that "It WILL get better" and "It could ALWAYS be worse" . Does that mean I'm happy? I do have worries. I worry about money and making ends meet, as I think anyone with 1/2 a brain does. I worry about my kids, in varying degrees between them all, which I also think everyone does. I worry about being a good parent and spouse, again as others do I think. So how am I so different from everyone else that I need to be "happy"? Why is it so wrong to classify my feelings as content?

Sure I go through bouts of depression. I recognize them, I fight against them and I come out of them doing all right. I go to therapy. More to help me fix what I recognize needs work because I just don't know where to begin then because I feel sad and beat up by the world.

Jason isn't happy. He's a pessimist. Trust me when I say, content is GOOD for him. He loves his family. He also lets the weight of the world, the weight of his own worries and insecurities weigh him down. This isn't so bad. After all, he made a good move in marrying an optimist. I'm always there with a distracting kiss and a reminder that "it WILL be all right" and he KNOWS that when I say that, it is true. Jason doesn't fight to be happy. He is good with where he is at. I know he'd love to have less worry, however that's just the nature of life some times.

So tell me this, oh readers, what IS happy?

Almost Silent Sunday

I know I haven't done this in a while and I thought it would be nice to get back in the groove. Before I explain the pics, have you noticed that odd popping noise when my page loads? Yes? Scroll to the bottom and you have the opportunity to play one of my FAVORITE games on Pogo.com. Poppit is fun, and it's stress relieving. Imagining the faces of those you are angry with, or the cause of your stress being in the balloon, and popping it is rather satisfying! Give it a go!

With that being said, this is Izzy as you all know and adore. He has taken to getting in to the cabinet where we harbor our cleaning products. Keep in mind that pretty much all of our products are "green friendly" so they really aren't nearly as harmful to Izzy as they could be, however we still don't want him playing around with the stuff. Jason got the bright idea to use an old spray bottle, no, we don't use that brand of cleaner any more, it's now Arm & Hammer with Baking Soda or the Green Works All Purpose cleaner, and take some water and dish soap, the dish soap also being Green Works, and giving it to the budding cleaner. Then he took pics, at my direction. Jason hasn't been taking nearly as many pics lately. I need to keep bugging him about that. Anyway, this was the end result of the cleaning endeavor. If only we could get him to pick up the toys with that much enthusiasm! Prayers and blessings everyone, and I hope you have a great week!

What an Unusual Day

Wednesday was an odd day for me. It wasn't really any different than any other day, it just felt really odd.

I missed the bottom step of our basement stairs and fell and sprained my ankle. Jason was standing down there and he said it was a very scary thing to watch. It's pretty badly sprained, so much so that I got the crutches out today. Wrapping it isn't helping, so I'm not doing that. Thankfully, I can get away with using just the one crutch like a cane. Something to just help support me as I walk. I have a love hate relationship with my ankles after all. They love to hate me!

Jason got a job! He'll be working part time 3rd shift at a local gas station. When he interviewed for the job last week I asked him if he wanted to take a part time job like that or if he wanted to wait for his old job to call him back. He said he had no security with his old job anymore. He had been there for 3 years, and he wasn't advancing at all. Pretty soon he'd end up hitting the pay increase ceiling. He wanted to take the other job. He'll be able to keep part of his unemployment. Which is good for us. It also seems that my ex's pay or unemployment or whatever it is is FINALLY being garnished, so that is also a huge help to us.

The saga continues in trying to get Jayden diagnosed with ADD. She has to have an EEG done to make sure she isn't having seizures, and a blood draw to check for other things. MF Jenn is going to fill out the sheet that would normally be filled out by a teacher so we can get an outside 3rd opinion. She's putting together a really basic 30 minute lesson for her. I have a feeling, that 30 minutes is going to stretch in to at least an hour or more. Jayden continues to stall and fight and argue and all out avoid doing anything that really requires concentration and thinking. She'll start giving silly answers, when in fact I KNOW she knows them. Her teacher last year just kept telling me "she doesn't know the stuff" when she does know the stuff. That really disappointed me about the school district.

Jason was kind of having a fit about the kids being homeschooled. He couldn't see them learning so much, and admittedly him being home all the time AND the holidays threw us off a bit. We are getting back in the groove thankfully. I'm also continuously reminding Jason of the behaviors the kids would pick up if they were in school all the time. Homeschooling is definately the right choice for our family.

Izzy will be going to preschool next year however. He'll be able to have speech therapy for 5 days a week, and be immersed in a concentrated learning environment like that. He really needs something more because his speech is still severely delayed. He understands what we are saying, however he has serious issues when it comes to communicating back to us. We have taught him many signs, however he really doesn't use them unless prompted. There is very little spontaneous communication coming from Izzy.

I'm working on becoming more organized. Well at least cleaning up the clutter. According to my therapy goals, I should be doing a 1/2 hour every day. So far, I've done that once this week. Change takes time, but it also takes effort. Effort sucks by the way. It requires so much, well effort! Anyway, instead of bitching I should just do, and I'm working on it.

That's all for now. I realize my poor little blog has been somewhat neglected lately. I'll be trying to post more regularly, at least 3 times a week. The writing helps me refocus on what needs to be done.

Oh, I'm 11 weeks and 1 day pregnant now. It's finally begun to sink in that this may actually work, it's either that or I'm seriously psychosematic! I have my firt appointment with a midwife next tuesday and next friday I have a blood draw and ultra sound.

Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope you all have wonderful weekends!

Poetry by Cereal Daddy

Jason would like me to remind everyone out there that what is posted here is copyrighted. It's MY stuff (with the exception of it occassionally being JASON'S stuff) and please don't use it unless you ask first. If it belongs to someone else, I promise to cite it correctly. I actually passed that part of english.

Anyway, Jason has been in writing mood as of late. Keep in mind, he doesn't write like I do. Me, I can go on and on and on and on and ....well, you get the idea. My husband keeps it short and sweet. It's also pretty creative and very humorous. So sit back and enjoy a few poems from the Cereal Daddy set. Oh, they don't have titles. No, I don't know why. I love the man, but hey, titles don't seem to be the focus.

When I grow up, I don't want to be
a student of science or psychology
a doctor or lawyer, a farmer or dentist
police officer, fireman, or pharmacist.

I want to breathe fire and fly through the sky
I want to be a dragon, not a guy in a tie
A great big red dragon with razor sharp claws
and rows of big fangs inside my jaws

Nobody would boss me
no one would be rude
nobody would cross me
or ruin my good mood

I would be a great helper
how useful I'd be
in case somebody's cat
were to get caught in a tree

I could roast you hot dogs
and toast you marshmellows
i'd be the envy
of all the girls and the fellows

I'd sleep in a stadium
because I'm so big
I'd fill it with candy
and eat like a pig

I'd become so famous
that one day I may
instead of the reindeer
go and pull Santa's sleigh

When I grow up
What a dragon I'll be!
Maybe somday
you can come visit me


My cat smells funny
I let her outside
now she reeks
like something that died

She's lickin' her paws
she's lickin' her ear
she's lickin' her belly
she's lickin' her rear

Now I can see
something that makes me turn pale
hanging out of her mouth
Hey, do I see a tail?


I don't like this game
the game doesn't work
i think it is broken
my opponet's a jerk

They are all cheating
I used to be good
when I played by myself
win yes I could

I'll knock all the pieces down
and then run away
it's not my fault
that I'm having a bad day


I'm saving my pennies
for a big shiny car
I'm saving my pennies
right here in this jar

Not for a rainy day
not for skies that are blue
not for some candy
or a gumball to chew

But a great big car
with a convertable top
one I can drive far
without having to stop

So I'm saving my pennies
So I can drive clear to heaven
I hope I've enough pennies
so far, I've got eleven


Jesus can you hear me
If I speak really loud?
I'd telephone if I had the
extenstion for the right cloud

Jesus can you see me
if I jump up and down?
You're you up there
and I'm here on the ground

At least you can smell me
when I don't take a bath
Momma says I stink to high heaven
I'll let you do the math


Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you enjoyed Jason's silliness and have a wonderful rest of the week.

I'm So Sleepy.

Sigh, it just keeps adding on. Of coarse, pregnancy is like that. You are tired and nauseous and nauseous and tired. Add a bunch of unpredictable moodiness, odd cravings at weird times (the other night I REALLY wanted an omlette and hash browns) and gaining weight steadily and you have the PERFECT recipe for World's Crankiest Woman. Welcome to how it is for dear Jason. Thankfully, he loves me and is VERY tolerant of me.

I keep having dreams of having twins. I honestly don't think I'm having twins however. I think it's more because I can't visualize this baby as either boy or girl, but just healthy and born. The more I think of it, the more I realize that my entire goal is to make it August and give birth to a healthy baby.

I had my first official appointment today. It was with the admit nurse. You get to do the going over the family history, how many times have you been pregnant (this is my 10th pregnancy, jeez louise!), birth control after the baby is born (Jason is getting the Big V for his birthday in June, love ya babe!), etc. etc. etc. Because I'm fat (I don't beat around the bush on that) I also get to do the diabetes test NOW and AGAIN at 28 weeks. An ultrasound wasn't ordered, which made me a little sad.

That being said, there is some genetic testing that can be done between 10 (I'll be 10 weeks on January 14) weeks and 14 weeks, and it involves an ultra sound. Usually, I deny genetic testing because it doesn't matter to me. When the pregnancy is meant to end, it will end naturally in one way (birth) or another (miscarriage) and no amount of test results will change my mind on that. However, as I would REALLY like to see this baby, I'm going to call and talk to them on Monday about doing the testing. It's either that, or invent a "problem". I don't want to invent a "problem" because to me, that just seems to be inviting trouble, know what I mean? My next appointment is on Jan. 27 and I get to see a mid-wife at that point.

In other news, we met with our new family therapist on Tuesday. I need to call her on Monday. I accidently overlapped scheduling with her and Izzy's speech therapist. Melissa used to come on Thursdays, she now comes on Tuesdays and I'm still getting used to the change. I also want to ask about therapy for James and what exactly she intends for our appointments with just Jason and I.

She mentioned "parenting" vaguely. She also said she would come twice a week, once to work with us as a family as a whole and once to work with just Jason and I. Now me, I already have a personal therapist whom I like a great deal. She and I are already working on aspects of parenting, along with other things. To me, it seems rather redundant, and a waste of resources to have Elsa ALSO doing this. I was also told that James would have to stop seeing his therapist because with the new program they would do that with him. So far, no mention of that has taken place. James needs that one on one therapy.

It looks like we are going to be close to snowed in this weekend. Jason is going to need to go to Home Depot or Lowe's tomorrow afternoon to get parts for the lock for the front door however. Our landlord is coming over on Sunday to a pre-run through of the rental inspection. I'd like to have the door done, or at least have Jason working on it when Garry gets here. I need to work on tidying up the office and the storage room. I also need to get to Wal-Mart (crap, it's looking like a family trip tomorrow evening) so I can get a few bottles of natural deoderizer for the carpet upstairs. We need something that will soak through the carpet in to the pad. I had one bottle of stuff that worked REALLY well in the living room. It's somewhat expensive, however it will definately be worth the cost.

I suppose that is all for now. I told James to give me until 7 before he came to bug me about making dinner. We're having pizza bagels. I was thinking of tasty and easy. I can also make some that are just cheese for Izzy. Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you have a safe, and warm weekend. Oh, if you can see her, say hello to the full moon for me this week as we will be cloud covered as is usual for this time of year.

If My Camera Weren't Elsewhere

I would take a pic of my middle of the night snack. I was hungry. I remembered we had chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge. MMMMMM. Oh, we have ice cream too! Yum YUM! Anyway, I take a little spoon of cookie dough and some ice cream, and voila, cookie dough ice cream!

OK, I'm awake that the LOVELY hour of 3:26 in the morning because my DARLING (heavy HEAVY sarcasm there) almost 3 year old son is ALSO awake. Apple pie and ice cream at 10 at night was apparently a BAD idea....jeez. Or he just doesn't want to go to bed, either way, he's watching "Meet the Robinsons" right now. He already made it through "Over the Hedge". I'd like to head to bed myself, but there is no way it's going to happen with him awake!

Katy's Christmas gift is coming in handy however. My mom and step dad gave her a portable DVD player for a gift. This evening I've been entertaining myself with season 1 of "That 70's Show". I love that show. I can so see myself in Kitty, and in Redd too!

We met the new therapist today. Her name is Elsa. Apparently once a week we'll be meeting with her as an entire family and then once a week with her and Jason and I. She mentioned something about working on parenting and what not. It was my understanding that James would have to stop his therapy with his other therapist because this new person would be working with him on that. I'll ask her about that next week.

Poor Izzy. He was outside playing today with Jason and the olders. He slipped on some ice. He fell face first, as usual. He skinned up his nose and his lips pretty well. His top lip is pretty fat. Poor kid.

I thought about baking bread today. I took a nap with Izzy and slept til about 5:30. So much for baking bread for dinner.

I see the intake nurse on Friday afternoon. I'll have to do the glucose test, and some other blood tests too I'm sure. I have to do the glucose test twice because I'm fat and I have a family history of diabetes. I've never had gestational diabetes, however it seems they need to make doubly sure I don't get it.

Once I see the nurse, in a week or two I'll see a mid-wife for the 1st time. The mid-wives have delivered all of my kids, with the exception of James. I lived in Chicago when I was pregnant with him, so it was a bit of a long drive to use the same mid-wives. I'm familiar with most of them, with their group. Usually they won't do an early ultra sound, however I'm hoping that with the miscarriages over the past year and a half that she might order one. I know that I will feel a bit more at ease once I see the baby, or hear the heart beat.

One of my worries is twins. I know that there are no twins in either mine or Jason's family, at all, ever. I really don't want to be the parent of the first set! From what I understand the chances of twins increase with age and with the number of children you have. I'll be 32 in June, so I'm not that old. However this will be my 10th pregnancy. I've given birth to 5 kids and had 4 miscarriages. ACH!!! That means the odds seem to be pretty high, at least fluke wise.

Ok, I should go, I think the sneaky boy just snuck a piece of apple pie. Which he really doesn't need. I'm going to try to get him to go to bed. In his own bed. He keeps trying to sneak in to my room and crash out on my bed. The little heathen. Prayers and blessings everyone. Have a pleasent rest of the week.

Clarification

And more Rambling. After all, what else is there?

Ok, the clarification. Yes, I'm pregnant. We've known since the beginning of December. Given my history, we played "wait and see". At the moment, I am 8 weeks and 3 days along. I'm due August 12, though I think I'll have the baby around the 25th of August.

I don't know what we are having. I think it may be a boy, however I was very wrong about Izzy, so who knows. We have names in mind that we would like, however nothing is really set in stone until we know what the baby is. Odds are, we'll find out around the end of February or the beginning of March. I'm not in a big rush to find out. I haven't bought anything for the baby, though I've looked. Part of it is because I want to see the baby on an ultra sound or at least hear the heart beat first. The other part is it is ALL either BOY or GIRL. The middle ground no longer exists it seems. Why is it that I HAVE to dress my boy in all blue and brown and my girl all in pink? It seems wrong and out of place to me at least.

My poor van. My poor poor van. The axle and tie rod on the passenger side need to be replaced. We have taken to driving the van as little as possible. We are nursing it along until we get our income tax return in, hopefully, February. I can take the bus to a lot of places, or walk. It'll be good for me to get up and moving like that more often. We'll use the van only when ABSOLUTELY needed. As it is, I'm not sure if I'll be able to go pick up Katy at the end of January. I am going to talk to my sister about using her car, but she may not be available.

It'll cost us less to repair the van, it also needs a tune up, and possibly some transmission work, than to buy a new one. The van has about 140,000 miles on it. It's old, a 1999. The only way we could afford a new van would be to get one that has payments. That is bad. We don't have payments now and we really can't afford them.

I left our camera at my mom's house when were there for the Christmas festivities. We were very neglectful in taking pictures as it was, so we have none of the kids opening their gifts. Oh well. My sister will pick it up for me on the 10th, I hope.

That's all for now. Oh, I do consider growing a human a New Year's resolution. I resolve to make it to the end of the pregnancy and give birth to a human being. Seems like a good one to me! Prayers and blessings everyone. Have a great weekend.

My New Year's Resolution

I'll explain more about this later, however I'll leave you with this pic.