Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Alone with my thoughts

Kids are asleep. Nick is at school. Work is done for the day. I am enjoying a few blissful moments of silence, which are few and far between these days. I can actually hear myself think.

Asher is pulling himself up on any and all things 24" or less in height. But his balance is still not that stellar so he's been falling over a lot too. He goes into the "ugly cry" at least 2 times daily. But he gets over it quickly, and goes about exploring the floor (and cords and shoes and bits of paper) with his mouth. I think he might be part puppy. He has started sticking out his tongue again a lot, which I am a big fan of.

Judah is not very motivated when it comes to mobility. He's saving all his energy to grow teeth and flirt with women. He has 2 bottom teeth, and a top tooth is about to pop out any day now. He is a social little guy and loves to be around people, loves attention, and does this thing where he lowers his head but keeps his eyes trained on his object of affection - which is pretty much any woman. I sometimes worry about what this means for his future - especially the teenage years, but mostly I'm just jealous that I'm not the only one he flirts with.

Nick started his last year of grad school today. There was much rejoicing. He will be shooting his thesis film this Fall. It will not be shot in my house. When I learned this fact there was much rejoicing. You should check out his fundraising site and kick a few bucks our way: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nickreddoch/space-garden-graduate-film-thesis

I love being a work-at-home mom. Even though I'm still working with Nick to establish what I believe to be a fair distribution of labor on the home-front, I think I've struck a pretty sweet balance between work life and home life. I enjoy my job tremendously, and I think I'm pretty good at it. I am challenged by new things thrown in my path, and I am able to handle them well. I really like and respect my coworkers and managers. Every time I think about my company I feel a swell of pride and it's pretty much a constant love-fest whenever I get to talk about my telecommuting arrangement or almost anything at all to do with where I work and with whom I work, not to mention our products. I hope I get to work there forevers.

Lately I've been noticing that my babies aren't little babies anymore. They're turning into little boys slowly but surely. I'm torn between wanting them to stay little forever and wanting to speed up time to skip to the next thing and the next. Sometimes I think about having another baby (or babies) and it scares me because my kids are in reality still infants. I have two stinking babies at the same time. And they are still babies. Even though they aren't the little peanuts I brought home from the NICU lo those many months ago. Mostly I just don't want to wait too long to have additional kid or kids. Nick and I are no spring chickens over here. I would love to be done having babies by age 35. That kind of limits my window. Also I don't want to have too much of a gap between kids because if my next kid is a singleton then they might be spoiled or have last child syndrome (you'll have to ask Nick about that one). And if it's twins again, might as well be full crazy for a few years instead of spacing out the madness. Then again, maybe I won't be able to have more kids. If I learned one thing from my pregnancy it is this: I am not the one in charge. I did not get to control the timing of that pregnancy (not to mention the fetal count), so I expect I won't be able to control the timing of any additional pregnancies - if I am lucky enough to have any more.

For the record, twins are the best. I love having twins and I feel so blessed to be entrusted with two beautiful and perfect little boys. Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to have just one baby. Then I do the mental equivalent of biting my tongue because I don't want to know what it would be like to have just one baby. I am in love with having two babies. Sometimes I feel like everything in my life up until this point has prepared me for having these kids. They are my blessing, my retribution, my make-up-for-lost-time, my everything. And I'm pretty sure Nick agrees.

Anyway, it's getting late. And I have to fold the clean laundry that is on my bed so I can get into it. Ah, bed, I love you.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

9 on, 9 off

I don't remember where I heard the expression, but I quickly embraced the idea of "9 on, 9 off" in reference to pregnancy weight. I had my beautiful twin boys almost 7 months ago, so if I am true to my word, I have just 2 months to go until I should be back at a comfortable pre-pregnancy weight - and more importantly, pre-pregnancy size.

I gained a total of 37 pounds during my twin pregnancy, which was not that much all things considered. I delivered almost 11 lbs of baby back in January, and lost ALL of the 37 pounds plus some within 1 week. At my 6 week check-up I was actually about 10 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. Then I stopped pumping breastmilk. And my appetite which had been pretty low during pregnancy made a grand/unwelcome reappearance. Now I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight. But don't get me wrong, I am not at my pre-pregnancy size. I have a lot of extra belly, and appear to be about 5 months pregnant, which I can assure you, I am not. I want to see if I can dip below the 200 lb mark by the time my little boys are 9 months old, which is extremely doable.

Since I had twice the amount of kids do I get twice the amount of time to work off the baby body? I think yes. If I work hard and continue to TRY I can make huge strides by the time my kids are 18 months old. For the record I am about 75 lbs above my goal weight, however that might not be realistic for me post-baby and post-20's. My goal for now is to shed 50+ lbs in 11 months. Then I'll reevaluate a realistic and healthy final goal weight/size. Here we go!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Blog by email?

I'm testing out the ability to blog via email (via my phone). If this is possible you may *may* see more than 1 post every 6 months from me. Get excited.

As a reward for your continued patronage of the blog I have attached a pic of the twins from when they were itty-bitty things. You're welcome.