When Are You Due? and Energy-laden Video

My father has been complaining about my lack of writing lately. Actually, he was complaining about my posting a picture of him and my brothers in my Turkey Post, but the foil he used was that I am taking the lazy road in posting pictures.

  

And he's absolutely right.

  

Not because anyone cares (although everyone asks), here are the baby twin stats for the moment:

  

• I'm 35 weeks along. I went 33 weeks with Abraham and Miriam, our first set of twins (those words "first set of twins," are ones I NEVER thought I would say).


• The "official" (as in 40 weeks) due date is February 14, 2010.


• Twins never go to their official due date. If you know someone who had twins born at 40 weeks, you need to hold that person in very, very, very high esteem. People, that's two babies, two placentas, and lots of extra fluid and weight.


• Being this big is not beautiful nor fun. The maximum amount of time I can spend up and around (you know, laundry, dishes, cooking, chasing a kid who needs a diaper change) is 15 minutes. Then I must sit again, preferably with feet up.


• Sitting with feet up does not make the swelling go away. It just makes it less.


• The swelling is so bad that it is hard to bend my ankles to walk. The only shoes that "fit" are my green crocs I bought at Costco in the summer because they were cheap. They don't even really fit; my heels hang out the back. But that's what I wear - in the snow, in the rain, in church.


• You do not instantly become more patient with your children because you are "in waiting." You become less patient, more irritable, less able to handle the normal stresses of life. Like a pregnant mother moose, you want to shoo your existing children to some far-off slough. You send your husband emails at work begging him to put your children into public school despite your core beliefs. You do not smile when he comes home, says, "Tough day? I don't think now is the time to be making drastic life decisions." You respond, "Now is exactly the time. I have clarity I've never had before," and he says."That's not clarity. You're going to have to rely on my clarity."


• You reach a point where you are just READY. It doesn't matter that you don't yet have enough car seats or benches in the van or clue where the newborn clothes are.


• The actual thought of childbirth is only a little bit scary. Even having given birth 5 times before, every time brought with it a sense of dread. That dread is miniscule right now. I don't care how they come, I don't care how much it hurts, I want them OUT. I'm tired of not being able to find a comfortable way to sit or lie down, of constantly having a very itchy belly, of physically having to hold my belly as I climb stairs (and we live in a tri-level). And, I just want to go back to normal life. Enough of the waiting, the wondering, "Is tonight the night?", the frustration at not being able to vacuum a room full of Sunday School paper scraps and wheat kernels (don't ask).

   

Having said all that, I feel I am allowed to post this video without guilt. I'm not sure that's the material my dad (or anyone else) wanted to read, but ... who cares.

  

THIS is amazing. I mean, I can't even fathom how they do this. (And thanks to Amy at Amy's Humble Musings for sharing this link!)