the pool and other new things

The girls got a baby pool (thanks Martha!), and we got a new place to live!  with a porch, as you can plainly see.  So we have been living it up.  Incidentally, our laundry room door is open, for anyone who wants to use it.  I know what it's like to go to the laundromat, or a parent's basement, or just another building to get your wash clean.  So there's no baby news yet, but soon there should be.  

we still manage to have some fun

So really, i just wanted to try to post a video, and it was easy enough, although the quality from the digital camera is rubbish.

Soon enough, we will no longer have to live within a small space that combines a kitchen with a living room, and even a little bit of bedroom.  I know I keep telling people that this will be the weekend, but I think we really might move in this weekend.  This place is palatial compared with our current situation.  The girls will love it, too, poor things - they get a little stir crazy up here.  But they do enjoy a good dance party, even in close quarters. 

am I buggin' you? I don't mean to bug ya...

So I am just not in the mood to blog.  sorry, but who really wants to hear me moan and groan?  frankly, I am sick of me.  One of my doctors finally agreed with me, that I am not normal, that this shortness of breath and extreme fatigue may actually be a problem, so I am having my thyroid function tested.  good. maybe I will find something out.  In other news, we are painting the new place this weekend.   the sooner we can move, the easier life will become.

God, get me through the next 7 months or so.....

Sooo, here we are. I have been avoiding my blog, the internet in general and any other form of outward communication.  I have been lying on the floor, feeling nauseous and sorry for myself.  Being pregnant, for me, is like being depressed.  No energy, no motivation, constant hunger, and yet no appetite.  Yeah, I said pregnant.  Mmm-hmm.   Not planned, and yet, not unwanted.... just really unexpected.  

I am sort of hesitant to tell people about it, unsure of their reactions, partially I guess because I am a bit unsure as to how I really feel about it.  A baby is not intimidating to me... that part I don't mind, although I know I will be seriously tied down for a while.  But I really do not like being pregnant.  It makes me very selfish and miserable.  And there are two little angels here who are only a year and a half, who really need a mommy, not to mention my hardworking husband who used to come home to dinner on the table, clean laundry (usually), and sometimes even a clean house.   Oh, my, how quickly life can change.

sticks and stones... are awesome

    Rowan and her bits of bark - bliss is written on her face
                   Genevieve with her prized walnut
                    Mommy made it into a picture

We had a seriously tiring weekend -  totally booked, and hardly any rest.  But we did manage to have some really nice family time.  We attended a birthday party for another pair of twin girls, 3 year olds, which was at a gymnasium, and the babes had a blast in the ball pit, jumping on the trampoline, and just running around in a really big space. Then we came home and ran around outside for a while. This is so much easier with Dan!  And the girls just love it so much.  I can't wait until it's consistently warmer outside so the two stinkers can go outside every day.  Our place is so tiny, they get stir crazy sometimes.  Poor noodles.

on identity

Sometimes it feels that once I became "mommy" I lost the rest of the things that made me Emily. 

It is hard to see past all the duties and joys of being a mother to twins (or to any baby or child - I would never devalue any other mom's job, I'm just coming from a particular place here).  I know that in reality I didn't lose the other things, they just got put on the back burner while I learned about this new addition to my repertoire.  The only problem being that a lot of the other parts of me require some maintenance, and if I leave them on the back burner too long, they could burn, or maybe I will just have to relearn the steps (excuse the mixed metaphors). 

It's just that, while cooking, cleaning, and mothering can be rewarding (especially the last one), I spent almost 30 years developing a sense of self that had nothing to do with these things. Although, in all honesty, anytime I was asked about my ambitions and plans for the future, my first response would invariably be about becoming a wife and mother.  So thanks be to God, he has granted me my deepest desire. Only... I never envisioned how all-encompassing it would be.  It is hard work, very hard work for an unmotivated procrastinator, to try to fit in the other parts of me. However, when I do, there is nothing more satisfying than stretching and flexing the muscles that so often get neglected, and also keeping up on the family stuff.  I haven't yet learned how to keep that balance - at this point, I am squeezing the artistic stuff in with little bursts of industry here and there, but not consistently.  When it becomes consistent, I start to get behind with everything else.  I think that with time, and effort, and some compromise, I will learn this new dance... it's just that the steps are so complicated, and I have always been so awfully clumsy!   

you haven't lived...

until you have had a small child sit on your neck and comb your hair with a medicine dropper, all the while patting your face with her free hand and babbling high-pitched sweetness to you.  on second thought, you probably have lived, it's just that my life has been relatively uneventful, until a certain double event a little over a year ago.