it steams my hoohah when i get the bernie jerboas!

i went to a matinee of "black swan".  it was a noon showing, and i had the whole theatre to myself.  or so i thought.

as the movie started, two women ambled in.  i was sitting in the back row, purse next to me in a seat, knitting in my lap.  one lady walked in like she was blind; the lady behind her said, "i think someone else is in here".

now, of all the seats in the room, where do you suppose they sat?  in the row right in front of me.

i was munching on popcorn, and one lady turned around and looked at me.  i felt like saying, "no one held a gun to your head to sit in front of me.  if my popcorn bothers you, MOVE."  she turned around, and i made a face.

i smuggled a bag of gummy cola bottles along and naturally they made a noise as i opened them (plus the bag was hard to open).  the other woman turned around and looked at me, and mentally i made the same comment to her.

then they proceeded to whisper back and forth during the movie.  that's better than my crunchy popcorn or noisy candy bag?


seriously.  a whole big freaking theatre, and they sit right by me.  so  much for having the theatre all to myself (a first, which would have been cool).


i told mom and dad about my movie experience.  mom said i should have said "BOO!" when the lady made a comment about "someone else being in here".  dad said i should have said "don't let me and my friend bother you" and put my arms around an invisible person, when they ladies turned around to look at me.


in hindsight, i really wished i said out loud (cos i know i said it in my head), "it really steams my hoohah when, in this entire theatre, you sit in front of me then give me the stink eye for eating popcorn".

or, "i hope this movie gives you the bernie jerboas".

a little HAPL humor there.  :)

naturally, the comebacks come after the fact.  oh well.

it was a good movie.  i needed the mindlessness (not that the movie was mindless.)  it was a good break.

gimme a break!

having a snow/ice storm every other day really does mess with a schedule.  and when your schedule is out of step, it seems like the little things get mucked up too.  to wit:




i made crayons for the boy's valentines.  i'm not happy with them.

i got half a dozen boxes of crayons at walmart at the start of the school year, becos they were 25 cents a box.  i thought, can't beat that for making crayons!  cheap!  big mistake.  first off, the labels were tough to peel off.  apparently the crayon makers now glue the labels to the crayons.  why would you do that?  the label should be easy to peel when you need to sharpen it (or in my case, strip them to smash to bits).

then i wanted metallic and fluorescent crayons which the little boxes didn't have.  so monday night, before the big storm hit, i ran to michael's and target for these crayons.  they didn't have them, making the trip a big waste (well, maybe not a big waste.  i got a new blender and food for souper bowl sunday at my church.  not diapers, bread or milk like a normal person before a storm).

when i melted the crayons, they stuck to the molds and they got funny "colorless" rings at the top, like the wax was cheap and separated.  maybe that's why the crayons were so cheap.

next year, i'll bite the bullet and just buy two boxes of the 96 crayons.  they had the metallic and fluorescent crayons in them.


speaking of the blender, i bought a new one becos i was on a smoothie kick and our old one didn't have the horse power to make a decent one.  so i bought a nice blender at target, on sale.  i was so excited.

on wednesday i went to make a raspberry/banana/peanut butter and honey smoothie.  i went to detach the pitcher from the base when this happened:



dear bob, what a bloody mess.  nevertheless, i lost my smoothie jones.  guess next time i should read the instruction manual before i use a new appliance.


wednesdays are my "day's out" - when i swim, shop and run errands while mom watches the kiddos.  i missed last week becos mom was sick, and dad watched the kids when i took the boy to the doctor.  i had an abbreviated one the week before that allowed me time to swim and get groceries.  the week before that...i can't remember the last time i had a "leisurely" day out.

i was supposed to have bloodwork done on wednesday but rescheduled it to thursday becos of the storm.  i assumed that when mom and dad came over thursday to watch the kids that i'd get my delayed day too. they assumed otherwise - they thought they were coming over just long enough for me to go to the doctor.

i had the day planned out - michael's for more valentines for the boy (becos i thought a 24 pack meant "24 cards/envelopes" not "12 cards/12 envelopes"), a floor cushion for the kiddos, some groceries and, a treat for me, a movie.  i never go to the movies by myself.  with hubby, or with the boy as a family, but never alone.  i had a bad case of cabin fever and thought getting out to see a movie would help.

hearing that mom and dad wouldn't stay long made my heart drop to my feet.  3 weeks with no "me" time.  as i said "no, that's okay" (hubby's cue that "no, things aren't okay") i ducked into the kitchen to make the kids waffles and felt the tears well in my eyes.  mom said something else, and i must have sounded like i was about to cry (as i was) when mom quickly said "oh, i'll stay, i just thought that since hubby was home for the past two days helping with the kids you didn't need us".

begin rant


when you're a SAHM, you are with your kids pretty much 24/7.  even when they sleep, you're on call for when they cry out, need a diaper change, or sick.  day in, day out, your life is your children.  you can vary your schedule by taking the kids on play dates, or to the library, or outings.  with toddler twins, this is hard.  throw in crap weather and you're banking on being housebound for quite a while.  take a walk?  sure, but it's cold out, and the streets and walks aren't always clean enough for a stroller.  go somewhere?  sure, that works when the roads are great, it's not cold and the places you want to go are "double stroller".

i shouldn't complain, becos there are moms/parents out there who have it a hell of a lot worse than i do.  single parents, widowed parents, parents with supermultiples.  i am grateful for this life.  but it doesn't mean i couldn't use a break for a while.

that's why my wednesdays/mom's day outs mean a lot to me.  outside of an hour of sunday school and maybe an hour of SnB a week, the kiddos are under my constant care.  sure, i'm not double nursing them and they're growing more independent, but they fight, they explore, and no matter how much i child proof a room, they still find something they shouldn't.

the past two weeks i haven't had a MDO, either becos mom was sick or becos of this wretched weather.  being housebound with two toddlers who pick and fight with each other - it's overwhelming.  exhausting.  mind numbing.

i don't spend my MDOs doing luxurious things.  i don't get mani/pedi's, get my hair done or go get a massage.  i buy groceries.  i occasionally do a target run.  i swim.  pretty boring basic things.  but it gets me out and makes me feel like a relatively normal human being.

i know i should have gone swimming this week.  i hadn't gone in two weeks and my body needs the exercise.  but i felt like going to a movie.  doing something mindless.  i don't ask for much in life.  but this i wanted to do.

so excuse me while i sob, watching my day off evaporate into a wishful mist.  but this cabin fever is driving me insane.

and no, just becos hubby is home to help with the kids, doesn't give me a break.  or him for that matter.  i can still hear them when i take a nap, or a bath.  and it makes me feel guilty.


end rant


i cried going to the doctor.  if the lab tech doesn't stick a note in my file stating that "patient arrived at appointment appearing distressed", i'll be lucky.

i cried driving over to michaels.  i was hungry (since i fasted for over 12 hours) and knew i had to eat, but i didn't want fast food.  as i drove past bob evans, i remembered that i had commented to hubby that we hadn't eaten there in ages, and i decided that i'd have a decent breakfast for once.  it felt good to sit down and actually eat a meal, but i still felt guilty.

my errands took me to michaels, target, heimbachs and the grocery store.  i drove the back roads in the country to get to where i needed to be.  along the way i discovered a dam behind the market place.  i found beautiful homes.  churches that i didn't know existed.  i felt calmer, and the guilt started to melt away.

i went to the movies and knitted.  it felt great to lose myself in a story for a couple hours.

i returned home with groceries, a pillow for the kids, and more valentines for the boy.  and i felt refreshed.

mom and dad were matter of fact about the situation.  perhaps, after a bit of thought, they realized how frazzled i felt.


a note to those who know parents of multiples, especially SAHMs - give them a break.  really, a break.  just becos we are home all day, "doing nothing', doesn't mean we can't use a few hours to ourselves every so often.    

the christmas baskets

our family has a unique type of christmas basket for our holidays:






laundry baskets?  allow me to explain.


these baskets are hubby's old wash baskets.  he used them to schlep his stuff around when moving to and from the dorms in college.  if memory serves me, one of the baskets carried his stereo system (which we still have btw.  it's up in the attic tho.  i hate to part with it becos it's a good albeit outdated one).  from the appearance of the taped up handle on the green basket, they are about 20 years old.  the blue one is as sturdy as an ox.  all of the plastic wash baskets i've had are broken.

anyway, when we first got married, we used these wash baskets to carry our presents back and forth to our parents' houses during the holidays.  the green one, to my parents, and the blue one, to hubby's.  every year, we'd stack our presents in there, and return home with the gifts we'd received.

with the addition of the kids, we could use a few more baskets.  but we stack and cram what we can in the baskets, and use shopping bags or gift bags for the rest.

the baskets live under the boy's bed the rest of the year.

august is not a kind month to knees

for the past few weeks my screwed up right knee has been paining me.  throw in being short and fat, having corgi-like legs, carrying 40 lbs of twins for 35 weeks and walking up and down steep steps a dozen times a day with them has done a real number on both my knees and my hips.  swimming last weekend goofed me up worse and now not only do my knees hurt but my hips are locking on me.  next week can't come fast enough - i get my swim pass then!

so imagine my surprise when this came in the mail today:





i'm not sure why they think i need a scooter.  the mailing actually insulted me.

i loathe those stupid jazzies.  yes, i realize that they are valuable to someone who has problem with moving around.  but i rarely see an old person on those scooters.  i blanch when i see one in a store - i don't know how many times i've almost been run over by one.  okay i get it - you need a scooter.  but that doesn't give you license to take up the entire aisle while my cart is squeezed to the side and knocking over merchandise.


yesterday my mom was watching the kids while i ran errands.  when i came home mom was sitting on the couch - she felt and heard her "good" knee POP and couldn't walk on it.  she called dad who ran her to the ER.  turned out she had a baker's cyst behind her knee which burst.  she didn't even have to sit in the ER long - she was the only customer, she didn't need films, and was sent home with a script for souped up pain killers and the instructions to stay off her feet for a couple of days.

hubby suggested that i give the scooter mailing to my mom.  i'm not sure she'll find the humor in it as i do.

oh, the irony

guess what was waiting for me when i came home from running errands today?




PP must have someone who trolls the internet for people who share their opinion, then preys on them must be begging for money.  sorry, but i won't be crossing the line for you today.

lucky

today's friday the 13th.  a lot of people dread this day.  i try to remember good things on this day.  like these:




this teddy bear puppet is for a child in south america.  my knitting teacher, whose hubby is in rotary and travels there for trips, will take knitted puppets to ecuador for 9 year old children in a school or an orphanage (i'm thinking it's for school).  i love charity knitting.  i don't do enough of it.  i'm going to knit more of these, plus make a couple for the kiddos.







my briar rose yoga shawl.  currently idling away on the needles while i cram on my jaywalkers and get yarn for my clapotis.  i have less than 2 weeks to finish sock 2 and the clapotis.  no pressure, right?







i've entered the smart phone age.  i traded up my razr (which had a broken screen from when my water bottle leaked in my purse) and got an iphone.  love love love it.  and yes, that's my old ipod touch with it.  hope i can find another paul frank skin for my phone.  







the kiddos love looking out the door.  mom and dad think they're funny, watching their little faces turn to watch their van pull away and up the street.








spaghetti bindi!





carrying on the time honored tradition of "playing the register".  i did this as a little kid, and the boy did it too.  now freddie, the observer, plays the register at gram's.





irony.  hubby made tot casserole the morning i went into labor with the kids.  guess what we had one year later to the day?  it wasn't on purpose, either.  tot initials, in honor of the kiddos.

what happened to growing old gracefully?

yesterday i had a dentist appointment.  the boy had one too and got his (i think) first xray.  the dentist looked at the xray and commented that one of the boy's teeth was big.  then he turned and looked at my teeth.

i said, "i think the boy is going to take after me.  i noticed his new front tooth is pretty big.  and hubby has small teeth".

the dentist scrutinizes the boy's xray more, trying to figure out what position the tooth was in (twisted, normal, etc).  then he said that he'd watch it, and probably send the boy to the orthodontist in a few years for a consult.

then he turns to me and looks at my teeth again.  he asked if i ever had braces.  i replied no, as my childhood dentist (doc sheridan, bless his heart) said i never needed them.  i do have a twisted canine on the top and a crooked tooth on the bottom.  i remember when i was younger wanting braces becos all the cool kids had them, but doc said it was unnecessary to spend so much money to fix 2 teeth.  years ago i did make an appointment with a dentist who did invisilign to fix the top tooth but canceled the consult becos of a work conflict.  i've learned to live with that tooth and know that my right side is my best side for photographs (becos that twisted canine also makes me look like i'm missing a tooth and makes me look hayseed).

so the dentist tells me that i might want to consult an orthodontist to get those teeth fixed and proceeds to suggest 3 orthos in the area and maybe get an appliance to fix the teeth.  not braces, but something to work the teeth back in position.  this just blew me away.  i'm going to be 36 in a month, and my dentist is recommending braces!  he's 20 years too late!

i've been thinking about gracefully growing old for a while now.  i got some stark reminders about it this week, aside from the dentist.  i got a new driver's license photo earlier this week, and when i compared the new picture with the old one, i looked exactly the same except for a poliosis growing at my right temple.  i love that white streak.  it makes me feel very Rogue.

but then i was reading an article in good housekeeping, and it recommended that women color their grays "becos it's a no-no in a creative and competitive work field".  say what?  i colored my hair when i was younger (even before i had grays) and about 5 years ago i did highlights.  i admit to dabbling and going auburn.  but after 2 years of TTC and pregnancy, hair coloring doesn't seem so appealing anymore, and i decided to grow old gracefully.  besides, my mom and grandmother both have beautiful silver hair, and if i'm lucky, i'll be a silver fox too.

some days it feels like a sin to want to grow old gracefully.  a reality celeb recently underwent $30,000 of procedures to look prettier, and IMO, she looked like a plastic fake barbie doll.  the magazine showed her "before" picture, and she used to be really pretty!  kate from jon and kate got hair extensions and now she looks like a stripper. and this comment, also in "good housekeeping", just alarmed me:  in an article about "the biggest loser", a contestant commented that "despite having emergency surgery and given instruction that the only exercise she could do was walking, she walked 45 miles and lost 5 pounds becos she had 3 days to weigh-in".  how messed up is that?  there's no way i could have done that after my gallbladder surgery, and certainly not after my 2 c-sections.

what also amazes me is how many beauty treatments are being thrown our way.  there are women in their 20s getting botox.  i only started getting wrinkles!  i wonder what these women will look like when they really do need botox!

i'm also scared about my daughter growing up with these messages.  the stuff on tv and in magazines isn't the same as the stuff i saw and read when i was growing up.  i want my daughter to grow up feeling good about herself and accepting herself for who she is.  not a day goes by that i tell petunia that she is a beautiful and smart girl.  and i also tell my boys how beautiful and smart they are too.

but i'll keep using the wrinkle cream that SJP hawks on tv, and swim and do yoga to keep the chassis toned up.  an ounce of prevention, i guess...

just stuff it

what's this!

half a chopstick set, you say?  you're.....WRONG!

i found this in my bag of poly-fill.  i stuck my  hand in the bag and felt something long and hard (heads out of the gutter, guys).

i scratched my head, wondering why there was a pack of chopsticks in the bag of polyfill.  apparently it's a stuffing tool, for stuffing polyfill into crafts.  who knew?

the flip side had instructions as to how to use the tool.  the big end for stuffing big wads of fill, the smaller end for getting into small spaces.

i'm not sure how great a tool it is.  wads of fill are pretty loose, i don't know how much it can tamp down fill.  since i'm knitting sock monkeys and filling them as i go, i don't think it would help me.  i did hear of this tool for turning things inside out.  i guess it's not the same thing tho.

while i'm on an asian kick, here's a small blast from the past that i finally took off my fridge:

i got these fortunes over a year ago.  who knew they would be prophetic?  i got the bottom right one first, not long after we lost ani.  i got the upper right one during my anxious period, coming into ani's EDD - i kept having dreams about 2 little girls - i assumed they were ani and mac.  we got the upper left one before we found out we were pregnant, and the bottom left before we found out we were having twins.  scary, huh?



STASH - don't leave home without it


i am knitting a baby sock monkey for a HAPL care package.  i was running low on aran yarn and worrying that i had to make a run to michael's for another skein.  i need to get the monkey done ASAP and i wanted to use what was left of the old skein for the pixie's monkey.  while cleaning up my hot yarn mess knitting corner, i found a bag with 2 skeins of dark marl, a skein of red and A SKEIN OF ARAN. just what i needed.  thank goodness i found it - it saved me a trip to the yarn shop.



also got a new crock-pot.  a 5.5 quart with digital controls.  let's see if it incinerates/leaves food raw this time!

read the fine print

mr. obama has been using Geisinger Health Plan as an example of a good health care plan. while i am tickled that a local health plan is in the spotlight, a few clarifications are in order.

while i don't doubt that GHP is a good health plan - hubby is offered it each fall during open enrollment for insurance and we would probably apply for if we didn't already have old bluey - read the fine print before enrolling.

many years ago my mom had GHP. she needed a PCP and wanted to go to the geisinger clinic that was 5 minutes from her house. she was denied becos "the clinic had too many patients" and she was assigned to the clinic across the river, 15 minutes away. while 15 minutes isn't a big deal, i think it sucks that you don't have a say in who or where your PCP is.

secondly, if you have GHP, you can only go to the hospital, the clinics, or facilities or docs affiliated with geisinger. i really don't like not having the ability to get a second opinion from an outside source. if i had GHP, i could only see the derm at geisinger, and not see the derm at evangelical or the derm at hershey as i had last summer. and if i or anyone else in my family would have a serious condition (God forbid) i like the idea that we could go to hershey, johns hopkins or CHOP. don't have that flexibility with GHP.

don't get me wrong, geisinger is a good hospital. but personally i prefer flexibility with my health coverage. and i pray that whatever health insurance the government develops is just as flexible.

hello?!! you're the gyno!

today was my 6 week follow-up. incision is healing well, PPD is in check, i go back next winter for my yearly checkup.

my doc needs to go back to med school. he asked me if GMC ever told me if my twins were identical or fraternal.

i stutter "uh, i had a boy and a girl...so they're fraternal."

i grant him a mulligan becos he didn't get to deliver them, therefore he probably didn't remember from my previous 2 checkups.

but how many times do i have to tell him i got the snip snip? today made it number 3.

it also feels weird to not be making my doc trek every other week. got accustomed to that. won't miss it tho.

have a nice trip? see you next fall...

nothing is more embarrassing that doing a face plant on the pavement outside your kid's school.

at least i didn't scrape a hole in my new jeans!

but my leg hurts, which will make cycle number 6 interesting.