Sardines

Happy Easter!!!


Logan spent the past week on a much needed vacation to Grammy and Grampy's house. It was fabulous for all of us. Logan got some one-on-one attention that he has been sorely lacking since the girls' arrival. The girls were able to roll around on the floor without fear of being kicked in the head or body slammed. Steven and I actually slept in a few mornings and found ourselves doing crazy impulsive things like leaving the bathroom door open and *gasp* throwing our keys onto the kitchen table with no fear of a certain curious 2 year old getting into everything. Hell, even Gus was enjoying himself since he spent the week out amongst us instead of hiding in our closet until Logan's bedtime.

The theme for the week around Chez Maynard was relaxation. We moved the girls out of our bedroom and into Logan's bedroom for the week. And it was bliss. Steven converted Logan's toddler bed back into a crib and for the first time ever Molly and Emma actually had enough room to sleep and roll over without being on top of each other. You see, and this may be sort of shameful, they are still using a portacrib. There just isn't a lot of room in our bedroom and up until now the portacrib has been fine. Things are starting to get a little cramped now though. And after seeing how well they slept all week in a "real" crib, we can hardly wait to move them into one permanently. We were going to bring the crib my parents have at their house back up with us today but, sadly, it would not fit in our minivan - 3 kids in car seats plus all their crap does not leave room for things like cribs and mattresses. Darn.

I have just spent the past hour trying to get them to settle down in their portacrib and stop rolling and kicking each other. They have been howling for an hour straight. Clearly, they do not approve of this downgrade. Luckily, my parents have offered to drive up with the crib sometime this week. Thank god for my mom and dad!! To the rescue, AGAIN!

Silly Girls

Mmmmmm . . . Muffin Top

So, I will be returning to work in less than two weeks. I am freaking out. My husband works from home and will be taking care of all three kids by himself while I am at work. He is an excellent father, but my god. I cannot imagine taking care of all three of them by myself. If anyone can do it, he can, but I just hope he doesn't go completely mental in the process.

I am also worried about something much more trivial and selfish. Dude. What the hell am I going to wear to work? I have major stomach pooch. And twin skin. I look maybe 4 months pregnant. I can force myself into some pre-pregnancy pants but the muffin top I get is horrendous. I can wear maternity pants but who the hell wants to do that. And I'd be sort of embarrassed if anyone saw that I was still wearing maternity clothes. I thought I could get away with that after having Logan and one of my co-workers exclaimed that my pants were "too big in the butt." Granted, she's about as mature as this year's Beaujolais Nouveau, but still. Nothing really fits. I just placed an order with Old Navy for some el cheapo post-pregnancy clothes but I have no idea if I bought the right sizes or not. Probably not seeing as how their stuff seems to be made for anorexic 12 year olds.

Also, I bought a new pair of glasses! It was kind of an impulse buy. I saw this little blurb about cheap online glasses and I thought "hey, why not?" and I quick as a bunny found my OLD, OLD, OLD prescription and ordered me up a pair. Hey, I've had my current glasses since 1999. Yes. They are 8 years old. I bought this new pair from 39dollarglasses.com . . . and they were $29. How can that be? Well, I found a coupon code for $10 off. Now I ask you, who can beat that??

Old-Fashioned Fun

I am so sick and tired of huge baby toys with flashing lights and annoying music - the kind that take 8 D batteries and require half the real estate on your living room floor. My god. The babies are 6 weeks old, they don't need 8 different lullabies in 5 different languages with 12 recline options and 3 removable toy bars. All they need is a place that isn't their crib that they can be blobs in. I mean, that's what they are right now. Blobs. And I'm certainly not complaining. When Logan was teeny tiny I remember I couldn't wait for him to start moving around and playing. Yeah. Not so much this time. They can remain immobile for as long as they want - god knows how I'll handle it when I have three small children running around like rabid monkeys.

Anyway, I searched high and low for something mildly entertaining that the girls could use for more than six months that didn't run on batteries and didn't threaten to give us all lightshow induced epileptic fits. Bonus points if it wasn't hideously ugly and/or plastic.

This is what I ended up with:


If that's too fancy for ya, you can remove that totally not obnoxious toy bar and you are left with this:



Ahhhhh . . . I can breathe again.

We haven't received it yet - it's being shipped - but, doesn't it look simple, refined, dare I say elegant?

Things I've Thought of Today That Have Made My Milk Let Down

1. the twins (duh)
   
2. Logan
3. coffee
   
4. Stewie from Family Guy
5. Christmas
6. sleeping
7. paprika
   

A Realization

This is the longest I've gone without throwing up since finding out I was pregnant. Four weeks vomit-free! Damn, it feels good. I think I puked at least four times a week every week (on average) my entire pregnancy. I was hurling so often that my officemate at work urged me to make sure to visit my dentist ASAP after giving birth. Vomit erodes tooth enamel you know. She cautioned me that he might suspect an eating disorder but that I really should suck it up and go. Hello? Yeah - I really look like I have an eating disorder - that's a good one. Honey, I wasn't so svelte pre-pregnancy, but now? Let's just say I don't really have to worry about being mistaken for Nicole Richie.

All that puking taught me some valuable lessons.

• Never take the easy way out and throw up in the bathroom sink instead of the toilet. I know it's tempting to just run right in, turn to the side, and let loose into the sink. No fuss, no muss. No splashing. No bending over. It seems like the perfect choice. But no. Unless you want to be up at 1 AM unclogging the drain while your husband pretends to be asleep, just walk a few more steps and do your thing into the toilet.
  

• I don't really chew my pasta very well.

• If there is inadequate time between drinking and puking, the carbonation from Coke really hurts coming up.

• I will never eat chicken pot pie again.

• If you weigh close to 200 pounds, do not kneel in front of the toilet to puke. Just bend over as far as you can and hope you don't splash too much. Otherwise, you may have difficult getting up and/or you may injure something in your butt that makes it so you can barely walk and you will have to hobble around like a 90 year old for a good two months or so. You will even have to ride the damn motorized scooter in the grocery store and you will feel like a complete moron. Just saying.
  

• Vomiting an entire movie theater sized box of Junior Mints is not entirely unpleasant.
  

And Another Thing . . .

I forgot to mention a few key things that I wanted to share. This is what happens when you get 2 hours (not in a row) of sleep a night.

1. My epidural made me completely numb from my shoulders down to my toes. You might think that sounds kind of nice, especially when we're talking about cutting my stomach open and yanking two babies out. But, think about it a little harder . . . what happens when you realize you can't tell if you are breathing or not? Well, you might completely freak the hell out. I did not, but let me tell you it was a strange sensation. I felt like I had to will myself to breathe - like I had to really concentrate on it or else I might not really be doing it.

2. They have you laid out like Jesus on the cross for the surgery. I am not joking. You're lying on this table and there are these wooden arm rests that stick straight out from the sides and you have to put your arms on them. I think this is to avoid you germing up the place by reaching past the paper curtain and into the sterile zone. The paper curtain, I might add, is right at your neck . . . hello, claustrophobia. This plus the whole am I or am I not breathing thing I mentioned above can be a bit much if you are not cool like Fonzie.

3. It is easier to get pain medication in a nursery school playground than it is in the hospital. This surprised me. Everything I'd read warned me to stay on top of my meds because once you start feeling pain it's a lot harder to manage. So, when I was told that I was to get Percoset and Motrin every four hours (on the second day after the glorious epidural was removed) I wasn't expecting that I'd have to bully the nurses into actually giving it to me. I had a dozen different nurses while I was in the hospital, but I'd say that 75% of the time I had to ring the nurse's station and ask for my pain medication. I felt like a junkie. Begging for meds. Especially when I'd actually sleep for a few hours past the four hour mark and I'd wake up feeling like someone had ripped my stomach open - what? - oh yeah, someone really did do that. Hello? Just bring me my damn Percoset! I don't know how they expect patients to remember when their next dose is due anyway. Already, I was having to remember when I breastfed who and which boob did I use and for how long and who pooped and who peed and did you fart and have you peed and bathed and pooped and how many minutes did you sit up for and when did you eat and blah, blah, blah.

Oh - and then - THEN, they also want you to rate your pain. On a scale of one to ten. They make you tell them before they will give you the pain medication. Hi. I just had my stomach cut wide open and two babies were dragged out from inside me. How much pain do you think I'm in? OH - AND THEN they would check my incision (remember that I haven't had pain medication in 6 hours and am dying just from lying down motionless in bed). To check the incision they had to lift that lovely flap of stomach overhang you see in the photos a few posts down. And then they'd push on my stomach all around the incision. Yes. I think I kneed a nurse in the nose one of those times.

Anyway - just some more unexpected things I experienced that were different from the (equally as horrifying but in different ways) vaginal birth I had the first time around.

I know I said this last time, but this time I swear to god mean it, I am NEVER doing this again. I am very grateful that everyone is here and healthy and I am thankful that everything went so well, but god dammit being pregnant, giving birth, recovering from it all, and taking care of a newborn (or two) really bites the big one.

Things I Haven't Told You

1. They shave you down there when you have a c-section. With an electric razor. It tickles.

2. You cannot leave the hospital after a c-section until you have farted. And every nurse, doctor, and cleaning lady who enters your room will ask you for a status report.

3. The nurse who was in charge of getting me prepped for my surgery bore an uncanny resemblance to my deceased grammy. As soon as I figured out who she reminded me of I knew everything and everyone was going to be okay.

4. I cannot shake the fear that my incision is going to open up and half my insides are going to fall onto my feet. No suede shoes for me!

5. Colace is my God.

6. I spend a total of 8 hours a day breastfeeding.

7. I have envisioned super-gluing the twins' pacifiers to their mouths.

8. We cannot all go out as a family together because you can't fit 3 carseats into the Honda Civic. Thus, I have not left the house in almost a month.

From Hideously Ginormous to Just Plain Old Ginormous

People seem surprised that I have lost 40 pounds in 3 weeks. Normally, I would be too! But, I did pop out two babies weighing a combined total of around 12 pounds. The rest is just placenta and blood and water weight. Oh, and let us not forget the handful of 3 pound bowel movements I've had this past week. So . . . really? Not that impressive.

I didn't take many photos of myself while pregnant - I just felt HUGE and uncomfortable and I wasn't particularly compelled to document my misery. But, I did force myself to take a couple of shots of myself in the mirror towards the very end. Keep in mind, these were taken a month before I actually gave birth. HA! Yes. So, I was even bigger and badder before this was all over. Oh, and don't pay any attention to the clothes on the floor . . . you try picking up anything off of the floor when you have a stomach the size of the Hindenburg.







This is how swollen I was:



What I'm about to show you is frightening and horrific and not suitable for public viewing. So, proceed at your own risk.

This is what the aftermath looked like:







Nice overhang, huh? They call that the "mother's apron," I'm told. Isn't that quaint? Every time they'd check my incision in the hospital they would have to lift up that flap. Humiliating AND painful! As I've lost weight and the swelling has diminished, so has the flap. THANK GOD. I still have a little bit of floppy pouch there, but it's not like I have to tuck it into my pants anymore (oh yes, I did).

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Steven is going to kill me for posting a video where his naked gut is resting on the counter for the majority of the time, but this is too hilarious for me not to share it with all of you. Maybe my dad was right and we should have stopped by the nearest tattoo parlor on the way home from the hospital and had the girls' names permanently etched on their bums.

* Special thanks to Steven for blocking me from the camera. While his belly was propped up on the counter, mine was gently sweeping the floor. I might be down 40 pounds since giving birth, but my saggy stomach skin is like warm salt water taffy. Mmmmmm.

No Sleep

I'm not exactly sure why hospitals refuse to let you sleep after you've had a baby (or two). I think they must get a kick out of giving you pain meds that make you sleepy and then coming in every 2 hours to jump up and down on your c-section incision. Or, as was my case, the opposite order. Yes.

Introducing . . .

Molly Susan, 5 lbs. 15 oz., 18 1/4 in. at 9:53 AM
and
Emma Barbara, 6 lbs. 2 oz., 18 1/2 in. at 9:54 AM