A weekend at the spa

This past weekend a few of my girlfriends and I went away for the weekend to the Bourget Spa. And it was HEAVEN.

We were given a cluster of three rooms that were off, practically in their own wing of the Inn. We felt we were separate enough from others that we didn't have to worry about being too loud, and we all had lots of space to spread out. The Inn also had a hot tub, a steam bath and a sauna (that us preggos couldn't enjoy - but alas, we're happy the other girls got to :), a huge living room for us to spread out in and chat and do the craft projects we decided to take on for the weekend, and a dining room where we had 4 delicious meals ( 2 breakfasts, 1 spa lunch and a 4-course dinner). All for just over $200! It was amazing.

There was also a spa in the basement where some of us indulged in pedicures, facials and massages.

Let me tell ya, this is the way to get away. No dishes, no cleaning, lots to eat, and lots of opportunities to relax. All in a location that really does feel like a home away from home. The owners put in those extra special touches that make you feel important - like always calling you by name, or making sure wait-staff you've never met before knows which of the pre-ordered dinners was yours, or giving you a hand and foot massage during your facial because the spa was a bit overloaded but they wanted to make sure you got all the treatments you wanted.

So if you're looking for a place to get away with the girls, or for a romantic getaway, I highly recommend you check it out :) http://www.bourgetspa.com/index.htm

(This sounds like an ad, but it's just me so thrilled with an experience I had to share :)

A baby pool!

I am becoming obsessed with how long I can go with this pregnancy. Unlike with pregnancy number one when I was hoping to go a bit early and then spent weeks TRYING to get Kiernan out of me, I have a feeling this one will be significantly more unpredictable!

Have a guess! Baby A is a boy and Baby B is a girl, so you should probably guess that ;) I can't wait to see what people think :)

Randomness

I'm having a hard time being a good blogger so I'm just going to braindump all kinds of little tidbits instead ;)

Kiernan
- is becoming quite contrary. He's been so easygoing for so long that even a bit of contrary-ness suddenly seems like a lot and quite annoying. It's nothing really that bad other than he wants to do the opposite of whatever is being offered and never wants to get ready to do anything anymore. He's two, it'll pass. But some mornings have been a pain in the ass lately. Luckily I won't be in a rush to get him places as much starting Thursday since the store will be closed.

- has become the amazing sleeping boy. I'm not sure I should tell you too much about it because it almost seems unfair. But remember - we're about to have twins, we deserve to bank up some sleep ;) Eric and I had a discussion the other day about whether or not we would trade a year of almost never sleeping for years of good sleeping we'd do it again. We'll see what we get though.

- loves listening to the wiggles in the car. If we don't have the wiggles, hey mambo will also do.

- Is going to be moved into a big boy room soon. It's taking us longer than I had hoped to get organized but I'm hoping to order the furniture this weekend and hopefully have him set up in there by mid to late February. Our latest debate it whether or not to attempt to soundproof the shared wall in his room before moving him in. The neighbours CAN be quite loud and the sounds travels really well through that wall. The next question is, do we go with something a bit simpler (like putting up cork tiles or carpet tiles or something on the wall) or more complex (replacing the drywall with something a bit soundproof). It will certainly slow down the process but I worry that not only will he disturb the neighbours (which would make me feel bad) but that they will disturb him.

Twins
- I feel bad that I haven't been logging this pregnancy a little more closely. Especially since I've wished many times that I had a better log of my pregnancy with Kiernan to see if I felt more kicking/movement by now. I am very anxious for that stage when they both move lots every day so I can have a conscious awareness that they're both doing well regularly.

- I have a friend who is 34 weeks pregnant with twins and got admitted to the hospital yesterday because her blood pressure was high. This makes me nervous. Although she's doing really well and the twins are both over 6 lbs so it would really be fine for her to have them now. But she was off work at 20 weeks and has been resting and taking it easy and she's still in the hospital. This stuff is freaking me out people!

- I think I might be smaller with twins at 20 weeks than I was with Kiernan at 20 weeks. People are commenting on how small I am for twins at 20 weeks. This is a) very odd for a person who has spent most of their life feeling fat ;) and b) slightly disconcerting. Luckily we had an u/s just last week that showed all was on track. I wish I could have them weekly to check up on them. I'm paranoid like that.

Me
- I'm looking for work - especially the kind I can do from home. Hook me up if you can. I'll be working on my CV this week to get it ready for proper distribution asap. :)

- I'm tired most of the time. Except at night when I should be sleeping. I'm not ready to start the crazy weird sleeplessness/tiredness of later pregnancy yet!

- The store closes tomorrow. How weird that this chapter has already ended. It was a great experience though and we've learned a ton. We'll continue being on line though so keep popping by.

More stuff about twins

Eric and I started a prenatal class last night for multiples. There were only 3/7 couples there (really bad snow in Ottawa yesterday!) and we were the only ones of the 3 with an older child so some of the info was refresher but the rest was really interesting.

A few interesting facts/tidbits:

- Ottawa apparently has the highest rate of natural multiples in all of Canada. (I wonder what that means)
- Apparently (I still find some of this kind of hard to believe and am waiting for a bit of backup confirmation ;) when you deliver twins in the hospital you a) automatically have to have an epidural (just in case you suddenly have to have a c-section) and b) deliver in the OR with everyone wearing scrubs and masks (just in case you need to suddenly have to have a c-section)
- They don't suggest you work after 28 weeks - which is when you reach the size of 40 weeks for a singleton.

I'm sure there's more but those are the ones that stood out. There was a lot more talk of bedrest, early labour, NICU, etc than I like to admit I should worry about, but I'm trying to come to terms with it all while having a positive outlook.

Baby pictures

The top of both of the babies' heads.

Baby girl face

Baby boy profile

Baby girl profile

Where they told us what "kinds" we're getting

We had the 18-20 week ultrasound and unlike our dear Kiernan, these babies weren't quite as uncooperative in showing us the goods ;)

Baby A is on the left (my left) and is a boy weighing in at 10oz. Baby B is on the right and made us hold out for quite awhile before finally letting us know she's a girl! She weighs 8oz. Both are within the normal for the stage so that was good to know.

So although the twin prediction was true, the two girl part wasn't quite as true. But I think two boys and one girl sounds like a pretty good mix to me! :) And now I don't have to spend the next 18-20 weeks wondering if these babies are identical or fraternal. I really do like knowing things instead of wondering them :)

A Christmas Traditions Meme

I saw this on Postcards from the Mothership and felt inspired to participate!

1. Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?

Christmas morning. Although I liked the idea of one gift on Christmas Eve and the idea of Christmas PJs so much that we now do one gift - of PJs, on Christmas eve :)

2. Donner or Donder?

Donner.

3. Turkey or ham?

Turkey with my family, and you just never know what we'll have with my husband's family :) It's always yummy though.

4. Gifts opened all at once, or one at a time?

I am firmly a one at a time girl. Whenever I am in a situation where everyone is opening at one I can't figure out where to look, what's been opened, who should be doing what and it's always very confusing to me. But I'm trying to get used to it ;)

5. Christmas tree: live or artificial?

We always had an artificial tree growing up and I was fine with that. I had a few years with real trees because roommates insisted, but I'm happily back to an artificial tree now. And now that we have one we REALLY like, I know that every year the tree will look fabulous and not having to worry about finding the right sized one, or one that is full enough, or, one that falls down in the night.

6. Cards: boxed cards, family photo cards, or e-cards?

I already ranted about cards once this year. I only send out cards if I have a photo to send. Otherwise, I just don't really get the point...

7. Christmas lights: incandescent or LED?

We just have the lights that came with the tree and I don't think they're LED. If/when we eventually get lights for outside, we'll get LED.

8. Re-gift or not?

I would, but I don't find I generally have the need.

9. Gift wrap or gift bags?

I find wrapping paper such a waste but I agree with many who say kids enjoy the ripping. So for now we're doing a bit of both, and I made some cloth Xmas bags that should last for years. I also stopped buying wrapping paper (I used to go crazy after christmas but have stopped) so I'm hoping that once I run out I'll have switched over to primarily the bags...

10. Best Christmas song?

I don't know... but I love Christmas music

11. Best Christmas movie?

Sound of music probably doesn't count eh? I can't really think of Christmas movies I love, but I feel like I often watched Sound of Music on tv on Christmas day.

12. Favourite family tradition?

I'm loving growing more and more traditions. We're doing yearly photos with Santa, and Xmas pjs so far. I'm hoping we'll have many more!

Okay, your turn. Do play along!!

Christmas cards

I feel like this is really bitchy of me to feel, but,

If you aren't going to bother signing more than "love so and so" to a generic Xmas card - why do you bother sending them? It doesn't make me feel thought of or loved by you. It makes me think that you went through your address book and thought "ya, I guess they ought to get one".

I don't think that's really the sentiment. "Sure, we like them." Either write me a personal little note to at least show me you know who you were sending the card to or don't bother.

There are, however, exceptions. If you are sending me a photo of you, your family, or your kids, I am fine with a simple "love us". I like to have photos. I put them on my fridge until they're a bit too old and then I put them in a scrapbook and keep them forever. Another thing I like are Xmas newsletters.... send me a generic newsletter telling me what happened in the last year. Don't have time to do that? I TOTALLY understand. Do like me and hope the people you like and love know you like and love them and don't need me to waste paper, stamps and time sending them meaningless cards that will doubtless end up cluttering their mantle until it goes in the recycling bin.

Signed a grinchy feeling me.

Hi bungabooboo!

Kiernan LOVES making up words. It seems like half the time he comes up and says "I want to boodleemanga mommy" or "let's watch domadaba". He thinks it's hilarious! Especially if you respond with made up words too. Sometimes we read books with entirely made up words leaving him in hysterics.

His other favourite thing to do lately is to walk up to you and call you a name that isn't yours.

Kiernan "Hi Daddy!"
Me: "Hi Kiernan"
Kiernan "No. Hi Daddy!"
Me: "ok. Hi Joel"
Kiernan kills himself laughing and repeats. Sometimes calling me Grammie or Grandpapa instead.

This weekend it evolved.
Kiernan: "Hi Daddy!"
Me "Hi Joel"
Kiernan: "Ya! Kiernan is at Vicky's house" *kills himself laughing*
And I have to say, I pretty much killed myself laughing too :)

Santa - year 3

I was so sad because every time I walked by the Santa display (and I work at the mall so I do a fair amount) I never ever saw our favourite Santa. How thrilled was I when I finally took K for his photo when he was there! And Kiernan smiled! None of this looking crazy freaked out ;)

What a gorgeous kid we have!

(I took a photo of the photo again this year ;)

You know what I've been kind of obsessively worrying about? Next year, do I get one photo with each child? Do we do a group photo? Is it unfair for Kiernan to have gotten all these photos on his own and not have the twins get that too? Is 4 separate photos excessive? I think it is, but does that mean I shouldn't do it? So many decisions to make before next year! :)

How can I have 20+ weeks to go?

I'm 15 weeks pregnant with these twins, and unlike the other blog I've found following a twin pregnancy, I'm going to be a complainer.

- My ligaments are already killing me. It's a struggle to turn over in bed and so I'm sure it wont' be long until I'll have to get out of bed to turn over like I did with k.

- The heartburn, reflux, etc is already so back some nights that I lie in bed burping for half an hour straight and last night I built a mountain of pillows on the bed to recline upon since lying down flat was too painful.

- My hips are digging in to my mattress so today I went out and bought a memory foam topper for the bed. Hopefully that will help.

It's only going to go downhill from here people. What I want to know is, WHY is being pregnant so difficult? If this is was we were built to do, shouldn't it be easier? Do animals have this much discomfort? Imagine animals who spend their lives breeding? What a horrible life!!

These babies will be worth it. But May/June is a long ways away. sigh.

The stuff you learn about twins

When I found out I was having twins a few weeks ago I knew little about twins. I knew there were fraternal twins and I knew there were identical twins. I knew that fraternal twins could run in a family - but that it has to come through the mother and I knew that identical twins are a always just flukes. Other than that - I didn't know a thing. Oh, I knew that identical twin pregnancies could be riskier than fraternal ones.

Since then I have learned quite a lot and I've decided to share my new knowledge with you all (lucky you! ;)

*Fraternal twins happen when two eggs get fertilized. They are as different from each other as two babies would have been from two separate pregnancies.

* Identical twins happen when a fertilized eggs splits into two growing organisms. Depending on when the split happens four things can happen:
- earliest split - both babies end up with their own complete environment from amniotic sac, placentas, chorions, everything. This pregnancy would look pretty much the same as a fraternal twins pregnancy
- medium split (most common) - both babies have their own sacs, but they end up with some shared stuff (ie placenta, chorion)
- later split (and the least common) - both babies end up in one amniotic sac. This is very dangerous because they can ended up twisting themselves (and their umbilical cords) all up and it can cause a lot of problems.
- latest split - Siamese twins. They split so late they didn't completely split.

So what does this mean? It means that the only way to know for sure what kind of twins you have are if you have twins that share a placenta, chorion or amniotic sac (automatically identical) or if, later on, you find out that the babies aren't of the same gender (automatically fraternal). It is possible that you could go your entire pregnancy and not know if the twins are identical or fraternal if they are the same gender. And when they are born, if they look really similar, you might even have to have dna testing to determine which kind they are (there are, after all, some very similar looking non-identical twins out there. For example the Olsen twins!)

At my latest doctor's appointment the ultrasound report the doctor had had an analysis on it from a specialist other than the technician who shared the twin news with us. It said that the twins are likely fraternal. There was no more information than that. Given what I've learned (and my research is not scientific here - it's pretty much wikipedia ;) I THINK that means that the twins have their own everything (which is very good!) and that *most* identical twins end up sharing something. Therefore, it is most likely that mine are fraternal but it's not written in stone. I am, amazingly, not really obsessing on it (I thought I would to be honest) and am instead ready to wait and find out. I am very curious on the gender of these babies though, mostly because I want to see if the remainder of my whole "prediction" comes through and that they end up both being girls. My next ultrasound is January 5 so we have a ways to go yet. Hopefully they'll both cooperate and show us the goods ;)

Oh. And I also found out this week that my mother's cousin had fraternal twins. So I guess it does run in the family... ;)

Our little monkey

This Fall we enrolled Kiernan in a gymnastics program since his favourite things to do are to climb and jump and tumble, etc. He really enjoyed it!

This past Sunday was parents' day - which was kind of chaotic and only entertaining in little bits, but it was still fun to watch. As you can see, practicing a dance once or twice with a bunch of two year olds and their dads doesn't make for the best looking dance you've ever seen ;)

A couple of K videos

One of my favourite sounds in the world is Kiernan's belly laugh. I've found that I can get him really going by fake belly laughing to him which turns into a real laugh as he really gets going. Kiernan now has a fake belly laugh/cackle that my mother in law believes is my fault. Who knows, but it CRACKS ME UP - almost as much as his real belly laugh. (please ignore the fact that it's really hard to video him because he always wants to see what we've taken)




We also got a cute video of him eating a chocolate cookie. (Please pretend his Dora addiction is not what it appears to be in this video ;)

Say what?

I swear, these twins are leeching my brain power out of me. Every day, I feel a little bit dumber than I did the day before. I can't remember things 5 minutes after I think them. For example:

- This morning I really had a craving for Tim Horton's peach drink. Remember it used to be in the those fountain drink things? Well they sell it in cans and bottles now and I get cravings for really sweet juice so off I went to Timmy's before opening the store. I got a coffee, a yogurt and a bagel. I forgot the juice. Seriously?!

- I had a headache the other day. Eric asks if I took tylenol. "yes" "no" "sigh... I don't remember" He's all "what do you mean you don't remember?". I mean I know I thought about taking some, but did I actually do it, the best I can tell you here is "maybe". Same with my other meds... I can tell you I remembered I should take them some day, but then spend a lot of time trying to decide if I actually did. I'm going to need to get one of those pill dispensers to prove whether or not I'm taking my medicine :P

- I was out for breakfast with K and Eric on the weekend when I suddenly panicked. "I forgot to tell her how I want my eggs". Eric is all "really? are you sure. She probably would have asked." "no, i didn't tell her." and I wave her down frantically. She comes over and looks at me curiously, opens her book and says "over easy?" GAH! These things disappear from my brain!!

I'm I doomed to just get dumber and dumber over the next 5-6 months???

The thrill of twins

I know and feel that this an amazingly fabulous thing that has happened to us. Twins! That's frickin' special man! And I'm excited for that. But the next year - it's going to be hard.

These are the things rushing through my head:

- I am more afraid of carrying these babies than of having them. My body didn't deal that well with one (although birth was good) and I'm afraid of my body not holding up well through this.
- There's a lot of pressure involved in eating well (especially when I feel gross a lot of the time) for TWO growing babies. The pressure makes me nervous.
- Even in the bigger of our two vehicles, two babies, a kiernan, and a stroller big enough for all three of them will not fit.
- Overall, the jump from having 2 kids to 3 kids had a fair impact on things since we have a 3 bedroom house, we don't have a van and as it was, I was hoping we wouldn't have to be in the house we're in for long with just TWO kids. We're going to be crammed in like sardines.
- I need to expect not to be able to work after my second trimester if necessary - talk about a difference in planning financially for the girl who just quit her full-time permanent job!

So again, don't get me wrong. I'm happy. But there's a whole lot of nervous and scared mixed in there. ;)

Oh, and also. Still doesn't REALLY feel real ;)

I wonder..

... will twins make me have an even odder shaped preggo belly than last time, or fill it out better making it rounder?

These are the thoughts going through my head people. eesh ;)

The not so unexpected I suppose

When I was 19 I had a dream that one of my friends from highschool was pregnant. It was such a vivid and real dream that for (I believe) the only time in my life I picked up the phone and called a person in my dream to find out if I possible dreamt the truth. She sounded surprised, informed me no, and that was that.
2 days later she called me back and was all "ummm... you kind of got me realizing I was late so we went and bought a test and I *am* pregnant". Right. then I fell off my chair because obviously I was psychic ;)
And that was the end of my career as a psychic. Um, except you know how the other day I was telling you about my twin prediction?
Introducing babies A & B:


The freaking out has been minimal so far - i'm assuming due to the fact that I'm waiting for the time when, any minute now, someone says "JUST KIDDING!"
But Eric assures me that the technician did in fact tell us we were having twins, and yes, we did actually see a shot with both of them in it and no I didn't make all of this up.
The tech said they're both right on track with one at 2.25 inches from crown to rump and the other at 2.5. And... OH MY GOD WE'RE HAVING TWINS!

Colic

This week I can really feel for those little guys with colic. Every night, around 5 or so, regardless of what I eat, don't eat, take my medicine, don't take my medicine, etc, I start to feel HORRID. It lasts a couple of hours and I walk around moaning and groaning and feeling like ass. It doesn't help that it happens every night during the two hours I get to spend with my son every day. I resent it. But alas, such is my lot in pregnancy I guess ;)
At a mere 12 weeks I'm already feeling ligament pain, getting nightly heartburn that tums won't clear up and am nowhere near being at the end of my nausea. Have I mentioned that for the last 2 years I've joked that our next baby would either be a boy (following in the Wellman curse tradition) or twin girls. Our ultrasound is on Wednesday so at least we'll be able to rule out the twin thing soon (I hope! ;)

There's a camel WHERE?

I/we like to bring up the new baby a fair amount to Kiernan and I often ask him where the baby is. This evening's conversation went something like this while lying on our bed:
"Kiernan, where's the baby?"
"In mommy's tummy"
"Want to say hi to the baby?"
"Ya. Hi baby. How are you? I'm fine" and Eric came in and lay down on the bed with us and Kiernan says
"where's the camel?"
Eric and I look at each other, look at Kiernan and we say "we don't know. where's the camel kiernan?"
"in daddy's tummy!"
Ha! A camel in daddy's tummy. This stuff kills me :)