I'm back!

Did you miss me?

As suspected, I didn't have much computer time. But, I'm pleased to announce that not only did we move, baby 3 stayed safely inside through the move. Quite honestly, I'm shocked he wasn't born during all the flurry of activity that surrounds moving. But he kept on cooking, right up to my scheduled c-section this past Monday.

Oh yeah, that's the big news: Mr. Z-Man made his grand entrance on Monday! Everything went as planned, he's a big (8 lb!) healthy baby boy, and I'm recovering just fine, when I remember to take my pain medicine. Which I forgot today, and then was totally flummoxed by the fact that I was hurting. Duh! And I can't even blame it on pregnancy brain anymore...

That's it. My wonderful parents have been here all week, taking care of N-man and B-man (and TK and I!!). They're leaving tomorrow...I suspect it'll be a LOT more work starting then :) But it's all good. We're unpacking and getting used to the new little guy. The big boys are such great brothers...they seem to really like the Z-man.

I'll be back to my regularly scheduled totally random intermittent posting any day now. And looking forward to catching up with reading blogs, too! It was weird to be offline for so long!

37w6d

Today I'm 37 weeks, 6 days pregnant. That's exactly how long I gestated the boys. I have two things to say for myself:

1) Damn, that's frickin' amazing that I didn't just camp out at the doctor's office and demand he remove those two children immediately. I've considered setting up camp already this time, and the only thing holding me back is the realization that I'm being a gigantic baby and to just suck it up because I only have half as many extra people inside me this time.

2) Thank goodness I made it this far. I would have been a little embarrassed if my now-OLD body couldn't make it at least as far with a singleton as it did with twins.

I'm actually getting worried that this little guy will make his appearance early. What were we thinking, moving 4 short days before the baby is due? How is this a good idea? Yes, I love our new house. Yes, in the long run it'll all be worth it. Yes, it doesn't even *really* matter if I have the baby now and miss all the move-related stuff. Well, that will make life much more interesting for TK (hmmm, honey? Do you mind handling two children, selling a house, buying a house, packing/moving/unpacking, a new baby and a wife in the hospital? That's not too much, is it?)

We're in the final crunch now, moving out of our current house in four days, moving into our new house in five days. We've done the vast majority of packing, and I use "we" very liberally, as I've done about five, maybe six boxes total. Mostly I sit on the couch having Braxton-hicks contractions while TK packs, packs, packs. Guess what's on the agenda today? Yep, more packing! (Though we should be mostly done by the end of today...microwaved food on paper plates or restaurants for the rest of the week as we only have the bare necessities out now!)

I'm not sure if I'll be updating my blog or not before the move/baby arrival. Funny to think that next time I blog, it might be from our new house and as a family of five! I should probably try to update, though, as I'm sure it will be hilarious to look back and see a record of the insanity :)

An odd twin moment

I've never seen much evidence of my boys being psychically linked. No crying when the other bumps his head, or completing each other's sentences.

But then we went to the doctor's office yesterday, and I learned you gotta watch out for these two!

Their doctor asked them, "what is your little brother going to be named?"

There was a pause, and then they both said in unison, with much certainty, "ZINK-O!"

We've never mentioned this name. They've never called the baby Zink-o before to me...they always just call him "Baby".

The doctor looked at me and said, "Really?" She did a great job keeping her voice neutral, with no sign of disapproval for what would obviously be a crazy name. But they'd clearly convinced her with their certainty, not to mention the fact that they BOTH said it at the same time.

I just couldn't stop laughing!

And for the record, while we're still struggling with a name, we did let the boys know there's zero chance of a little brother Zink-o.

Dr. Tact strikes again

When I was pregnant with the boys, my OB earned the nickname of "Dr. Tact". I know Ms. Goddess in Progress met him, and has some wonderful stories of her own about how he completely lacks any tact at all!

Anyway, that actually doesn't bother me, so I stuck with him for this pregnancy. And I've been surprised that he's not been overly un-tactful this time around. I was wondering if he took some kind of "be polite to patients" class in the past 4 years.

Until today.

We were scheduling my appointment for next week, and I said, "The nurse told me I'd need to come in for a non-stress test."

His response: "Oh yeah, because you're SO old."

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

So this elderly mom refrained from punching him in the nose. See, age brings restraint, so it's not all bad!

How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Name

TK and I are having trouble thinking of names we like for the new baby. While my brother and SIL had a list of about 15 names they're considering for their son, we can't even come up with one strong contender. It's a problem.

Ethan had been something that has kept popping up on my list of potentials. I've been leaning heavily toward it in the past few days. Until today.

I took the boys to the playground after lunch today. I went to a playground slightly further from our house because it's really a good playground: fully fenced in, relatively small so that I can keep an eye on both of them even when they run in opposite directions, yet still filled with enough fun stuff. Generally, it's worth the 10 or 15 minute car ride, even though there are probably four playgrounds that are closer.

Today, though, someone decided to have their kid's birthday party at the playground. It was an older kid turning 9...kind of old I thought for this pretty small playground! They had both of the tables taken up, so I couldn't sit down. They had all kinds of food kids were carrying around, so I had to be vigilant about no one smearing food on the equipment or getting near B-man with potentially fatal food...I don't know what has nuts in it. But the worst part was that the moms were TOTALLY ignoring their kids.

One kid was especially wild. He was pushing other kids, and throwing wood chips around. A lot. Some of the other kids were yelling about how the "boy in the yellow shirt" was being bad. The moms not part of the party were moving their kids out of the area. N-man strayed too close and got wood chips thrown in his face. Yes, I did tell this boy that it's NOT okay to throw wood chips, then I moved my boys as far away from this kid as was possible in the small playground.

Finally, I don't know what happened, but one of the other moms really yelled at this kid (I guess he'd called her son "stupid"). The mom FINALLY came over and was informed by this awesome mom that she needed to control her son. Probably what I should have done after N-man got wood chips in his face, but to be honest, I'd seen this kid running wild for over 10 minutes by then so I had my doubts about the parenting skills of his mother and the effectiveness of trying to get a mom who obviously didn't care to intervene. I mean, it's a really small playground... she had to have seen the non-stop antics her son was instigating.

So Bad Mom finally comes over. And what does it turn out her son's name is? Ethan. Of course. Ruined the name for me. Bad Mom sucks.

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To be clear, I don't think this was the kid's fault. Well, he was probably eight or nine, so he's certainly old enough to be expected to behave better than he was. However, this was certainly a case where the clueless mom is to blame. If your child has been terrorizing the playground for twenty minutes and other random kids are running around calling your son "the bad kid", it's time for you to step in and remind your child about proper playground behavior.

Yes, I did just get all high-and-mighty about parenting. Nice, huh? I think I'm only half mad at the bad parenting, and half mad at her ruining the only name I had on my name list!

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On a related note, here are recent suggestions from B-man to name the baby. I'm getting worried we might have to go with one of these!

• Dinosaur
• Baby Doll
• B-man 2
• Ginko (what they call their imaginary scape-goat who does all the bad things they "didn't" do.)
• Chocolate Chip
• Four Three Nine
  
• And, in an example of how kids don't know when they're being mean, the name of the boy who cries every day at school (because we've been warning the boys that the new baby will probably cry quite a bit and not to be worried about it).
  

It's a...., plus silly stories

We had our Level II ultrasound yesterday and we're expecting another BOY! Boy oh boy oh boy, I'm so excited to have a house full of little guys! I think I'm biased as N-man and B-man are so awesome that I can't imagine not wanting another little boy. I'm sure a girl would have been fine, too, though I would have been far more scared. I feel a little badly as TK always wanted a girl, but oh well, he's happy with a boy, too. And we're done after this little guy! So three boys it is (and I've never even seen the TV show My Three Sons!)

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B-man is the only one in the house disappointed with the little brother situation. When I told him, he said, "but I want a little SISTER!" I explained we don't get to pick, and he said that he wants FOUR kids in the family. Keep wishing, big guy!

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Unrelated to the new little guy, N-man told us the other night that he wants a dog. TK explained that he's allergic to dogs. N-man then said, completely unconcerned, "Daddy, can you leave?" We cracked up! TK asked where he should live instead, and N-man said he should just stay at work. Hmmm, it's not much of a confidence builder if your kid ranks you right below getting a dog!

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In another unrelated story, TK got N-man dressed the other morning, and put him in a pair of truck underwear. Now, most of the boys' undies are communal, but they each have one set Grandma and Grandpa got them that is THEIRS. N-man has doggies, B-man has trucks. Well, obviously N-man wasn't paying attention when TK put on his undies that morning!

The boys went to school, and when they came home, N-man had to use the bathroom. He was sitting on the potty, when all of a sudden, B-man runs in, horrified. "Are those MY truck undies?" he asked indignantly.

N-man looked down, and just as horrified, ripped the clothes off his body to get the offending B-man underwear off.

So I told him I'd run upstairs to get him a different pair of undies. I ran up, got new ones, and when I got back down, B-man was naked, pulling on the truck undies N-man had worn all morning. I don't know why, but that simultaneously cracked me up and grossed me out.

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More book recs coming soon! Just had to get all this random randomness out!

Where's my brain?

It's in my head!

But it's not always working. I'm beginning to get pregnancy brain.

When I was pregnant with the boys, my most awesome experience was when I went to the grocery store with a short list of about 10 items. When I got home, I realized I had forgotten to get two of the items on the list, which I needed to make dinner. How do you look at a list of only ten things, and somehow not see two of them?

But it turned out it didn't matter. Because after I bought and paid for the groceries, I left the bags sitting at the end of the register. Yep, I'd bought groceries, but managed to go home with nothing. And I didn't notice right away.

Luckily, things haven't gotten that bad yet. Though I was convinced we had a Mother of Twins meeting tonight, and it's actually next week. I'm glad I thought to check before I just went tonight.

But I am getting worried about what I will forget. It's kind of funny, but also kind of scary. I hope I don't forget anything important. I have a dentist appointment Friday morning. They called me today to remind me. I felt like telling them if they really wanted to make sure I didn't miss the appointment, they should probably call 20 minutes before I'm supposed to be there...

Want to take bets on if I'll remember my dentist appointment come Friday??

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N-man is finally doing okay with going pee on the potty. If we're at home. If not, it's still pee-in-the-pants time. But I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the potty training tunnel. Hopefully it's not just the headlight of an oncoming train, about to shatter my hopefulness about eventually having two potty trained boys.

Want to take bets on if it's the end of the tunnel or an oncoming train?

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It was my turn this month to provide choices for the book group I'm part of. I put Talk Talk by T. C. Boyle on the list, though I was worried about the choice. Of course, that was what the group selected (instead of The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, which has been on my list of choices the past three times I provided picks and I've been desperate to read but keep putting it off in the hopes we'll pick it for book group). Our book group only reads books out in paperback (easier to get at the library, or less expensive to buy), and Talk Talk is the only one of Boyle's books out in paperback that I haven't read yet. But it's a thriller. I'm not too keen on thrillers, and anyway, I'm not sure how great it'll be for a book group to discuss, especially if some members haven't finished. On the other hand, I've loved a number of his books, and found all of them interesting or enjoyable, even if I didn't LOVE them. So I picked this solely based on the author even though the book itself doesn't appeal to me.

Oh well, the choice has been made, and I guess this is what I get for putting a selection I wasn't sure about on my list! Anyone (Laura?? I probably should have just addressed this section directly to you!) know if Talk Talk is any good?

Want to take bets on if my book group will love or hate this book?

The Fine Art of Compromise

The boys are getting so good at reaching compromises. And as an added bonus, the compromises they reach, that make them so pleased, are usually absolutely hilarious. Here are two conversations we had today:

We were talking about how when the baby comes, there's no place in our house now for the baby to sleep. B-man immediately offered to let the baby sleep in their room. I explained that babies cry a lot and wake up during the night, so while it was really nice of him to offer his room, it would be too annoying for him and N-man to have a baby sleeping in their room. N-man had this awesome solution: "How about we put the baby in the closet?"

Both N-man and B-man think that's the perfect solution. The baby is small...the closet is small. It has a door so they won't hear the crying. I don't know, it's kind of hard to argue with that logic!

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Later, I was driving with the boys in the van. They were talking about a new house, asking what color it was going to be. I explained that we won't know until we find our new house. N-man said he wanted it to be yellow. B-man disagreed, demanding blue. The two started arguing back and forth with one another. Finally N-man suggested this awesome compromise: "Okay, B-man, how about the front of the house is blue and the back is yellow?" They both agreed this would work for them.

B-man then asked me what color it makes if you mix yellow and blue. I told him green, so his suggested compromise was a green house. N-man agreed that a green house would be a workable solution.

So I guess we better narrow our search to houses that are either a) green, or b) half blue, half yellow.

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I just love this age! Three and a half years old is so fun!