A Ghost Appearance

It all started when I was in high school. Momma & I would put this fly in various places and try to startle each other. Once under the covers, once in the laundry basket, once in her medicine cabinet. It was a lot of healthy tom-foolery and it was kinda fun to know that she was going to come upon the plastic fly and get startled. Then the fly disappeared and we found other things

with which to annoy each other: a rubber snake (which we wisely abandoned after Daddy got bit, though a new one made an appearance when Daddy got well and we could laugh about the Snake Bite some), an eyeball (which I believe made some appearances in my lunch), a lizard and then random little things.

When Brett & I got married, he upped the ante some. Brett got into really random things to do to the mother - he'd change the sounds on her computer to make chicken noises or leave a Clinging Koala with Al Sharpton's head in her art room. There was a parrot that made a few back & forths and Brett's favorite must be the coconut husk baboon with his parachute. Momma got Brett back by almost sending me to the grave with a chicken hanging in our refrigerator by a noose. She employed one of my brothers to plant that one.

One of my favorite pranks, though, was a few years ago - 2006 - when we had Kamber come to town. Kamber, Brett & I went Pumpkin Picking in Ellijay and found some really fantastic pumpkins. We plotted. We knew what we were doing! We knew that this would be fantastic! We practiced at home, we worked tirelessly for ages to set the thing up. We knew who would have what job when we made the drop. It was going to be flawless! We created Seymour. Seymour Butts.

We created him in our driveway, practiced the set up, then took him down. Seymour Butts was going to Moon the parents' house! He was designed and we would set him up to be looking up at the mother's art room. We drove over to their house after we knew they would be in bed. Stealthy as ninjas, and swiftly as a finely tuned machine, we set up Seymour and then ran like maniacs, laughing all the time. Believe me when I tell you, it was a little startling to get home and the parents had already called to tell us they knew we'd done that! They'd been at the symphony and came home maybe 5 minutes

after we left!!! We were almost caught! But we weren't and it was perfect.

The next year, Billy helped me create Scarlett O'Furin. I lost all the pictures, for some reason, but I'll find some and put them up someday. It was a great scarecrow parody on my mom - including raised pinky finger, gloopy jewels and wine glass. It was truly remarkable.

We skipped last year. But this year, we knew they weren't suspecting anything! My "condition" doesn't allow me to do much, but this I insisted on. I'd seen the pictures on the internet somewhere (google "chicken wire ghost") in February, and I knew that that MUST happen this year. So last night, Billy & Emmalee came over and we set to creating this ghost. We shaped and molded and shaped some more. Then, under cover of darkness, we took him over there and set him up in the jungle. He appears to be pointing to something in the ground. He's truly spooky.

Here's a great picture of him set up:

Halloween Cracks me up and I can't wait to introduce Thing 1 and Thing 2 to the fun of Gentle Jokes and Pranks!

Aaaaannd I'm done.

I didn't get to this yesterday, like I thought I would, so I will today!

B & I really like Dr. Smith. He (Barbarosa) is coming around on the idea that Dr. Smith is the positive version of someone else we know. Dr. Smith comes booming into the room every visit "So!!" He booms, "I hear you got yourself knocked up!" Somehow, though we've heard it a million times (it's our own private joke as well), when Dr. Smith barges in announcing himself like that, it cracks me up! He bustles around telling us stories of his Days of Yore and cracking jokes about "Frick" and "Frack" as he calls the Babes and my inability to not be pregnant. Hah hah hah hah.

Then, as suddenly as he enters, he leaves with, "Put your shoes on and we'll talk!"

The Babes, he reports, are doing fine. I'm growing. According to the nurse's eyeballing, I measure the same as a woman who's 35 weeks pregnant would. I'm only 23 weeks pregnant. No wonder my back hurts so badly! My stats are good.

We will go in on Monday the 2nd for the Dreaded Gestational Diabetes Test. A neighborhood friend of mine said she was borderline for hers. I'm a little terrified of mine. Heavens knows, I don't want to be on Bed Rest AND have "The Diabetis" as a sister-in-law calls it. But the biggest part of our visit (besides our "Definition of the Day" [mixed emotions]), was that Dr. Smith is going to move up my bed rest by almost 3 weeks. I'm going on bed rest at the very start of November. He told me to go ahead and tell my professor that I'm done with class, to quit work (hah hah hah) and grab a ton of books from the Library, 'cause I'm done. So, November 1st-ISH will be when I get sent to bed.

Please come visit me.

Movement & Massage

I got my first pregnancy massage today. I just broke down and did it! With all the extra weight added on, my back has been a wreck! My circulation feels great! For the first time in a few months, my toes don't feel like they're little sausages attached to footballs. I might actually be able to put on my wedding band. Unlikely, but maybe I'll give it a try...

The babes are moving so much now! I can feel them through the day, especially after I've eaten. The boy is really active - kicking and punching and rolling over. I guess I'll have to enroll him in Karate pretty early on, huh! I don't feel the girl as much. I read somewhere that one can't compare one pregnancy with the next. I guess that depends on the baby! So, I'm not too worried about the girl. I feel her every once in a while - generally at night - so I'm happy. Someone - I can't remember who - wants them to stick all 4 feet and 4 hands out at once so I'll look like a bumpy lump! I think it'd be kinda funny, too.

Brett can feel the babes, though he hesitates to say "Yes, I felt that." I think because he thought they'd be punching him harder. He swears that the babes are out to drive him nuts!

We have a visit with Dr. Smith tomorrow. It's time to start talking birth plan, so that will certainly be on the agenda for tomorrow. It's also about time to do the gestational diabetes test - about which I'm nervous! I have a lot going on tomorrow, including finishing up a small paper and going to school in the afternoon. I'm not sure when I'll get around to posting about the visit, but I'll certainly get to it after school tomorrow night. Just be patient!

I hope you're doing well.

Magic, Music and Miracles

We went to Mellow Mushroom for dinner on Friday. Nothing too exciting, right? WRONG! Kellie & David plied us with MAGIC. Every Friday night at the Mellow Mushroom, there's a fellow who goes from table to table performing magic tricks. When we got there, we thought that surely there wouldn't be any way that he'd be able to spend time with us - the place was packed. But sure enough, we were able to get him to come over and amaze us. Which he did! He stayed right by us for ages doing card tricks, tricks with string, tricks with balls and tricks with his shoes. It was so cool! Having watched Andre learn how to do magic at Eddy's Trick Shop when we were kids, and watching her performances in the evenings, I believe that I have some working knowledge of "tricks" and how they work. But do you know what? That fellow was amazing! He wasn't doing magic with smoke & mirrors & magnets like David Copperfield and David Blayne. He was doing up close blow-your-mind tricks that amazed and astounded. One where he placed a torn up card in my hand (and I'd been the one who tore it up) and when I opened my hand, it was WHOLE! Whole I tell you! Sheesh! Another trick in which he placed 3 balls in Brett's hand and when Brett opened it up, all these balls spilled out! MAGIC!

We totally enjoyed our last trip as a family of two. David & Kellie were so much fun - open to whatever and eager to have whatever amount of activity I felt up to! We watched the 1931 Bela Lagossi Dracula for a little Halloween fun one night. We went to an awesome Meat & Three Barbeque Establishment one day. During the days, Kellie & I picked out fabrics for the nursery (swatches to come later) and bought flowers for their porch and generally enjoyed having time together. David & B - well, let's just say that they enjoyed our second M with great joy and to great extent!

The biggest part of the weekend, though, occurred on Saturday morning. I've been feeling the babies for a few weeks. They kick and turn over and punch and jump on my bladder. They think it's funny, I've decided, to send me running for the bathroom. But Saturday morning we had a small miracle that wasn't repeated until Monday night. On Saturday morning, I was resting my hand on my tum tum and someone kicked the tar out of me and I felt it THROUGH my skin and in my hand! A first and a Miracle! For the rest of the weekend, B kept trying to feel it and they just weren't interested in performing for him. But then, last night, while in bed, he rested his hand on my tummy, and we talked about the fun we'd had with David & Kellie. B was about to give up and go to sleep - he'd even rolled over to turn out the lights - and I felt it again! "You're driving me crazy, babies!" said B. But he put his hand back to wait patiently. And you know what?? That little Furin Boy gave his daddy a high five! I think the lack of ferociousness in his punch was a bit anticlimactic to B, but it was still pretty exciting to him nonetheless.

We had a wonderful weekend full of Magic, Music and Miracles!

Baby Update

We (the Babes & I) just got back from Dr. Korotkin's office. He's so very nice! We had a good visit. The babes are doing very well. They're just growing and growing! We have some pictures, but they aren't great because the babes weren't being too cooperative (especially that little boy). I will post some later in the day, maybe.

The Stats:

They are measuring at 14 oz and 15 oz respectively (Baby A and Baby B).

Baby A is measuring at 21 weeks 1 day and Baby B is measuring at 21 weeks 5 days.

Given the length of my belly that they had to go up and down to get any kind of picture, they are measuring about 10.5 inches or so. We saw fingers and toes.

Heartbeats are perfect.

Baby A is resting his head way down low - no big deal. He's hanging out just boppin around. It explains why sitting for any amount of time is kinda painful for me.

They are both head down right now.

So, except for the whole still not sleeping well at night thing, everyone's doing well. Babies are happy and healthy. I'm healthy. Brett's healthy. We're just trucking along.

Pictures to follow. I'm going to go lie down for now.

Twins!

This website had me cracking up. It's a bunch of Stuff, but it's Multiples Stuff. Yes, Virginia, you CAN buy Thing 1 and Thing 2 Halloween Costumes! Thankfully, the Babes won't be here for Halloween this year, but Next Year is a WHOLE NEW BALL GAME!

Click here for Just Multiples.

I'm Layin' Low

I hear banging in the other room. A hammer smacking into metal. What's he building in there? We have a right to know! On the other hand, I hear curses low under his breath. I hear things fall. I hear "Dangit!" every few minutes. The fan won't hang right in the Nursery. B has moved on to the Nursery today and the fan is being less than cooperative. In his excitement to get something done in there to prepare for Babes, he's trying to install the new ceiling fan before the sun goes down and all by himself. Ordinarily, B can install a fan in a few minutes - he's had a very big lot of practice. I left for the 20 minutes that I thought it'd take him to do the fan. That was a couple of hours ago. I decided that I'd better work on this instead of trying to be helpful. I'm laying low. I'm steering clear. I'd like to hope I've learned that much from living with boys most of my life.

I had to lay low this morning, too. We took the canopy to my mom's childhood bed over to their house this morning (much to their chagrin) and Momma & I shut our mouths and went into the other room while Brett & my dad lifted the canopy over the back of the house and into the attic. Then we laid low and went downstairs while they shoved gently moved things out of the way so they could put the canopy in an out of the way space in the attic. Somehow, I don't think Daddy & Brett think that Momma & me being helpful is helpful.

I didn't have to lay low when we went to the Baby's Room to pick up our glider! Wahoo!! We have our glider! Our first official piece of baby furniture in the house! I love it! It's so pretty and looks so nice in our room. We've decided to put it in our room until we want it in the nursery for story times at night. That way we can rock one while the other sleeps, if we need to.

We also finally picked out a dresser for the Nursery. That was bothering me. It will come in with the cribs at the end of the month or the beginning of next month. It's awfully exciting to have this furniture beginning to come in. It won't be long before we have a house that's baby ready and functioning!

So, I'm in here, laying low. But B has started whistling and that's always a good sign. Even when it only lasts a few bars. I'll continue to lay low, but I feel a little better about working on other things knowing that he's feeling a bit better too. He's going to be an amazing Papa. He just wants it all to be Just Exactly Perfect. And it will be.