Yesterday, today, and...that's all

This morning I had to leave the house relatively early, with all the children in tow, to go to an appointment with my nutritionist—which I guess I passed (yay!) so I don't have to go back (yay!) which means that I'm back down to only one doctor's appointment per week (yay!). We managed to get out of the house on time, which was quite the accomplishment considering yesterday when I suggested before ten o'clock in the morning that we go to the library we didn't manage to leave the house until four o'clock in the afternoon!

These little munchkins were driving me bonkers yesterday! So much fighting! So much defiance!

They wouldn't even get dress and yet proclaimed they wanted to go to the library.

Yes, they really were driving me bonkers.

"There go more italics! But a few italics really do relieve your feelings," quoth Anne (of Windy Poplars) because—guess what?!—I found my book! It was in a forgotten diaper bag since late 2014 probably.

That was part of our problem yesterday morning. Once the kids were finally dressed I had them go through their books to make sure we had them all. Ordinarily this is a simple task because everyone has their own card and so we look to see how many books are checked out on each card, count through any given stack, and only have to go looking through if the numbers don't add up. Usually they do.

Easter Egg Smackdown 2015

Continuing our grand tradition—eight years running—we had our annual Easter Egg Smackdown before/in preparation of lunch today. Egg dying was a bit lame. Andrew tried a couple of tricks to make the eggs easier to peel, and they worked...they just also made it so nothing would stick to the shell. We couldn't draw on them with crayons and even the dye was still coming off on our fingers. But they were easy to peel, so...

Here are our somewhat boring eggs (we did end up saving those glitter packets for when Benjamin's not a two-year-old on the verge of becoming a three-nager):

Our Easter Morn

Because Andrew started out the Easter season with Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday Mass in New Orleans, he thought it would be fun to finish it off with Easter Sunday at the Duke Chapel. Not that Easter is over per se. We've only just made it through Holy Week—there's still Easter Week left. Still, he thought it was a fitting "end."

My thought was, "On a weekend when we're each attending ten hours of church meetings and where we're trying to make the kids sit through eight hours of church meetings you're suggesting we submit ourselves to another hour of church? Are you serious?"

He was.

So this morning we got up, rifled through our Easter baskets, ate breakfast, got dressed, and left.

Here are the girls holding up their chocolate bunnies. Benjamin got one as well. They're all different and they all have names. Benjamin's bunny was named Sunny. Rachel's Bunny was named Honey. Miriam's bunny was named...Yummy. Who thought that was fair to poor Yummy the Bunny? S/he doesn't stand a chance of surviving Easter with a name like that!

Dying the Eggs

Of all the holidays to be diabetic for, Easter's a good one. Christmas on the other hand, now that would be a doozy. But I think I can handle Easter. I don't mind missing out on Easter candy too much (Peeps? Nasty) and the traditional food—hard boiled eggs—is totally in line with my diet.

Anyway, we dyed our eggs this afternoon during the second session of General Conference. We figured it was as quiet of an activity as colouring pages or purposely annoying one another is.

The kids were rather excited about it. I think they're more excited about tomorrow's Easter Egg Smackdown, but they think dying eggs is rather fun, too.

Sleeping boy

I have a friend who lives in Hawaii and she posted on Facebook how she fell asleep on the couch last night, only to wake up at six o'clock in the morning to her husband turning on General Conference.

Poor thing! We're six hours ahead of her so we weren't up at 6 AM for conference. We don't have conference until noon, so when I got up to check my blood sugar in the morning (no sleeping in for diabetics but I really haven't been getting up as often in the night to pee now that I'm "controlling" my blood sugar so I guess that evens things out a bit) everyone in the house was still fast asleep.

Here's Benjamin chilling on the floor:

Who sleeps like that, really, with their hands behind their head?

Andrew went to DC

Last night I dragged the kids out of the house at 10:00 at night so we could pick Andrew up from the bus stop. He was coming in from DC where he'd just spent a couple of days, primarily for a one-day course taught by Edward Tufte. Since Andrew will be teaching/assisting a class on the subject matter, Duke paid for him to go. And he was super excited to go, too.

Graphs and charts make Andrew ridiculously happy. He moonlights as a typesetter. Basically what I'm saying is...attending this course was a dream come true for him.

Anyway, his bus was supposed to roll in by 8:50 PM but he texted to let me know he'd be late, so we left late, but then he was even later than we'd supposed. The bus didn't show up until around 11:00! It was so ridiculous—it sat for a half hour on the other side of Durham while they switched drivers. Like...what?!

The kids were happy to stay up and wait. I was so finished parenting so I let them choose a movie—they watched Tarzan...and then some My Little Pony...before we left. Benjamin got bored and was playing with some plastic dinosaurs on the floor and then he got tired and lay down all over them.

"Ouch. This hurts, Mom," he said. "This hurts so bad."

"Then get up," I suggested. "You're lying on a bunch of dinosaurs."

"Me can't," he sniffed. "Me so tired!"

My driving face

As I was backing up the car today Benjamin scolded me.

"Just go, Mom! Just go. Don't do that!" he said.

"Do what?" I asked.

He proceeded to make a terrible face at me, scrunching up his eyes, opening his mouth, and sticking out his tongue a little.

"That," he said. "Don't do that. Just drive."

"Does my face really look like that when I back up?" I asked.

"A little," Rachel answered honestly.

Driving is not my thing, guys. Driving is not my thing.

Baby Shower

Andrew's colleagues threw a baby shower for us today; it was so nice of them. I think the masterminds behind the party were Jen, Ade, and Sierra, though everybody helped. Those three girls, though, were extra excited to meet our kids because they really like Harry Potter and Doctor Who and having the opportunity to get down and draw on the sidewalk with chalk.

Sierra and Ade drawing with the kids

31 week appointment

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

My BMI is "low" for my height. It always has been. Like, since day one of my life.

Because of this I was told to eat a lot and to "conserve energy" so that I can put on more than the 26 pounds I gained with each of the girls. They asked me to shoot for more like forty pounds.

I think this is dumb because my girls were both over 7 pounds at birth, so...just fine. Also this number sounded astronomically high to me considering my starting weight. Like, just put on 40% of your body weight in nine months. Easy, peasy.

Because I'm at risk for preterm labour I'm not supposed to do any "rigorous" exercise, nor am I supposed to lift anything over 20 pounds, including Benjamin.

I'm now diabetic so I've been put on a special diet. I have to eat x-number of carbs and x-number of proteins at any given meal or snack. I have to eat six times a day. I have to space my meals beautifully so that I can test my blood sugar correctly. I can't eat anything beyond what I eat with my meals/snacks. I have to exercise after each meal.

I lost weight with this last weigh in. Tsk, tsk.

But a few of my glucose numbers were a little high, so the doctor told me to increase the amount of exercise I was doing after each meal...but without increasing the amount of food I'm consuming.

Oh, and I'm supposed to gain weight for my next appointment.

Please tell me how that is supposed to work.

But, the baby seems healthy and I seem healthy. I have a "growth scan" scheduled in two weeks just to make sure the baby isn't the size of an elephant (which I doubt is the case).

Now I'm off to do my post-meal exercise...because all I do is eat, exercise, check my blood sugar, and eat again. I can do this for the next two months.

PS. Zoë, you can come next month. Not like, May 1. That's too soon. But you don't have to wait until June 2, that's all I'm saying.

A day at the museum

One of Rachel's requests over spring break was a visit to the Museum of Life and Science; she thought it was high time she got to go, too, since I've taken Benjamin and Miriam who knows how many times while she's been at school.

We're taking spring break pretty easy this year—I'm not supposed to do any traveling, like, at all, and Andrew's getting ready to defend his prospectus so doesn't feel like he can take any time off, anyway. Our plans are few, but a trip to the museum was something I could make happen so this afternoon we went.

I was due for a post-lunch "workout" so I told the kids we were going to walk to the far end of the complex first and then make our way back, so that's what we did. And my blood sugar levels were just fine when I checked them. My morning, breakfast, and lunch numbers are usually good. It's my post-dinner numbers that get questionable.

One day this week I ate the very same thing for lunch and for dinner and then did the exact same amount of exercise after each meal and yet my evening number was close to maxing out while my lunchtime number was just fine. Super lame. Anyway...

We walked all the way to the bear exhibit; the bears were out by the waterfall, which is unusual for them from my observations. Usually they're on the other side of their habitat.