Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Oh My Goodness...Tomorrow I Will Officially Be A Mother of Four!!

Well, guys...this is it!  Heard back from the doctor, and my girlies are being induced tomorrow.  I'm going to be honest and say that I truly believed they were going to come in and tell me that I'd be going home tomorrow morning, and I'd have a few more weeks -- a few more days, at the very least -- to prepare for the arrival of my TWO NEW BABIES!!  Holy moly!!  It's still a little unbelievable, and I'm freaking out just a bit.

My boys came and visited me, and Ilaiasi was SO, SO excited when he left.  Man, I love that kid.  He is SUCH a good son, and a GREAT brother, and I can't wait to see how he interacts with the girls.  He does a great job with Ovaka, and I expect he'll be just as wonderful with the girls.

And then there's my sweet baby Ovaka.  As I looked at him tonight and realized that at some point tomorrow, he won't be my "baby" anymore, I felt a little sad.  He's a funny little boy with so much personality already, and I can't wait to see how he reacts to having two more little runts in the house. 

Wow.  By this time tomorrow night, barring a hideously long labor or something like that, I'll most likely have doubled my number of children.  Unbelievable.  It's such a humbling feeling to know that I'm going to have the privilige of being a mom to two more sweet babies.  I know it's going to be hard.  Really, REALLY hard.  But I'm super excited and up for the challenge.  And I'm SO excited to have my body all to myself again...it will be really nice to be able to do all the things I haven't been able to do for the past 8 months, and I can't wait to be able to be a better mom to all of my kiddos.  It will be wonderful when I don't have to be a "couch potato" anymore!

Well...I guess I'll try to get some rest now.  I'm super excited, so I don't know if I'll be able to sleep, but I know I need to try.  I have a feeling this is probably one of the last nights of uninterrupted sleep I'll have for a LONG while, so I'm going to try to savor it.  And I'll leave you with a picture of my two sweet sons...soon to be big brothers to two sweet sisters!!

Just call me Shrek...

Well...here I am.  It's 8:33 in the morning, and I'm hanging out in my hospital room, playing with my laptop and listening to the whomp, whomp, whomp-ing of two tiny heartbeats on the fetal monitor.  They admitted me yesterday for monitoring and testing due to preeclampsia symptoms.  The big symptoms that my doctor was concerned with were high blood pressure (140/108!) and excessive protein in my urine.  For me, the major concern that made me schedule an "urgent" appointment with my doctor was the appearance of what can only be described as "Shrek feet." 
Sadly, this picture doesn't do justice to the true
hideousness of my feet at the moment!

Holy moly, it is truly grotesque!  Not that I've ever been a "Cinderella" with delicate little tootsies, but I've got to say that my feet have definitely taken a turn for the worst in the last 48 hours or so.  I have "pitted edema"...just sounds disgusting, doesn't it?  Basically, that means that I am retaining enough fluid in my Shrekish legs that you can poke your finger into my skin anywhere on my feet or shins, and the indentation made by your finger will stay there for a good 30 seconds to a minute after you take your finger away.  Very creepy and gross.  I showed Ilaiasi yesterday, and he thought it was great fun to poke pictures into my leg.  He made a smily face, an "I" for Ilaiasi...high quality entertainment, let me tell you!  So, here I sit, missing my two little runts, but comforted by the rhythmic beating hearts of my two new runts on the fetal monitor. 

I met with the doctor this morning, and he said that we'll know after some test results come back tonight whether I'll go home in the morning, or if they'll induce me and I'll have the girlies tomorrow.  Dr. Crowder said ideally he'd like at least another week or so before I deliver, just to be sure the babies are mature and everything has developed properly, but he also says that MOST LIKELY they would be perfectly fine with possibly no NICU time if they were to come today or tomorrow because I'm pretty far along for a twin pregnancy, and both babies are measuring big anyway.  Honestly, I can't decide which scenario I want more.  I definitely don't want any complications -- for me or the babies -- so, from that point of view, I am happy to wait another week or so before they arrive.  On the other hand, I am SO ready to meet my two new blessings.  I can't wait to see their little faces and snuggle them in my arms and introduce them to their big brothers.  It makes me giggle a little bit to think of Ovaka, at 11 months old, being a "big brother," but I know that he and Ilaiasi will take good care of their sisters.

Well...aside from the baby excitement, there's not a whole lot to report.  Nothing too terribly exciting looming on the Etsy frontier.  I've been a bit preoccupied with the aches, pains, and just general malaise that accompanies the last month of pregnancy, and haven't been nearly as diligent as I should be about updating and restocking my little shop.  I feel bad for neglecting it, but, hey...life happens sometimes, and this is one of those times that "work" is going to have to take a back seat.  I did make my mom a rather lovely necklace recently, if I do say so myself.  I'll likely be making more of them in the future, since I really liked the way it turned out.  It's "chunkier" than my normal stuff, but I think it's still what I would consider "my style."  I should have taken a picture of it.  If I had, I would definitely have put it right here.  Alas.

I suppose now I'll go back to sipping ice water from my giant mug with the bendy straw, twittling my thumbs, and scrutinizing my Shrek feet for signs of improvement, and I'll update tomorrow with the final verdict: homeward bound or babies on the way!

Monday, August 15, 2011

Starting to FREAK OUT...a bit...

Ok...today it hit me.  Ilaiasi is going back to school NEXT WEEK.  HOLY MOLY, who's gonna help me with all of these millions of babies I'm going to have in the very near future???  Yes, I realize that MILLIONS is perhaps a bit extreme when what I really mean is THREE.  Nevertheless, I really don't know what I am going to do without my sweet, helpful, wonderful son around to help me during the day.  He really is just the best kid in the world, and I am going to miss him so much when he goes back to school.  I can't imagine tackling the task of caring for three babies under one year old without him during the day.  It will be a huge challenge that, quite frankly, I'm not sure I'm ready to face just yet.  I knew it was coming, but somehow the end of summer always seemed so far away.  My, oh my, how time has flown!  This summer has been simultaneously one of the longest and shortest of my life.  I'm hot.  I'm miserable.  I can barely walk.  Time seems to be standing still while waiting for these two girlies to make their appearance.  And, yet, time has moved on faster than I ever thought it could, and here we are in the last week of summer vacation getting ready to gear up for another school year.  I just can't believe it.

While we're on the subject of my wonderful, amazing son Ilaiasi, let me give you yet ANOTHER example of just why I adore this kid so much.  So, we hadn't cut Ilaiasi's hair all summer long, and it was looking a little shaggy, and basically he looked nuts most of the time because he only does his hair when I remind him, and, let's face it, it's been low on my priority list lately.  He asked me for several days if I could cut his hair with the clippers, but we had a hard time locating them.  When I finally found them, I called him out to the garage and proceeded to give him a quick cut.  It seemed a trifle more difficult to push the clippers through his hair than I remember it being in the past, but I chalked it up to the fact that his hair was super long and out of control and just kept clipping away.  Unfortunately, because his hair was so long, it hid the fact that one side of the guard on the clippers had somehow detached from the blades.  Thus, while I was happily cutting away, I was, in fact, making multiple hideous bald patches on my poor, poor son's head.  We're talking down to the SKIN, in LONG LINES, ending (who knows exactly how this happened?) with quarter-sized bald CIRCLES.  And, because his hair was so long to begin with, the bald lines weren't even noticeable until after he got out of the shower and washed all the cut hair off his head.  And then...oh.my.gosh.  Oh, it is absolutely atrocious!  Check out my heinous handiwork below:



I KNOW! It's so terrible! I am the worst mother EVER. And, do you want to hear the saddest part of this whole story? After viewing the mangled mess I had made of his head, my sweet, precious son went out of his way to CONSOLE ME! I just apologized and told him that I didn't know what had happened, and Ilaiasi said, "Oh, it's ok, Mom. Everybody makes mistakes. I don't mind so much. But...um...can we find me a hat?" Sheesh. This kid is seriously the most amazing little boy I know.  I am so, so, SO lucky to be his mom.

Speaking of lucky...I put my Lucky bracelet up in my Etsy shop today along with my Love bracelet and a treble clef music necklace I made.  Here's a couple of pictures:




I'm getting much better at hammering the wire, so I'm happy about that.  Does anyone have any good suggestions for other words I could use in my bracelets?  Leave a comment and let me know!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

New Fun Stuff

So...it's been a few days since my last post.  I've been feeling a bit under the weather and have been doing a lot of sleeping/sitting/resting as a result, so I just haven't been in the blogging frame of mind this past week or so.  However, I'm feeling better today, and have been making fun new stuff like crazy just in case this is a one day only reprieve.  I'm kind of excited about my latest creations, and I'm too impatient to wait for my aunt's awesome professional photography, so bare with me and my phone-quality pics and let me show you what I've been working on. 

Most of you have seen my "Love" bracelet, and I had a lot of positive feedback about it, so I thought I'd see what else I could write with my wire.  I'll admit, writing with the wire is a tad more of a challenge than I originally anticipated.  Letters like "T" and "K" (which just so happen to be my initials, and, therefore, some of the first letters I attempted) are particularly tricky because these letters typically take more than one "pen stroke," so you have to figure out a way to either bypass the second stroke (see my "T" below) or connect the strokes (see the "K").  I'm still fine-tuning, and I've been trying different types of letters, fonts, etc., but I'm definitely improving. In fact, if I remember, maybe I'll take some pictures of my early attempts -- they are truly hideous and will show you just how far I've come!

At any rate, the lettering is just half the reason for my excitement.  The second reason for my excitement stems from the actual bracelets themselves.  I've come up with what I think is a really interesting idea that makes the words/letters/designs on my bracelets interchangeable.  Basically, I designed a band that has little hooks on each side.  The hooks are made to connect to any of the words, letters, or even just random designs you want to put on them, so you can basically create as many bracelets as you can dream up using just one band.  Confused?  Well, check the pictures below.  I made two different bands -- one with small waves and one with larger, rounder ones -- and then I made several letters, words, and designs to attach.  So, without further ado, here are some of my latest creations:


Band number one: large, round waves
Band number two: smaller, pointier waves
My "T" Initial Bracelet...see how the little hooks on the sides attach to the "T"? Pretty clever, huh?  HUH?  :)

So after I figured out how to make a "T", I decided to try to conquer the "K".  It was a challenge, but I'm pleased with the result.
For those of you who are not as impressed with my lettering as I am, I also made several pieces that are just fun designs and use my beads/stones.  Here's an example of a little swirl I made with silver wire and turquoise stones.

I also made a bracelet for my friend Jesilyn who coaches high school volleyball.  This is not it -- she coaches at MWHS, but I figured while I was at it I could also try to make some other local high school initials, just to see how they would look.  This one is TWHS for The Woodlands High School -- the high school that most of my former club players attend.

And, last but certainly not least, while on the volleyball kick, I also made a bracelet for my club team -- WAVE.
Well...what do you think?  Not too bad for a single day of feeling better and getting my hugely uncomfortable self up out of bed for a few hours, huh?  (Humor the pregnant lady and lie if you don't like it.  Just kidding.  But, ok, seriously...I won't be upset if you lie just this one time.)