I'm thinking it might be nice for my husband if I try to update my blog more.  It will be good to give him an update on everything.  Not that he's been dropping me hints or anything... (I'll give you a hint- he has)

Since my last post, Chris left.  It sucks.  I miss him a lot.  It's definitely different this time than the first time he was deployed.  My every moment is consumed by Ben, so there isn't a lot of time for self pity.  Ben is talking so much now, and he's a lot of fun.  There are days when he's obviously about to turn two- testing his limits at every turn and throwing fits left and right.  And sometimes it coincides with a very difficult day for me which makes it an even more difficult day for both of us.  But things are usually better for both of us if I force myself to be more patient.  So I've been doing that a lot more, and that's good.  Ben is much more fun to be around when I can be calm about his chaos.  A side benefit of that is he's much more willing to help clean up his messes- to the point that he's even occasionally picked up his toys before I even asked him to.  If I can raise neat kids, that would be amazing.  Because, uh, I'm not neat.  Neither is Chris.  We're the anti-neat.

In spite of my self professed disorganization, I have actually been able to keep my house clean since Chris has been gone.  This is pretty good because when Chris leaves, I pretty much don't feel like cooking or cleaning at all.  And I didn't cook at all for a while there.  But I finally broke down and bought groceries, and I've challenged myself not to eat at any restaurants at all.  It was a lot harder at first, but it got easier.  I think these things help me not to be depressed, too.  Cleaning house sucks, but if I stay on top of it, I guess it's not so bad.  I still have to wrangle my laundry before I leave, though.  It feels like a huge ginormous overwhelming task, but when I finally make myself do it, it probably won't be a big deal.

The twins have been moving more and more as of late.  They're still not very strong, so it doesn't hurt when Baby A kicks me in the cervix yet.  I'm getting so big, though.  Seriously.  I just went to take another belly picture because I've not been so on top of those.  I took my first one at roughly the same point as the first one I took with Ben.  This is almost 17 weeks with Ben.  My belly was still lumpy with pre-baby fats, but it was at this point that I finally had a uterus with a baby in it poking a little bit outward.

And here is almost 17 weeks with Things 1 and 2.  I realize the distance is different, but you can see the bigness with the second that is not in the first.  I'm already wearing maternity clothes in this picture, people. 

And here is me tonight at 19 weeks.  I didn't realize how much I had grown in the last two weeks.  Holy crap.  And considering I will be having a c-section at 38 weeks (I'd like to hold out longer, but I know that when I get there, I will probably be ready to do anything to get them out), I'm half way, y'all.  Also, 38 weeks is considered full term for twins, and their bodies are just as fully developed as a 40 week singleton.  Just so's you know I'm not planning on getting them cut out of there before they're ready on purpose (crossing fingers that I don't have pre-term labor with these here babies).

Anyway, the point is- I'm fat, people.  And I'm getting fatter exponentially.  I'm totally okay with this, though.  If I'm growing, that means they're growing.  I don't know if you remember, but when I was pregnant with Ben, I was always worried that he'd have some kind of congenital defects.  Not that it would have affected our love for him in the least bit.  I just felt like it was just too lucky for us that we finally were having a baby and he might be completely normal and healthy.  It was really lucky, and I'm so grateful.  But this time around, I'm so terrified of pre-term labor and having the babies before they're ready and what if they're too little and they die?  I'm afraid of not being able to take home any babies at all.  Or taking home one instead of two (is it greedy of me to want both of the babies I'm growing?  Okay, no, I know it's not).  This time around, I feel like we were so lucky to get two babies from barely even trying (one IUI!  one!  And I only had 2-3 follicles ready.  If I only had two eggs drop, that was a 100% fertilization and implantation rate, y'all.  That just doesn't happen for us!  But it did.).  Anyway, it's just crazy pregnant lady brain.  Every pregnant woman worries about her unborn child/ren.  And the worry just never stops, even after they're born.

About the child of mine that I birthed almost! 2! whole! years! ago!  I know I talked about him already, but I can talk about him some more.  We've changed up our sleeping arrangement again.  Having him in the pack n play in my room just was not working.  I thought if I gave it enough time, it would, but it didn't.  It took him forever to fall asleep, and every five minutes of that forever, he would stand up to request that I cover him up again.  I know, I know- the easy answer is just to stop doing it and eventually he'll stop asking, right?  He'd scream and scream and scream and scream.  Now, I didn't reinforce the screaming by giving him what he wanted, but it made for nights that were horrible for both of us.  And I didn't want to keep doing that, so I would get up and cover him up again the next night.  Now that I have to roll myself out of bed (okay, that's an exaggeration- it's more like a shimmy-hop on my butt), I tired of the constant up and down.  So I moved him back into my bed with the reasoning that I don't care if he plays until he goes to sleep, if he wants me cover him up, I don't even have to lift my head, and as a rule- he may not play with my hair to get to sleep.  So, there are pros and cons- I'm happy I don't have to get up and he's happy to be sleeping next to me.  However, the likes to be touching me AT ALL TIMES, which makes me crazy.  Also, his playing before he goes to sleep consists of ring around the mommy (crawling all the way around me multiple times and laughing hysterically) and/or sticking packing peanuts (don't ask) into the floor fan in the room and consequently having it scare the crap out of me because I think he's getting hurt by the fan- which makes me jump up, completely wide awake and unable to wind back down into sleepy land.  Okay, in fairness to him, he's only done it one time yesterday at nap time.  The crawling around me thing happens almost every night.

I know I'll have to get him out of my bed before the babies come, but I'm still trying to figure out how.  But we will do it somehow, out of necessity.  But not until after I get back from Georgia.  Oh, yeah, I'm going there for six weeks.  Chris is in Mississippi, and I'll be able to go and see him before he leaves the country.  It's about a six and a half hour drive to my family from there, so I figured I'd go ahead and make my last trip out to GA for a long while.  I leave in less than a week.  I still have so much left to do...  Anywho, I'll leave you with some pictures of the boy.

Ben's playing in his dad's footlocker before he left.

He's modeling a hat I made for my cousin's little boy's Halloween costume.  He loved it so much I had to chase him around the house to take it back to send it to said cousin.