So, for about the last 6 months or maybe longer, I've been growing out my gray hair. I had, for a number of years now, been plucking them. I don't have that many, but they are all in the front and sort of irritate me, so I normally just plucked them as I saw them. They have a different texture, they're a little wiry, and pick up the light in ways that I just wish the rest of my hair did. I always ask my hairdresser to check the rest of my head to tell me how bad it's getting, because I am trying to put off getting highlights as long as I possibly can, mostly because of the expense and the maintenance involved once you start something like that. Well at one visit last year, she told me a story about a lady who plucked her gray hairs and also got highlights, and the gray ones never got highlighted because they were too short to color since she plucked. So I've been growing them out now for some time so that when I decide to take the plunge, I won't have this issue. Well I've also been growing out the rest of my hair because I'm lazy and don't want to have to fix it, and so when I pull my hair back in a pony tail is generally when I notice the mass quantities of grays that are kept hidden when I wear my hair down. Needless to say, I've been noticing them a lot lately. Normally I would just notice them and go on with my life, but evidently since the extra 25lbs I'm still carrying around has made me feel like I have a double chin and jowls, my subconscious has been bothered by all of this more than I realized and I dreamt last night about gray hair. In this marvelous dream, R. was pointing out all of my gray hairs. He was picking through the hair on my head and pointing out that I had a lot in the back and they were really just everywhere and getting out of control, and then he lifted up one side of my hair to point out this huge patch of gray hair that was all growing in together. Just in case you are wondering, he would never, ever do this. Most of the time when I start whining about it he says something along the lines of "I love your gray hair." Or something like that. So I'm not sure where this dream came from, but I think I'm going to have to pluck at least one of these hairs because it is staring me in the face every time I look in the mirror.
On a totally different subject, the house is back to normal. The front porch has been cleared, the mattresses are gone from the middle of the house, and our attic and storage shed have never been more organized than they are right now. So I no longer have that to stress me out. Graham is just about the perfect baby. He eats every 4 hours just like they taught him to do in the hospital, sometimes I wake him up but most of the time he wakes up right one schedule, eats and goes right back to bed. I'm still pumping because he's not nursing very well, so even when he nurses I pump after I feed him, and I usually prop him up on the Boppy while I do that just in case I haven't burped him well enough, and so sometimes he'll look around for a bit but then he just drifts off. Noise doesn't bother him at all, thank goodness, so he's just out in his bassinet in the middle of the house sleeping all day. I am still pretty exhausted from going up to the hospital every night, and if I ever do have a day where I feel really good I try to run errands, and then feel awful the next day. Today is the next day in case you were wondering. But my mom is here, so I'm still able to nap pretty well. She'll be here for another week, which is great because Bennett is supposed to come home on Monday, and I'll have my postpartum visit and then have a few more days to try to get stuff done before she leaves. But I figure once we're not going to the hospital every day I'll have a little more energy, although I'm sure it will be redirected toward the babies. There's no way they're going to both sleep this well for very long.
Oh yeah, and I saw more gypsies at the hospital.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Nesting
I have sat down a number of times to update this since I last posted, and well, you can see how well I've done. There were not too many changes in the boys for what seemed like a while, so I was really trying to get the house in order. It had changed somewhat since my hospitalization and needed some attention. Unfortunately, I was prohibited from doing much due to my surgery, so I mainly stared at the place and tried to give some direction to my sweet mother, who not only listened but actually did a lot of the work. I also had a couple of wonderful friends come over to help with rearranging furniture and the like so that we could get things ready for the boys. All of that said, the place is coming together.
We do have a couple of mattresses still in the middle of the house waiting for us to clean out our storage room to put them in (hopefully done this weekend). And there is some furniture sitting on the front porch that we no longer have room for in the house, but aren't sure we have room for it in the storage room either. At one point I was starting to feel like I was living out a Sanford and Son episode, but my antidepressant has kicked in nicely and I'm starting to be ok with it. If it's still there in a few weeks I'm just going to have a yard sale. Which leads me to this - I love Craig's list. I have been selling all of our personal possessions on this site and it is wonderful. Well not all of our possessions, but some of them. Ok, two to be exact, but hey I would sell a whole lot more if I could. One of the items I sold was our tv stand. We had a bookshelf built in to our living room and so we didn't have room for our monstrous old tv and the tv stand that it was on. So I sold the TV stand on Craig's list and donated the TV to some man who collects junk that people leave on the side of the road for the garbage man to pick up. Anyway, the lady who bought the TV stand, we'll call her Alice, was from Massachusetts, and was very sweet. The lady she brought with her, whose name I'm not going to change, Ann, must have been from a very rude part of the country, because she was just that. When they came to collect the tv stand, they had to first move the tv off of it. It was old, and very, very heavy. So when I told them they could put it on the floor, Ann says "I'm not going all the way to the floor with this thing, here we'll put it right here." And promptly puts it on a toy box in my living room. The TV was not really sturdy on this piece of furniture, and so Alice, the one who was actually paying for the furniture says "We can't put that here, it's going to fall over on the kids!" So Ann starts rearranging my whole living room to prop the TV up with other pieces of furniture, and when she is satisfied, says "There, that won't fall over now, but you'll need to keep your kids out of here until someone can move it to the floor." Gee thanks, Ann. Why did I not say something? I have no idea. I think my jaw must have been on the floor, either that or I had stopped breathing because I could not get more than a word out of my mouth at a time. When they started moving the TV stand, Ann's next suggestion was to just put it on the rug in the entry way and use the rug to scoot it to their Mercedes SUV. Alice exclaims "Ann! We can't do that!", to which Ann says, "You don't know how to move furniture" and then Alice says back "You don't know how to take care of other people's stuff!" All the while giving me an apologetic look. If it wasn't for Alice and the fact that she was the one paying for the furniture I might have clocked Ann at that point, because I was starting to come out of it. Anyway, needless to say they did not use my rug to move the TV stand, and I got my money and everything is fine now.
I've also been cleaning out closets and come to a number of conclusions about the mass quantities of stuff that we've been able to accumulate and how ridiculous it is, but I'll spare you all of that because later today, something very exciting is going to happen - Graham is coming home! I'm so excited and the two older kids are beside themselves. Silas doesn't have a clue, but he knows something is happening and keeps walking around saying "Graham" over and over again. He's going to be in for a surprise I think. Bennett is still a few weeks out - but he's growing and so they'll probably let him come home by the time he puts on another pound. So it won't be long before we're all home. Now the real fun begins!
We do have a couple of mattresses still in the middle of the house waiting for us to clean out our storage room to put them in (hopefully done this weekend). And there is some furniture sitting on the front porch that we no longer have room for in the house, but aren't sure we have room for it in the storage room either. At one point I was starting to feel like I was living out a Sanford and Son episode, but my antidepressant has kicked in nicely and I'm starting to be ok with it. If it's still there in a few weeks I'm just going to have a yard sale. Which leads me to this - I love Craig's list. I have been selling all of our personal possessions on this site and it is wonderful. Well not all of our possessions, but some of them. Ok, two to be exact, but hey I would sell a whole lot more if I could. One of the items I sold was our tv stand. We had a bookshelf built in to our living room and so we didn't have room for our monstrous old tv and the tv stand that it was on. So I sold the TV stand on Craig's list and donated the TV to some man who collects junk that people leave on the side of the road for the garbage man to pick up. Anyway, the lady who bought the TV stand, we'll call her Alice, was from Massachusetts, and was very sweet. The lady she brought with her, whose name I'm not going to change, Ann, must have been from a very rude part of the country, because she was just that. When they came to collect the tv stand, they had to first move the tv off of it. It was old, and very, very heavy. So when I told them they could put it on the floor, Ann says "I'm not going all the way to the floor with this thing, here we'll put it right here." And promptly puts it on a toy box in my living room. The TV was not really sturdy on this piece of furniture, and so Alice, the one who was actually paying for the furniture says "We can't put that here, it's going to fall over on the kids!" So Ann starts rearranging my whole living room to prop the TV up with other pieces of furniture, and when she is satisfied, says "There, that won't fall over now, but you'll need to keep your kids out of here until someone can move it to the floor." Gee thanks, Ann. Why did I not say something? I have no idea. I think my jaw must have been on the floor, either that or I had stopped breathing because I could not get more than a word out of my mouth at a time. When they started moving the TV stand, Ann's next suggestion was to just put it on the rug in the entry way and use the rug to scoot it to their Mercedes SUV. Alice exclaims "Ann! We can't do that!", to which Ann says, "You don't know how to move furniture" and then Alice says back "You don't know how to take care of other people's stuff!" All the while giving me an apologetic look. If it wasn't for Alice and the fact that she was the one paying for the furniture I might have clocked Ann at that point, because I was starting to come out of it. Anyway, needless to say they did not use my rug to move the TV stand, and I got my money and everything is fine now.
I've also been cleaning out closets and come to a number of conclusions about the mass quantities of stuff that we've been able to accumulate and how ridiculous it is, but I'll spare you all of that because later today, something very exciting is going to happen - Graham is coming home! I'm so excited and the two older kids are beside themselves. Silas doesn't have a clue, but he knows something is happening and keeps walking around saying "Graham" over and over again. He's going to be in for a surprise I think. Bennett is still a few weeks out - but he's growing and so they'll probably let him come home by the time he puts on another pound. So it won't be long before we're all home. Now the real fun begins!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Gypsies
I finally saw some. Most people I know cannot believe that I have lived in Augusta for 5 years and never seen a gypsy. Well, I guess the "correct" term is Irish Traveler. I have driven through Murphy Village numerous times and seen their weird mansions with all of the huge windows totally covered up, but I had never seen an actual living person until today. I was fascinated and wanted to stare. I saw them at the hospital, since that is the only place I'm going these days. I had actually been looking for them for the last 6 weeks or so, because I heard about how they take over the waiting room when one of them is having a baby. Another patient and one of the nurses, and then a friend all described them the same way, and they were all right. When I saw one, I knew what I was looking at.
I first saw three middle aged women with the same exact hair-do. It was sort of poofy, and didn't move at all. It looked very unnatural, like a bad wig. I haven't seen a 'do this bad in a while, so that alone was cause for me to (try not to) stare, and then I saw the waiting room. There wasn't an empty seat in the house. All of the benches around the well baby nursery were taken, and the NICU waiting room was also full, and every chair on the 3rd floor of the hospital was occupied. About half of these people had the same bad hair-do. The younger girls - like my age :), had their hair in curls. Lots of curls. It was almost pretty, except that it too, looked totally unnatural and wig-like. I have no idea how they get their hair to do this. It was big and curly and that's the only way I know how to describe it. Everyone was made-up. Very made up. I didn't see any little kids, which I was sort of disappointed by, because I've heard that they dress up their 2 year olds the same way. There also were no men, at least none that I could see. There were about 5 teenage boys, who looked like quintuplets. All wearing white vests and a pink shirt underneath. Actually everyone was wearing pink, evidently when one of them has a baby they all show up in pink or blue depending on the gender of the child. Most of them had a flattened face. Some think that this is from years of inbreeding, and I heard from a somewhat reputable source that a lot of their babies have health problems due to this (the inbreeding, not the flat face). At any rate, they all looked the same. I have heard that there are only 3 last names among the 1500+ people that live in their community. There are the blond and brunette ones that have quite a bit of money and flash, and then another group that isn't rich and who live in trailers. When I was leaving, there were two who got in the elevator with me, a young brunette and her mother. The young girl was talking very fast - which was another thing that I had heard about them. They talk fast and have an accent so you can't understand what they are saying. My sister and I happen to have the gift of speaking fast, so fast that my dad on occasion has accused us of speaking a different language. I had no problem understanding what this girl was saying, but I can honestly say that I have never, ever, since moving to the south, heard someone talk this quickly. I smiled at them, which for those of you who know me is something that I don't get accused of doing too often, and they actually did smile back, sort of. Which contradicted what I had heard about them being rude to anyone who was not part of their group. Not totally rude anyway. We weren't BFF or anything by the time we got out of the elevator, but I thought exchanging smiles was nice. That is the whole story of my first gypsy encounter. For some reason I am totally fascinated with these people.
I first saw three middle aged women with the same exact hair-do. It was sort of poofy, and didn't move at all. It looked very unnatural, like a bad wig. I haven't seen a 'do this bad in a while, so that alone was cause for me to (try not to) stare, and then I saw the waiting room. There wasn't an empty seat in the house. All of the benches around the well baby nursery were taken, and the NICU waiting room was also full, and every chair on the 3rd floor of the hospital was occupied. About half of these people had the same bad hair-do. The younger girls - like my age :), had their hair in curls. Lots of curls. It was almost pretty, except that it too, looked totally unnatural and wig-like. I have no idea how they get their hair to do this. It was big and curly and that's the only way I know how to describe it. Everyone was made-up. Very made up. I didn't see any little kids, which I was sort of disappointed by, because I've heard that they dress up their 2 year olds the same way. There also were no men, at least none that I could see. There were about 5 teenage boys, who looked like quintuplets. All wearing white vests and a pink shirt underneath. Actually everyone was wearing pink, evidently when one of them has a baby they all show up in pink or blue depending on the gender of the child. Most of them had a flattened face. Some think that this is from years of inbreeding, and I heard from a somewhat reputable source that a lot of their babies have health problems due to this (the inbreeding, not the flat face). At any rate, they all looked the same. I have heard that there are only 3 last names among the 1500+ people that live in their community. There are the blond and brunette ones that have quite a bit of money and flash, and then another group that isn't rich and who live in trailers. When I was leaving, there were two who got in the elevator with me, a young brunette and her mother. The young girl was talking very fast - which was another thing that I had heard about them. They talk fast and have an accent so you can't understand what they are saying. My sister and I happen to have the gift of speaking fast, so fast that my dad on occasion has accused us of speaking a different language. I had no problem understanding what this girl was saying, but I can honestly say that I have never, ever, since moving to the south, heard someone talk this quickly. I smiled at them, which for those of you who know me is something that I don't get accused of doing too often, and they actually did smile back, sort of. Which contradicted what I had heard about them being rude to anyone who was not part of their group. Not totally rude anyway. We weren't BFF or anything by the time we got out of the elevator, but I thought exchanging smiles was nice. That is the whole story of my first gypsy encounter. For some reason I am totally fascinated with these people.
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