New Schedule

With all of my new found free time, I am tweaking my schedule up a bit. Previously, I was at school all day on Monday and Thursday and at work all day Tuesday and Friday and home with the girls Wednesday. Just by dropping school, I could have three full days off during the week and two full days of work.

But I think I would like to be more flexible than that. First thing I did was check with St. Mother in Law to see if she was still up for having the girls every Thursday...since we don't really need her to do it, I wouldn't want her to keep up with it if she didn't want to. But she loves her time with her Granddaughters and doesn't want to give it up!

My plan, then, is to work four days a week, but not nearly full time. I will either walk to work with Munchkin in the mornings, which gets me to work at about 8:00, or I will take them to day care if need be, which would mean getting to work around 9:00 (The Boy takes them some days).

I can work until 5:00 if I have to, but I am probably going to knock off around 3:00 most days, either to go to something of Munchkin's (basketball games, plays, recitals and whatever else she packs into her over-scheduled days:-)) or to do errands or hang out with the girls. No rule says that I can't get them early from day care if I want to:-). I will still be home with them on Wednesdays.

And that, to me, sounds pretty fucking delightful!

Some kinda big doings

The weekend turned out to be tiring, but ultimately good and very eye-opening.

Munchkin and I left on Friday morning and didn't have any problems getting out there. The suddenness of my Aunt's death had everyone kind of a mess, and it was good to be able to be around during the grieving. There was a two session wake that we stayed for most of, and had dinner with a couple of our cousins in between. We stayed with BFFg (and her fiance that I introduced her to in their spectacular apartment...I digress) and it was really nice to see her! I still talk to her almost daily, but it has been entirely too long since I have actually seen her.

The funeral itself was actually really nice...my uncle (her brother) gave a really nice eulogy and a couple of other people said some brief things. We were all invited to speak if we wanted to, and there were things that I would have liked to say, but I didn't think I would get through it...and I really just wanted to sort of reflect quietly the whole time instead.

So...the eye-opening part. Actually had nothing to do with my Aunt or my family or anything else like that. It was all about Munchkin, and a stark realization that I have been a pretty bad mother lately. For her, at least.

She is wildly independent and incredibly mature and adjusted...but that is no excuse for me to shirk my responsibilities, and I have been doing that too much lately. I do it because it is easy to...she doesn't get in any trouble or act out or otherwise suffer outwardly if she doesn't get enough attention. Her grades remain impeccable, her social life is booming and she remains a complete joy to have around. It may not be obvious, but it matters to me, and it is unacceptable for me to let it happen.

Having children is not an excuse...you don't get to forget the older ones when you have new ones. My responsibilities to her haven't changed just because I have two kids now, and I am somewhat ashamed that I let it get to this point. Because it was my decision to stay in school the whole time and it was my decision to go back to work last fall, and that is where the problem lies.

What I realized is how nice it was to have three days with her non-stop...and sadly how removed I have become from her life. I won't go into the specifics (which are boring and probably not as alarming to you as they are to me) but I am far too distant. Not by sister standards...I am a lot more involved still than most anyone is with their sister...but by mother standards. And I have a moral (and, ahem, legal) obligation to her to be her guardian and her parent as well as her sister.

The net result is that I found it necessary to make a pretty big decision. Not one that I am really happy about, but one that I think I owe to Munchkin, whether she says so or not (she would never say it). The easy thing would be to quit working for the next four months until school was done...and that was my first thought.

But that is easier said than done. I would feel obligated to finish a project I have been working on, and at the very earliest that will wrap up in early March, and that kind of defeats the purpose. In addition, we are still planning on moving this spring or summer, and the plan for that involves my working until then...I don't want to put that off if we don't have to.

Add in my general frustration with school, and that becomes the thing that I want to cut out for now. In the interest of full disclosure, I sort of considered this a month ago, and I talked to the dean about the possibility before eventually deciding against it. So, I had already kind of figured out what I would need to do and how to go about it.

I still have a semester to go, and I am a little upset about not graduating with my classmates. But not really that broken up, at least not enough to re-think the decision. I also thought about maybe just taking a class or two this semester and another one or two in the Fall, but decided that I will benefit from the total break. I am simply taking a leave of absence for the Spring semester, and will go back full time in the Fall to bang out the last part of the degree, and have it done by next Christmas.

Ideal? No, but it is the best I have for now.

Done

I am done with school...not done in the sense that I have finished (I still have one more semester, done for good in May), but done in the sense that I have had enough. I don't feel like I learned nearly as much this semester as I did during the first year, and in fact found a lot of the stuff to be kind of repetitive (or overly theoretical).

And to be really honest, there are a lot of my classmates that are kind of annoying. There are also some that I like dearly, but there are entirely too many who have always been the smartest person in their class, and need to be constantly validated. And that gets old...the whole point of doing group projects is to get used to sharing workloads and sharing credit. If you can't trust someone else to do something, and you need to be patted on the back for every good thing you do, then you make for a pain-in-the-ass group member.

I am also a little sick of people asking me for a job. I was sort of warned that this would be a problem, but it is still annoying. I work in an industry and for a firm that a large portion of my classmates would like to work in/for, and that can be very hard to break into. Ergo, once work sort of got around, I found that I was an extremely popular girl with people who want some sort of an in. And I don't blame anyone...they are completely right to aggressively try and make as many contacts as they can.

But it has gotten old: I have had probably 50 people ask me if I could set up a breakfast or lunch meeting with one of the partners at the firm for them. There have been exactly 3 people that I have done that for (and no, they are not my friends, they are the people that I think the partners would want to meet). In fact, only two of them were with partners in the firm I work for...the other was actually with another firm that fit that guy's background better (more high-tech industries than what we do most of our work in). I also feel bad making those people swear up and down to not tell anyone that I did that for them, lest people get irritated when I tell them there are no openings.

Honestly, the job situation is beginning to wear on people. Most of my classmates assumed that there would be a healthy array of really attractive options for them when we all graduated. The actual situation is obviously bleaker than that. I am extremely fortunate to not be looking for a job, and I am not one bit envious of those that are. As graduation approaches, the pressure is not going to ease up at all.

Which isn't to say that any of us need much sympathy...no one that I go to school with is going to have any trouble landing on his or her feet. However, a whole lot of them came here expecting to go to Wall Street and earn $200,000 their first year back to work, and many of them will be sorely disappointed. We at least take solace in knowing that it is probably even worse for the people in the law school, who have twice as much debt and even bleaker job prospects (but really, no one has any sympathy for lawyers).

So, I think all of that...the overall stress, some annoying personalities, some disappointment in the curriculum...is sort of combining to make it a bit tedious these days. Really, I am just ready to be through with it and back at work full time. I dunno...maybe some new classes after the New Year will make me feel better about it. We shall see;-)

Oh, Monday

Morning folks:-) Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

We managed to pack quite a bit in, all things considered. The Boy and I went to a cookout on Saturday at the house of one of his friends. It was way out in (what I would call) the boonies, but it was a lovely fall early afternoon, so it was nice to enjoy the fresh air. In a month or so, it would have been full of blazing oranges, reds and yellows, but we are too early for all of that.

We ended up staying later than I planned, and the girls fell asleep there, and then went right to bed when we got home. I think this sort of got them out of their sleeping pattern, though, because they were a little kooky yesterday. They took really long late-morning naps, but never really seemed refreshed. We took them to an Oktoberfest festival with some other friends, and they ended up taking long naps again at about 5:00, which then threw their schedules off a bit, and they didn't really fall asleep until 9:15 or so. But they both slept pretty well, so go figure...

Of course, I woke up at 5:15 to the sound of MA's mobile, which she had somehow managed to turn on, and was sitting on her back, holding her feet up and laughing at it. Her sister, however, was much less amused, and in fact quite grumpy over the whole thing... I am still not really sure how she turned it on, I guess she just hit the button while kicking her feet around?

Other than that, not a whole lot going on...Munchkin's first soccer game is this afternoon, and I would like to go, but am not really sure whether I will make it or not. Kinda hard to fit everything into the schedule these days:-) Depends on how much school work I have to do after my last class is out...class ends at 2:45, but I may have to stick around for a while to work on some stuff. We'll see:-)

And Tinkerbelle is coming next weekend!!! Yay!!!

Routine

Doing my best to get into a new routine...and finding it to be a complete system shock! The first month and a half after the girls was born was a complete whirlwind dictated by my taking on WAY too much at once. I survived, but it was not remotely enjoyable and I spent the whole time waiting for it to be over.

That was followed by three months of unorganized, unscheduled bliss:-). Lovely weather, lots of people around and virtually no commitments of any kind. The girls want to sleep until noon? Fine! Mommy can sleep with them! Everyone feeling cramped and antsy? Well, let's go for a walk to visit Auntie Munchkin and get ice cream! Naps whenever you are tired! Bed time when you feel like it!

Oh, how the sound of an alarm clock is a cruel reminder of life... Fall stood up and smacked me right across the face!

Which is all fine...we will get into a routine pretty quickly, but it will take some getting used to. I am thinking that the breast pumping is going to become a casualty of the new schedule, as it is just a huge pain to find the time to do it every four hours. It is even worse to have to get up at 2:00am to do it, even if the girls aren't awake. I may start by skipping that one and seeing if I can still produce mile while only pumping during the day. That part is manageable, at least.

And, of course, this new schedule MUST allow time on Thursday evenings for chicken fingers:-)

In case you didn't know, I am completely crazy

We have all established that I am, indeed, kinda nuts. If we skip over the parts about running away from home and adopting a 10 year old, we can focus more recently on my thinking that it was a good idea to plow through the first year of business school while pregnant with and then eventually delivering twins. Throw in a couple of months of bed rest and you have a wonderfully easy time period.

So now, with the second year approaching (which, for the uninitiated, is MUCH easier) you would probably think that this girl is looking forward to a little more relaxing schedule that doesn't run her completely ragged. You know...half days of school work combined with half days of hanging with the girls, with a healthy dose of Daughter #1 mixed in as well.

You, of course, would be wrong about that...

I'm going back to work in September. Probably two days a week (maybe not quite full days, TBD).

I know, I know, it's probably not my best idea ever...and I will curse myself for it on a whole bunch of occasions (so you have that to look forward to!) but I really can't stand the idea of being out of the work force for an entire year more.

It is hard to justify financially as well. By the simple measure of making the monthly budget add up, we could probably put the girls in day care five days a week and still be fine, even without any salary from me (and they wouldn't need nearly that much time in day care). So in that sense, I don't really need to work, but it is still leaving a whole lot of money on the table by not working at all. We certainly have a lot of good things we can do with the extra income (like...I think we may move next year, but don't mention it because I will cry.)

And mostly, I just want to get back to it. I like working, I like my job and I like to think of it as a career. I feel like I am a little bit on the sidelines and want to get back into it sooner rather than later.

So, unless I get talked out of it...starting after Labor Day, things will look like this:
Monday: AM at school all day, girls in day care
Tuesday: AM at work all day, girls in day care
Wednesday: AM at home with the girls
Thursday: AM at school all day, girls at home with Grandma
Friday: AM at work all day, girls in day care

The Original Daughter

Some updates on my first (almost) daughter...

Last week, she got it in her head that she really wants to get her belly button pierced. I don't know exactly the impetus, but I am fairly certain that it is the fault of her temporary pretend Mom (as opposed to her permanent pretend Mom). Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis, in a moment of some family infamy, had theirs done together a while back...when SHR was too young to have it done and Big Sis likely twisted some arms to have the piercers ignore that little fact...so, the dots are not hard to connect.

As an aside, Big Sis took hers out a while ago, so she did not have a pierced pregnant belly:-)

So, after asking me if she could get it done (and me saying No), she informed me that she didn't really need my permission...you have to be 18 to get tattoos but not piercings in Massachusetts. Well, turns out that wasn't true, either...she was hoping that, feeling defeated, I would give her permission that I didn't have to:-)

She was mostly kidding, and I doubt she would have done it, but it is still pretty crafty!!!

So, if we add the belly button ring to the several tattoos that she already has planned, she is gonna go and get herself all mangled in the week after she turns 18. Which gives me three years to talk her out of this or hope that she comes to her senses.

As for her summer plans, she is once again totally living the life. She finishes school tomorrow (and then is officially in HIGH SCHOOL!!!) and leaves for Paris on Wednesday evening. She is going all by herself, which is a little scary but totally cute at the same time:-) I was invited to bring the babies to Nice later this summer, and as much as I would love to do that, it seems just a little bit overly ambitious. I could change my mind...

Munchkin's French has actually gotten pretty good for only studying it a short time. She has taken it in school all year, and also bought Rosetta Stone a few months ago. Any time she devotes time and effort to something, she does really well with it, so I shouldn't be surprised...but it is still pretty impressive how well she can converse and read it already. Having someone to practice with probably helps:-)

So she will be gone until a week from Friday (the 4th) and her brother is coming out the next day to take her to the beach and get her moved in for the summer. She has three jobs...the same two from last summer plus an additional babysitting gig...which should keep her super busy. Later on she has a week of soccer camp, and there are still rumblings about her and SHR going to Africa in July for the World Cup...but nothing permanent. I think we will also get a visit from Frenchie at the end of the summer as well.

In other words, Munchkin is totally living the life...

My Nanny moves out tomorrow after my last final, and I will miss her dearly. Not just because she is a huge help, but also because I have just enjoyed having her around. It has been great to get to spend this much time with her, and to have her be such an important part of my daughters' first six weeks of life...they only have one grandmother, so she should get double the Grammy love:-) Which she wholeheartedly deserves!!!

OK...that's all for now...this post already too me three days to write (I had to change the date and time twice!!!). But next time I write, I will be officially on vacation!!!

Still breathing

Just about feeling like I am ready to come up for air...things are about to wind down just a little bit, which should hopefully give me five or ten minutes a day to slow down and breathe!

School is, for all intents and purposes, done. I have a couple nonsense classes today and tomorrow, two exams left, neither of which should be terribly difficult, and then we have to deliver our final presentation for the consulting project that we have been working on all year. To be honest, I feel a little bit removed from it because I haven't done much since March, but I have seen what the guys did to finish it after I left off my part, and it all looks really good. The client company has already seen it and likes it, so it is just a matter of the professors getting their look at it and asking some questions intended to make us uncomfortable;-)

I am pretty happy with myself for sticking the year out. If I had it to do over again, I never would have enrolled during the second semester because it turned out to be a completely asinine idea (seriously...most people that I am in school with spend 12-14 hours a day at school...how did I think I could fit all of that in with twins?) But now that it is over, I am glad that I did. As dumb an idea as it was, I would have hated taking a whole year off and picking it back up in January as a first-year still.

It has been a really incredible experience, even if the whole first year was kind of over-shadowed by the baby thing. The breadth and depth of my classmates' talents is extraordinarily impressive, as are their professional and personal backgrounds. I now know why everyone I asked said that going full-time was such a valuable experience...the stuff you learn in class and the stuff you get out of the books is good, but the real value of the program is being around all of these incredibly smart, incredibly driven people all day long for two years. You can't get that from a different kind of program.

One unusual thing, though, is that I don't feel like I made a ton of "friends". There are tons of people that I like, get along with, work well with and enjoy thoroughly, but very, very few that I would just call up to hang out away from school. I think part of it is that I skipped out on so many of the social activities because I was tired or sick or on bed rest...so I didn't get to know people as personally as many others did. I would count a couple of my group-mates as really good friends (in the sense that we have hung out away from school, I know their wives, etc) and there are at least two other girls that I absolutely adore, but most of the class are more like professional acquaintances.

One of those group-mates, told me on the sly that I am widely viewed as a little bit distant and aloof...which I understand, but which is totally not me. Maybe next year will be a little bit different because I will feel a little more social and a little less...um...pregnant? The truth is that I got married and had twins in the same school year, and that is kind of a lot to manage, so I was maybe not my normal outgoing self all the time. And, as I wrote about a while back, I just sort of felt the need to be a bit guarded all year long. Not totally sure why.

Anyway, school is pretty much done, and I am feeling really good about having finished the year. My grades will be pretty good, although they are entirely irrelevant...you either pass or you don't and no one ever cares about your class rank or GPA or anything like that. I am very, very much looking forward to my summer at the beach with my original baby girl, my new baby girls, my grown up girls and The Boy:-)

I have some more Munchkin stuff for you later on, but that can wait...short version, she remains completely on top of the world (although she still does not have a belly button ring...more on that later.) I also have some stuff related to the old (and future) office, Papa Bear, Boss Foxy and the rest of the gang. Given some of the big changes around here, you can probably guess the basic gist of some of that.

But this is already too long, and I have summer clothes to mentally pick out!

Agua Malo

Good morning, peeps! I am sitting on the couch with a (sort of) sleeping baby on each side of me, enjoying a delicious glass of...

Hold on, question...when did a half Iced Tea, half lemonade become an Arnold Palmer? I feel like I have heard this suddenly like 100 times in the last year or so, but had never heard of it before. Surely, one of you can fill me in on the nominal history of the drink. Also, can someone put a little dash of tequila in this for me?

I almost feel like we are maybe catching our breath just a little bit around here! Every day we do a little bit better with a routine and in getting an understanding of the best kinda schedule for the girls. Obviously, the ideal is for their longest sleep stretches to be at night, and I don't care if they are fidgety and fussy during the day as much.

Since the weather has turned GORGEOUS, we have had them out for walks a couple of days in a row, which is really fun. It is a pretty small window, since they eat about every three hours (and it takes an hour to feed, burp and change them:-)) but they love riding in their car seats. Once they get moving, they fall almost immediately asleep...must be something about the motion. Hopefully we can get them out at least once this afternoon, since it is going to be in the mid 80's today!

Munchkin and Smoking Hot Roommate are at the beach this weekend getting the house opened up and doing some cleaning and stuff. I am super jealous (well, sort of...it is still colder there, but just the idea of it is nice).

I have some good news on that front...I am pretty much going to be there all summer long, which has me oh-so-giddy. Munchkin finishes school the week before Memorial Day, pretty much the same time that I do, and is then going to Paris for a week, and then coming back and moving straight to the beach (yea, the Paris trip came about kind of fast, but all the timing worked well. Also, seriously, how much does she have it made?)

Her brother, sister-in-law and their little girl are coming out to spend the first two weeks of June with her like they did last year, and then The Boy and I are pretty much moving there after that. He is going to work from there about half the time, and will also be on vacation some other times and will probably only have to be away (which really means at home) for a total of two or three weeks out of the rest of the summer.

Let's turn out attention to Big Sis for a minute! She is ready to burst, and is right itching to get that baby out of her belly and into the world! Official due date is in a little over a week, which means that she is on "any minute" watch from here on in. Everyone keep their fingers crossed and send good wishes! I am guessing that it is a boy, but I have no reason to think that, really.

And finally...boil water alert? Not cool guys. Not cool!!! Let's all cross our fingers that we can drink the water again in a couple of days at the longest. Otherwise, the beach house will look even better:-)

8 Days Old

Did I mention that I went back to school yesterday? So yes, I had major surgery that didn't go great, had two babies, brought them home and missed a grand total of four days of classes (Monday was a state holiday).

Pretty good, huh? Yesterday and today were not really full days since we had no afternoon classes, so I was only gone from 8-12 both mornings. Starting Monday, I will be back on basically an 8-3 schedule five days a week. I was a little worried that I would feel neglectful or depressed, but it wasn't too bad. Leaving the babies at home with their Dad and Grandmother is pretty comforting...

So far, they have been super babies! They really only cry when they need something, and have been sleeping for solid hour and a half blocks and eating on pretty much the same schedule. And I just want to cuddle with them non-stop;-). Sure, everything we own was covered in spit-up by Wednesday, but that is to be expected...

And we have done pretty good with rotating sleep and napping a lot. Again, having St. Mother in Law around has allowed us to nap during the day, which makes the overnight feedings a whole lot easier. The Boy is still off work next week, so he is gonna handle the overnight duties and sleep more during the day, and then when he goes back to work, his Mom will do the overnight shift for the next couple of weeks until school is over.

I guess that is all for now...I will post some pictures soon, I promise. How can I not...they are perfect!!!

And then we can start to get excited about Baby Big Sis' arrival in a couple weeks!!!

"Spring Break" used to be more fun

How come no one noticed that yesterday was Tinkerbelle's birthday?!?!? I even tried reminding you, but I guess no one felt like checking the archives to figure out what March 11 is:-P. I wrote her a very long birthday email so she would have it when she woke up, and I sent her some clothes and girly stuff, too. And we talked for a while when she got home from school...needless to say, she is pretty darn excited to be an auntie! She is also very excited to come and visit her nieces once she gets out of school, which I am looking forward to as well. She is a really fun kid...different from Munchkin in a million ways, but really a treat to know.

I think I like the idea of having the babies on maybe a Friday morning, or a Thursday...just seems like right before the weekend is a good plan. Is it completely absurd for me to go to class on a Thursday morning and then head to the hospital afterwards to have them? I don't think they would let me, but it's a thought...:-D. Hmm...I would probably miss Project Runway that week, too...(yes, joke).

And, of course, they could choose to make their appearance long before then without my having a say in it. We are past the point where they would be in imminent danger just because they are so premature, which is obviously a good feeling. They still need another 4 weeks or so to be really, really healthy and not face the prospect of extra days in the hospital, but it is good to know that they could come now and be out of substantial danger.

On another note...still not totally decided on names. We are most of the way there, but not completely committed. I have a feeling that we won't know for sure until we meet them!

Not much going on this weekend. Munchkin leaves in the morning, and I will miss her lots. I am on Spring Break next week, which will make me really bored. I am hopeful that I can make a lot of progress on our group project so that I can advance it to a point where the guys in the group can pick it up and finish it during the next month when I am "less available." I think we have a good plan, so I am optimistic that it will work out. And it is not like I will be completely out of commission going forward, I would just like to step back a bit and only have to worry about my own individual work.

That is about it...other than that, I will just be around and laying low...and waiting!

A week?!?!?

I haven't posted in a fucking week...that is totally inexcusable. Even when I have been on vacation in the past, I don't think I have ever gone a full week without posting. Heck, I had surgery in August of '07 and only missed like four days...so, I am kinda embarrassed about taking this long to finally post again.

Super busy week, with lots of school work. I am trying to get ahead so that I can take a week or two completely off when the babies are born and not be completely lost. I am feeling pretty good right now so unless something super weird happens, I think I will be OK. Knock on wood.

Doctor's appointment with an ultrasound last Friday, and everything looks good. The babies are 3 pounds 10 ounces and 3 pounds 7 ounces and healthy and active. My cervix is the same size as it was four weeks ago, so the bed rest regimen is working so far. No signs of pre-term labor at all, and all of my tests remain good (my blood pressure is lower than it was at my first appointment!) So, fingers crossed that things remain on course:-)

The Boy is diligently working on his baby-preparation task list, which includes the assembly of lots of stuff...a crib, dresser/changing table and other smaller stuff. No painting or anything of the babies room. I am not really of that kinda stuff (also, not a fan of the word "nursery"...it's just a bedroom).

Don't tell her I said this, but it is looking good for Munchkin's trip in a couple of weeks. Her PT is going great, she is regaining strength and flexibility really quickly, and she has been very good about doing her exercises every day...she has like a giant rubber band and a list of things she is supposed to do. In addition, Frenchie's Mother has said she will make sure that she observes any doctor's orders that she is supposed to (she also suggested she bring a friend to make the travel easier and make sure she never gets stuck in a spot where she has to awkwardly hoist a heavy suitcase anywhere...since they have a big house rented, it really just means she needs to find a friend who's parents will spring for the plane ticket, which likely won't be hard).

OK, that is enough for now...I will do better about blogging regularly this week...toodles!

Why I love my study group (or: quasi-bed rest) (or: how much do you want to know about my cervix?)

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning, and got some kinda-annoying news that is gonna require some lifestyle changes.

First of all, the babies are doing great:-) Both are active and healthy and really good sizes (2 pounds 8 and 2 pounds 7) and are developing right on schedule. And I am doing great, too...blood pressure is the same as it was at my first appointment, no terrible fatigue, no unusual aches and pains (beyond what you'd expect). My weight is good, sugar levels are good, all of my tests have been normal and I have no swelling and bloating. My rings slide on and off super easy.

And then there is my cervix...ugh. Without the lengthy description, here is all you need to know: a short cervix means a risk of pre-term labor. If your cervix gets smaller than 2.5 centimeters, they put you on bed rest for the duration of your pregnancy. As I have detailed here before, that would be a total and complete catastrophe and would be a MAJOR pain in the ass for me. All of my efforts to stay in school this semester are for naught if I have to go on bed rest (and yes, I know this was a stupid idea from the beginning...keep it to yourself!!!).

So, at its first measurement, my cervix was something like 4.0 centimeters. It stayed around that size until about four weeks ago, when it was like 3.5 centimeters. Two weeks ago it was 3.0 or so, which was not a great trend, but not super-alarming. Well, on Friday, it measured about 2.7, and that started to get me worried. It is pretty easy to see where, in two more weeks, that number could be at 2.5 or less, which would require me dropping out of school and losing basically a whole year of school.

After talking with my doctor, we decided on a plan to try and head this off at the pass, which involves putting me on part-time bed rest. Basically, other than sitting up in class, I plan to be laying down essentially all the time. Fortunately, I can do pretty much any work I have to do laying down. It is gonna drive me crazy being that useless, but if it can get me to make it all the way to the birth (or at least close) without having to go totally on bed-rest, then I will give it a shot. One day in, and so far so good...the fact that it was 12 degrees outside didn't hurt.

This will be tough on The Boy, too. I am not supposed to be up much when I am home, and am not supposed to lift anything, which leaves him pretty much in charge of everything around the house. The obvious other complication is that Munchkin is incapacitated, too...so he doesn't have her help, and has two patients to take care of:-)

Final story, though, about my incredibly awesome study-group guys. We have a study room that we can keep stuff in, where we have meetings, and where we keep all of the files and stuff for our semester-long group projects. It is basically like our office at school...only the six of us have to share it. The room has a conference table, a couple desks, and a bunch of office chairs. Usually, after class ends every day, some or all of us convene there to work on either class stuff or project stuff. That is where I do most of my homework before I leave for the day to head home, and really where I spend most of my time at school.

Well, my new plan as of Friday morning was to basically scrap that...and just head straight home after classes end (which is usually like 2:30 or so). I broke the news to my group members when I got to school, and they were bummed. For one, it is harder to do group work if I am not there. And second, I think that they would just plain miss me:-). However, being the resourceful future captains of industry, they weren't about to let a little medical complication get in the way, so they came up with a solution that is actually even better than mine: they stole a couch.

The lobbies outside of all of our study rooms are basically like study lounges with chairs and couches and coffee tables and stuff. So, once I told them that I had to recline whenever I wasn't in class, they figured that they would just take one of the desks and one of the chairs out of the room (leaving it randomly in the hallway...lol) and swipe one of the couches to stick in our room. Problem solved! No word on what the facilities department is gonna do when they find all the furniture has been removed from its appropriate places, but we can deal with that on Monday.

In the meantime, I can now sneak away to the study room to lie down between classes, for an hour at lunch, and then all afternoon while I do my homework and whatnot. So now, I will have to be on my feet (or driving or sitting up, which is just as bad) from at least about 7:45 until 10:00 on an average day, which is a lot time. But after that, I will get 15-30 minutes to lay down, then usually another 90 minutes of class, an hour to lie down at lunch, 90 minutes of class and then pretty much lay down for the rest of the day.

Let's all cross out fingers that this keeps me off of full-blown bed rest until it is time to have the babies...

Baby Pictures

Better late than never, here are the baby girls from last week:-) I also have 3-D ones, but they didn't come out great, and are sorta creepy...lol. I like my girls to not look creepy!!! Baby Non-Presenting has her hand right up in front of her little face here...


While Baby Presenting just sorta seems to be hanging showing off her "round head". Yes...the radiologist told me she has a round head...whatever that means. I was really hoping for "triangular"... I believe that is her sister's head in the left hand corner of the picture, but I am not sure.

Anyway, back to school today, so my lovely vacation is over with. You would think that all of that free time would have led to some blogging, wouldn't you? But...um...no, it didn't. It led to me doing a whole lot of nothing!

I did a lot of cooking...I made lots of cookies and brownies, plus a roast one day, chicken in white wine sauce another day, and a lasagna on another. It all turned out pretty good. I went to Munchkin's school to talk to some of the high school girls one afternoon, and that was really fun. I went to the gym a couple of times, which felt good and allowed me to read a lot (I read books by both Glen Beck and Barack Obama in the same week...that feels like it should be some kind of a record.) And I took my first pre-natal yoga class, which was awesome!!!

Most importantly, though, I talked The Boy into taking me on vacation the weekend after next...Yay!!! Nothing super fancy, just a quick long weekend in Florida to get away from the cold, relax a bit and get some sun. This is, of course, assuming that the weather in Florida improves a little bit...it is almost as cold there as it is here! Hopefully, Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis and their husbands will come with us, too:-) Munchkin will either come with, stay with one of them, stay with a friend or stay at Papa Bear's.

Munchkin's friend's Mom called me yesterday to see if I still wanted to come on the annual ski weekend that the girls always go on, and that I have gone on the last couple of years. Obviously, no skiing or snowboarding for me, and I am not even sure I will be able to cook as much as I have in years past, but I certainly hope I can still go! Hopefully another month of growing won't make me totally unmanageable:-)

OK...that is enough for now...I have some stuff for tomorrow that is a little more fun:-)

The final final

One last final in 20 minutes, and then I am DONE with semester #1 of graduate school! A couple of my classmates are coming over for lunch before some of then take off for the break, and then I plan on not thinking about supply curves, cost of capital, operational bottlenecks, 7 M's, five forces, four p's (or three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree for that matter;-)).

The big news after that is that Munchkin is leaving school early today so that we can go to the airport and pick up Frenchie (and to drop off my friend and her husband so that they can get back to Venezuela for the holiday). I haven't actually had a chance to talk with her much about this visit, but we should have about 45 minutes to sit and chat at the airport.

I know that she is super excited, which is to be expected. And, not that she needs a lot of guidance, but I do want to just make sure that we are on the same page on a couple of ground rules. I don't think it will be an issue...the two of them were very respectful when we stayed with them this summer, and I expect the same...but I just want to set the expectations explicitly.

And yes, this is partially influenced by an incredibly awkward conversation that I had with her a few weeks ago...I will keep that offline, though (definitely in the category of "Things I am glad she asks me and that I want her to talk to me about, but that I would much rather she simply not thought about at all"). Basically, he is not coming to visit so that they can make out for a week;-).

OK...exam time...wish me luck!

Fun times

So...that group final that I was cautiously optimistic about? Absolute nightmare...like 16 hours of Chinese water torture with a brief break to sleep and eat in the middle. And culminated with me snapping at a professor who irritates me.

The first problem is that there were two girls in my group who, for some reason, absolutely hate each other. One if Bulgarian and one is Japanese, and they just completely hate each other in a way that I can barely comprehend, and never expected to see in this sort of environment. The Japanese girl is super quiet and the Bulgarian one is kind of high-strung, but very smart and generally a very serious student. In other words, neither has a personality that generally rubs people the wrong way...except for each other...

So, right from the beginning, it was kind of a weird, tense situation. I think if I had known about their dislike, I may have talked to both of them ahead of time about burying it for a day and a half. That is the stuff that I am usually pretty good at, but I didn't really figure this out until it was too late.

The next problem is that two of the guys were kind of counter-useful. One is just kinda lazy (which, to be honest, is really unusual...there are not a whole lot of lazy people in my class), and another is really smart, but tends to take "intellectual shortcuts"...he jumps to conclusions without really thinking things through. Like, he gets an idea and that seems interesting, and then he just goes with it, rather than thinking it through or vetting alternatives. Thankfully, the sixth person was a guy that I consider to be super smart, very hardworking and a great student...no idea where we would have ended up without him.

Basically, we were given a case and tasked with making a product strategy presentation based on the facts of the case. Friday included a lot of wasted time and frustrating starts and stops. We ended up working until almost 8:00 to not get nearly as much done as I had hoped. And by that time, the pregnant girl was cranky and tired and no longer of use to anyone (lest you think I am claiming to be the perfect group member;-))

Saturday was more of the same, but having a deadline at least lit a fire under people. I definitely felt like the work we were turning in was sub-par, but it was way too late to do anything about it. And, when we faced the professors later in the day to deliver our presentation, it was very quickly clear that the faculty agreed with my assessment...we got absolutely killed when it went to Q&A. (And when the two girls half got into a fight in front of them, that certainly didn't help).

I did, however, think that at least one of the questions was totally unfair, and I let the professor who asked it know. In the end, it worked out pretty well, because it was kind of intentional on his part and he wanted someone to stand up and defend us on it. I ended up getting a higher grade than some of the people in the group, and I think that was part of the reason. Still, I was snippier than I needed to be. But, he asked us a question in a really smarmy way as if we should have known something that we didn't...I responded that we didn't think it was safe to make that assumption, and were bound by the rules of the exercise. But I was kind of a bitch about it (fortunately, I think the other professors think he is an ass, too...)

Anyway, the whole thing was a totally miserable experience that I am glad to be done with. I ended up getting the equivalent of about a B- or so, which I can live with...I have done better on all my other finals and in pretty much everything all semester. I have two left, but they are much more traditional exams...just show up, take a test and go home.

The rest of the weekend was actually pretty nice. Christmas party at a friend's house on Saturday night, and then got some Christmas shopping done on Sunday morning before the rain came all afternoon. I have done almost none of the shopping that I need to (90% of which is for Munchkin) but I am counting on having almost a week off before Christmas to get all of that done.

A week which includes a non-chaperoned visit from Frenchie...oh boy...am I really up for this? Yikes...

The mother of all exams

Super busy today, but I wanted to check in and let you know that I am not dead:-). I have a final that starts at 10:00 and runs all day today and tomorrow morning as well, which should be super fun.

It is a group project that is sort of an integrated case study and we have to turn in a presentation tomorrow morning and then deliver the presentation to a group of faculty at noon. I don't even know exactly who is in my group yet, since I will get a room assignment at the beginning of the process, and go to that room and find out who else is in my group. Fingers crossed that I get the smart, easy-going people:-)

Yay Saturday exams!!!

Possibly the best thing about America...?

There is a whole lot to like about America, and I think we can probably all agree on that. By no means do I think we are perfect, but we get a whole lot of stuff right, and we have a history of improving ourselves.

For a variety of reasons, the United States has been the source of much of the great technological invention of the last 150 years or so. [To briefly get off on an almost political tangent...I would like my left wing readers to recognize that one of the the two biggest reasons is our version of capitalism, and I would like my right wing readers to recognize that the other of the two biggest reasons is our history of encouraging immigrants. OK, off my soapbox]

The steam engine, the cotton gin, the thresher, the combustion engine. They weren't all necessarily invented here (or exclusively here) but they certainly came to fame here. Mass production, oil refining, steel making...again, none of it was invented here, but it was all perfected here and the world is a better place because of it. How about the airplane? The electric light could be the single most important invention ever (OK Germans, the printing press is right there). The world would look a whole lot different without the silicon chip or the Internet, too.

A huge portion of the world's great medical breakthroughs have come from our Universities and Hospitals. Many of the great materials and chemicals science comes from American labs and school as well. We even invented the business school (eh...no comment on that).

But...you know what could well be the single greatest American Invention ever? Thanksgiving!!! Seriously, it is an entire day devoted to eating and watching football...what could possibly be more American than that? Also, it is a four and a half day weekend with no expectation of shopping or tree-trimming or any of the other pressure of Christmas. Just a day to hang out with family, eat turkey and think about how lucky you are.

I will be spending the weekend with a small portion of my actual family (Munchkin), along with my newly acquired family (The Boy's) and then my pretend one (Smoking Hot Roommate, et al). In addition, a Venezuelan girl from school and her husband are coming along to learn why we have a random five day break in the middle of the year. Boy are they in for a treat!!!

So, in case I don't get to post before then...everyone have a great holiday! And try and give thanks for living in a country cool enough to invent a holiday like this:-)

Visitors

Happy Thursday everyone...I have once again been a terrible blogger this week, which I apologize profusely for. I have been super busy with school stuff, and have been doing a little bit of work on the side (including most all day yesterday) for my dear former (and likely future) employer. Actually, kind of a nice way to pick up some extra dough;-) Should be pretty calm for the next few days, though, which is good.

I got an invite to a dinner thing tonight with a Big Name Investment Bank where they are recruiting interns for next summer, and then presumable employees for a year and a half from now. They went through the resume book, picked out people who's background matches what they want, and then invited us to dinner and then to interview formally tomorrow. Dinner is at a notoriously swanky place in Cambridge (overrated, but that is neither here nor there) and they seemed totally shocked that I declined. But seriously...I doubt I would ever work for them, and I would way rather have chicken fingers!!!

I am going to interview, though, even if I don't want the job (since this is technically only for summer internships, it is for a job in New York next summer...you can probably guess what the odds are of me taking that;-)). You never know what may come up later on in life, so I would like to at least meet them and get the chance to talk to them. It never hurts to work on the personal network:-)...and I wouldn't completely rule out the chances of working for them after school. OK...those chances are like 1%, maybe...but there is a chance...

Moving on...we are getting two very important visitors for Christmas. Well, one before and one after, to be specific. Frenchie is going to come for about a week before Christmas (December 17-23, or something thereabouts). Actually, his last day of school is supposed to be the 18th, and he and Munchkin originally proposed that he come from the 19th until the 26th, but his Mom nixed the idea of him actually being here for Christmas...their compromise was that he would skip the last two days of school before the break and therefore get about a whole week in before the holiday.

This is a big deal, since it is the first time that one of them has travelled by his or herself to see the other. The last two times they have seen each other were when his father brought him here and when I brought her there. I'll have to have a talk with her about some ground rules before then, but that shouldn't be a huge issue.

Then, I am doing my annual child-swap right after Christmas...Munchkin is going away with her friend's family again (Let's recap...2006 - sailing in the Caribbean, 2007 - Aruba, 2008, St. Maarten, and now in 2009 - St. John. I really kinda hate her sometimes:-P). But I will survive because Tinkerbelle is coming to visit again:-). That should be all kinds of fun, and I am really excited about it...this is a couple years now where she has come at Christmas, and come for a while in the summer and I get back there to see her a couple times a year, too. Obviously, I would love to see her more, but we have been pretty good about seeing each other a pretty good amount.

So, that is about it for now...I haven't forgotten that I owe you ultrasound pictures, and will get those up soon. You know...like just in time to have my next one on December 1:-P.

Doctors, Chicken Fingers, TV and more

Spent the whole morning at the doctor's, and then the radiologists. My normal appointment turned into like a three hour extravanagnza, all because, as far as I can tell, the medical profession is incapable of using a computer or making a reasonable schedule. I will go into more of this on Monday, promise:-). Also, I have some new ultrasound pictures that I will post, too...and maybe even a wedding picture or two while I am at it:-)

But on to other things...

I stayed up for an entire slate of Thursday night TV last night, which is the first time in...um...a long time? Started with chicken fingers, and despite Lisa's suggestion, I did not withhold honey mustard because Munchkin got one A minus :-). One of the guys from my study group and his wife joined us, which was a nice treat. As you all know, I consider Thursday night chicken fingers to be a sacred ritual of the highest order, and an invitation to come with us is just about the highest honor that I can bestow on someone.

And I still find myself kinda guarded about my non-school life to people at school. The Boy has met a bunch of them by now, but I don't really talk to most of my classmates about non-school stuff. I can't really explain my rationale for that. There are a couple of girls that I would call good friends already, but the huge majority of my classmates know very little about me (I'd say that 10 people know I am pregnant). But the guys in my study group are awesome, and I spend a ton of time with them, so they seemed worthy of an invite and the right to meet the divine Ms. Munchkin. So it was nice to give him a little view into my world, and to get a chance to hang out with his wife a bit, too. Hopefully, the rest of them can join us sometime in the future:-)

OK...back to TV:-). I watched Community and then Parks and Recreation...eh. I love Joel McHale, but that show wasn't impressive. Bad episode maybe? Kinda the same on Parks and Recreation...love Amy Poehler, but the show is a little bit forced. I did laugh a little bit, though.

The Office is still awesome...it got kinda weird for a bit last year, but it is back to its hilarious roots. I think that Andy may be my favorite character on that show now...he just completely cracks me up. And just the whole idea of Pam and Michael scheduling a time for her to punch him in the face is brilliant.

And 30 Rock is still awesome, too. Just really, really well-written, clever and all over funny. And, I even caught a full first-run episode of Project Runway. Love the three finalists, they were clearly the best of this group from Day 1 through last night, so I was glad that they picked them. I think Irina will win, giant-teethed bitchiness and all...but Carol Hannah is my favorite. She makes the prettiest, most wearable stuff, and Althea makes consistently neat things, too...but Irina is the most visionary talent of the bunch, and I think she will be the winner.

We are off to Chicago for the weekend for the first time in a LONG time. Munchkin wants to see her niece and her brother, and I have a lot of family and friends to catch up with. Technically, I am going to announce to them all that I am pregnant, but I don't know how much of a secret it is. Tinkerbelle and her Mom know, which means that the rest of my father's family probably knows, too. And I have told one of my Mom's sisters, and I have a feeling she told the rest of them...so I expect a lot of pretend surprised looks;-)

I am going to try and take it easy and not wear myself out too much...but we will see how that goes. Definitely going out with the BFFs and their significant others (new girlfriend for BFFb, the same boyfriend that I found her for BFFg) Saturday, but likely not real late. Beyond that, just some general visiting.

So, until Monday...