Two Peas in my Pod... and a Little in my Pants

Yesterday was definitely a crazy day. For once in my life I actually had a day full of events to keep me busy. I have to admit that at this point my life has gotten VERY boring. I’m trying to embrace it, because I know that extreme madness is on the way. Funny thing is, last night I had to face the music and accept the fact that the madness could get here a litter sooner than anticipated...

The day began like every other. After tossing and turning and urinating all night long, I awoke to some breakfast, laundry, a dog walk, some e-mail, and a shower. (FYI – After about 6 days I decided to shave my legs! All the extra surface area sure makes the process rather lengthy.) After showering I went to the home of the Lanes. The Lanes are friends of mine through school. Mrs. Kitty Lane was my “room mom” for two years, because I looped from second to third grade with her daughter. Their family is an inspiration to me. They are wonderful people that really care about making our world a better place. They definitely show this passion for giving back on a regular basis, especially with their new project. They own a service dog that recently gave birth to 11 puppies!!! They are taking care of the puppies at their home for a few weeks to help out the “service dog program”. I couldn’t wait to meet the puppies, so that was my first adventure for the day...

After playing and snuggling with the adorable little puppies, I went to the dentist. It was a regular check-up and for the first time they didn’t try to sell me something. I usually walk out their office with a lighter pocket book. That was my second voyage of the day...

The third journey of the day began by driving to base to have lunch with my wonderful handsome husband (in uniform – even better!). I made the mistake of eating a pickle with my sandwich... I burped it up all afternoon.

After lunch my sweet husband helped me do the grocery shopping. This sounds ridiculous but it has actually become difficult for me to pick things up off the shelves, put them in the buggy, lift them on the check-out belt, and carry them to my car. He made this process SO much easier!

At 3:30 I finally arrived back at home. Billy was back at work. Groceries were put away. I decided to sit down, relax, and get the pickle taste out of my mouth by munching on a bowl of caramel popcorn. About two handfuls in, something strange happened... something unexpected... something wet... down there... I guess you could say there was a little “leakage”. Now you all know I’ve taken the childbirth class, so I knew exactly what to do: TACO – chart the following – time, amount, color, and odor. Done, done, done, and done. I was NOT convinced that anything was wrong, but according to childbirth class rules call the doctor anyway. I told them all my TACO information and that I thought it was probably nothing. However, I suppose that because I’ve been labeled “high risk” they of course wanted me to GO TO THE HOSPITAL!!! What??? Really???

The next step was finding Billy. This was a little entertaining. He didn’t answer his cell phone, so I had the whole squadron looking for him... at the gym... at the food store... at the park... the funniest thing was is that no one looked for him at work... which is where he was... in an office with no cell service! He thought they were messing with him when he got the message, but after checking his phone he quickly realized the truth and raced home. He packed the hospital bags, and off we went, thinking... “Could this REALLY be time?”

And so began my fourth adventure of the day... Up the elevator to labor and deliver we went. Nurse Kathy took great care of us. She hooked me all up, watched the babies, asked me questions, ran some tests, and went to find the on-call doctor. (Thank God I shaved my legs!!!) I felt very calm because I truly did not think anything was happening. The on-call doc came in to do a few slightly more invasive tests and came up with the conclusion that... well... it was NOT the amniotic fluid of my water breaking... it was... well... pee! Yes, I had peed my pants! A little embarrassing, yes, but relief fell upon us, knowing that the babies were not coming into the world just yet. Billy and I were both really rooting for a few more weeks of growth in my incubator belly, which is exactly what we got. We were released and actually made it in time for our breastfeeding class.

So, Red and Lellow gave me a little scare by pushing on my bladder and causing a little “leakage”. Today, all is well! I’m back to boring, taking it easy, nothing to do days – and I’m SO thankful! I am however very hesitant to eat any caramel popcorn today!

The Fantastic Four

It was four years ago today that Rachel made me the luckiest man on God's green earth by marrying me. Four short years since we said our vows and made our commitment to each other. Four short years since we danced to Guster. Four short years since Cliff and Chris made their toasts, and Mike Vincent sang "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," and Jill fell out of the limo, and Boom took after-parties to a whole new level. Four short years since we first met our nephew Ezra, and my Uncle Tommie gave me my grandfather's Naval Sword.


Today Rachel and I celebrated our anniversary in a very low key way. She surprised me with a basket of fruit flavored treats and flower shaped straws. Fruits and flowers are the traditional gifts on a fourth anniversary. I came home from work with a bouquet of flowers and an over sized banana balloon. We made "Anniversary Chicken" for dinner - the recipe used to be called "Company Chicken" by Rachel's mom, but we gave it a new Klug house name tonight. Then, we went and hung out with Nurse Kim in parenting class. It might not seem like much, but it is a pretty good day if you ask me.



The accounting of daily activities begs the question, what does any of this matter? It may not matter much in the grand scheme of things, but after four years of memories and great times whizzing by, I just wanted to post a daily recap. That way, in four more years, I can look back and remember what today was like. Because, if there is anything I have learned in twenty-eight years on this earth, it's that the next four years inevitably will pass faster than the last.


Rachel, thanks for four years of mischief, fun, adventure and love. Happy Anniversary.

Head of the Class

With Rachel being a teacher, and me a flight school instructor and grad school student, you'd think we would have had enough of school already. However, the two of us decided on our own regard to attend some "New Parenting" classes put on by our hospital, Baptist Health. The classes come in three sessions, each two and a half hours long, and are supposed to teach us everything we would ever want to know about being a parent. OK, OK, it is not supposed to teach us everything. But at fifteen bucks per session, I vowed that I would learn something new... or at least get a free key chain out of it.

Our lecturer of Lamaze is named Kim. She is an overly perky but very natally knowledgeable nurse who spends each session bestowing her expertise onto us. However, our sensei in scrubs does have one trait that tends to get under Rachel and my skin. Kim accentuates her vowels while drawing out the last syllable of the word and cocking her head to the side at the end of every sentence. Rachel and I have mocked our professor of pregnancy's sing-songy delivery during both our rides home from class so far.

Anyway, thus far we have learned all about the drugs that are given to mothers delivering both naturally and via Cesarean. Also, we've talked about postpartum depression, labor symptoms, massage and breathing techniques and what to bring to the delivery room. Our kiddie coach has also taught us numerous medical terms that we can use to impress our friends and neighbors, like sciatica, lanugo, prophylaxis and episiotomy (which I never want to talk about again). We got to watch a video too, but since I like to think of this as a kid friendly site, so I will only say that it was everything we had heard and more.

It is a bit amazing to me that only one-third of first time parents take these classes. Certainly, two and a half hours of Kim's trimester tutelage can make a man a bit fussy, but the information we have gotten is well worth the price of admission. Plus, I am still banking on getting that free key chain before I'm through.

While Rachel and I have grown our parental knowledge over the past few weeks, Red and Lellow have just plain grown. We have another sonogram appointment in about a week and a half, so until then we just gauge their growth based on Rachel's stomach size, which is still increasing. Here is the latest belly pic, Rachel at 32 and a half weeks.

Finally, the return of a old favorite; here are some names we will not be giving to the twins: Spencer, Heidi, or any variant of the name Sky (to include Skylar, Skye, or any other nonsense like that).

Once, Twice, Three Times a Baby (shower)

So, in case you have not noticed lately, I reference music often when I write these posts. I must say, though, this will most likely be the only time I reference a Commodores song in the blog, so fans of the band rejoice in the title of the post and then fade into obscurity. As for those of you out there that thought the song was a Lionel Ritchie song, I have two things to say to you: First, once you are a Commodore, you are always a Commodore (Lionel was the lead singer of the band); and second, I will probably reference a Lionel solo song once I am a member of the padre cadre and am awake at all hours of the night. If you can't guess the song, you will just have to wait.

OK, on to the shower. This was, as you might have guessed from the post title, Rachel's third baby shower. The first was a shower with all her co-workers from the school where she taught. The second shower was the lovely twin themed shower back in St. Louis a few weeks ago. However, we are tremendously blessed and have enough friends here in Jacksonville that they decided they needed to throw us a shower as well. So, seeing as we have a ton of stuff left on the shopping list to buy for Red and Lellow, we went along with the idea.

This third shower was thrown by Rachel's good friends Kat and Natalie. They rounded up Rachel's friends from as far away as Maryland (mad props to Nicole for travelling that far) and hosted the shower at Natalie's house. The house was filled with awesome decorations, like the diaper cake that from a distance looked good enough to eat, and also great food. Rachel was overwhelmed by the gracious gifts we received, and I was overwhelmed when I had to carry it all to the car by myself.

You may have noticed that earlier I called Nat and Kat "Rachel's friends." I used to think they were my friends too, but then they just exploited me for public embarrassment, so now I'm not so sure. Actually, since I have never minded public humilation, I helped Kat and Nat with a bit of the planning for the shower. Kat came up with a game that involved me, suggesting a "Newlywed Game" type question and answer game, where Rachel would have to guess how I answered several questions. Some sample questions are "Who will wake up with the babies first at night?" and "Who will get peed on first?" Anyway, whenever Rachel correctly guessed my answer, I got to relax. However, when Rachel didn't get my answer right (which was the vast majority of the time), a member of the shower gallery got to choose to either feed me baby food or dress me up like a woman. Needless to say, I left the shower with a massive stomach ache from strained peas, and dressed in a feather boa and a nursing bra. By the way, baby food tastes terrible. Tyson didn't even want to eat it, and sometimes he wants to eat worms. Yes, video of me in drag eating baby food does exist, and some day will probably make it onto the Internet, but it likely won't be until I decide to run for publicly elected office.

Anyway, three successful showers down, and now we have a room full of loot. We are tremendously blessed by our friends and families, and so very thankful to all of you who helped us to get our collective acts together in advance of these births. One would think that all that's left to do now is to wait for the arrivals, but instead we will be busy heading to Babies R' Us for the remainder of the baby loot we have to buy ourselves. And then, Rachel gets to open the package and I get to put it all together. See, Rachel and I work together, in harmony, like the Commodores.

Moving Pictures

Ever since the dawn of time man has had a fascination with pictures. I learned in history class that cavemen used to draw pictures of the sun and cavewomen used to draw pictures of cave-boys they liked on cave walls with mastodon blood and sticks. Then, during the Roman Empire, the citizens drew obscene pictures on the walls of the Colosseum. The graffiti lasted a long time, because it is still there to this day. Time marched on, and we went from paintings to portraits, from portraits to pictures, from pictures to moving pictures, from moving pictures back to Polaroids, and then eventually made it to digital pictures and DVD's.

However, my puny man brain was stuck in the dark ages until tonight, as I could not figure out how to turn the DVD the nurse gave me of the sonogram into a movie file to post on this blog. I thought about drawing what the sonogram looked like in mastodon blood, but I lacked the mastodon, sticks and a cave wall. However, sheer determination and a little creativity won out in the end, and I present to you the first ever publicly viewable movie of my babies! I know the quality is along the lines of a bootleg movie where the cameraman snuck into the movie theater with a camcorder, but that was the best I could do for now, so you're all stuck with it. Enjoy the running commentary from me in the background. It's like the Director's Cut Edition of the sonogram!

Anyway, along with the movie, here are the updated stats: Red is up to 3 lbs 9 oz, with Lellow weighing in at 3 lbs 5 oz. That is seven solid pounds of baby in Rachel. Both babies have normal sized stomachs, kidneys, brains and extremities. Both have great heart rates in the 140-160 range, which is normal for babies their age.
As for Rachel, we found out today that she passed her second glucose test, meaning that the gestational diabetes scare is over. She measures at 37 weeks despite the fact that she is only 31 weeks pregnant. Also, she has been having some serious pains in the pelvis, which don't sound fun but are common to women in her stage of pregnancy and people who dance like Elvis. Finally, the doctor informed us that unless Lellow flips from the breach (butt down) position in the womb, Rachel will have to deliver via cesarean section. This is because Lellow is "Baby A," and will be the first one born should a natural birth occur. Rach is not stoked about the prognosis, especially given that Lellow has been butt down from day one. However, looking at the bright side, women that deliver vaginally have a higher rate of incontinence later in life.
All in all, it's been a banner week thus far for the Klug Crew. I figured out how to bootleg DVDs , Rachel is healthy, Tyson hasn't puked on the carpet all week, and the babies are growing well and seem awesome.

Independence Day

This year was Rachel and my last 4th of July as truly "Independent" citizens, with pretty much no responsibilities aside from making sure we feed Tyson and blow out candles before we go to bed. In reality, we are probably better described as inter-dependent than as independent. I mean, Rachel couldn't walk without me rubbing lotion on her feet, because they inflate and deflate so quickly that the skin over the feet are drier than the Mohave. I need Rachel to keep my calendar up to date, or I'd miss appointments and reality shows like The Batchelorette and Real World. And Tyson needs us both to keep him from starving. But, by this time next year, we will be more dependent than ever before, relying on each other to help with the babies. So, in order to celebrate our final year of Independence, we had my sister Katie, her husband Nick, their son Kaileb and my brother Mike to town for the 4th.

The weekend was filled with all sorts of Florida type fun: trips to the beach, pool time, lunch at the golf course and firecrackers. It was Katie and Nick's first trip to Florida to stay with us, and Mike's first time back since he moved out in April. For the Fourth, we continued our tradition we began three years ago with our friends Paul and Nicole, dining at Al's Pizza and then fireworks at Memorial Park. And while we have done the exact same thing three years in a row, we have had different companions every time, going with Rachel's parents last year and then my siblings this year. So, if anyone is interested in pizza and fireworks with 11 month old babies, start booking your stay in Jacksonville for 2010 now.

Kaileb, Rachel and my second Godson, is in what will officially be referred to for the rest of his life as the, "Huh?" phase. He is nine months and filled with fun and happiness, and as active as any child I have ever met. However, the phase is named after his favorite phrase. He is not quite ready for words yet, but the little cutie will sit and listen to just about any conversation going on around him. Once he decides he needs to interject, he raises his head from whatever he is doing (usually banging on a table he has pulled up on) and says, "Huh?" as he crinkles his brow and waits for you to repeat your last sentence. It is probably the most funny thing I have seen in a while, and has started a new trend between me and Rachel where we just look at each other and say "Huh?"

Finally, the weekend recap would be remiss (read - I would get yelled at) if I did not include a belly pic. However, since I waited to ask Rachel for the picture until 10:30 tonight, she was not to excited to have the photo shoot. She wanted me to apologize on her behalf for her hair, which is not done, and for her makeup, which was not touched up, and for her outfit, which was not color coordinated. However, she make no apologies for the sourpuss face. Enjoy the beautiful mom at 31 weeks. Tomorrow I will update with our latest sonogram results, so stay tuned for Red and Lellow news tomorrow.