These are the things:

1) This pregnancy is garbage. I don’t know if it is just being pregnant a year older and whilst chasing a whirling dervish or if it is from having two squiggles on the inside but I. Am. Wrecked. So much vom. And so much exhaustion. And so much rage. Oh yes, the rage. And the scary part about the rage is I haven’t established any sort of rage outlet due to the fatigue and so it just festers inside of me, feeling like a gut rot after downing a bag of flaming hot Cheetos during the morning commute and then promptly yacking them up into a plastic bag filled with chewed gum and receipts and empty bottles of Tums while stopped at a red light and then the lingering burning heat of the red Cheeto dust and also the stomach bile that then sits in your throat for the rest of the day. Feels just like that. I have so many terrible and angry thoughts about so many things right now, I wonder if I will implode soon. Or more likely explode onto some unsuspecting soul after the proverbial straw cracks the camel. Probably not a straw straw in this age of faux environmental concerns for our planet. Or did they mean straw as in hay? Which makes a lot more sense.

Speaking of straws I could go for a nice big margarita right now. Maybe some spaghetti too. Also cucumbers but only with the skin on and dipped in Ceasar dressing, the good stuff, not from the bottle. And actually scratch all of that because I just though about mayonnaise and I’m done now. Suffice to say, I have not had a minute of that happy, sappy pregnancy excitement yet this time around. Although our genetics counselor did tell me that I was glowing at our last visit! What she didn’t know what that the “glow” was actually a red face from trying to swallow down vomit, an attempt at which I failed and had to sprint out of her office to spare her the splatter. Still, look at me! Glowing all over the place!

2) Olivia has started responding to questions by saying “YUP!” with a lot of authority and it is hilarious.

3) She is also selectively terribly two and has frankly been acting like a little a-hole to me lately but is still all smiles and snuggles for everyone else. She even refused a cookie from me and deliberately spit out chocolate milk after screaming for it. C’mon.

4) I need someone to assign me a chore chart with prizes or money for completion because I cannot find the motivation to do anything except starting dozens and dozens of projects around the house and finishing absolutely none of them and then being too tired to do any of the real type of housework that is necessary to not live in filth. Or another option would be to send a maid. Or sisterwife. Either of them can even sleep with husband. I am too tired to care.

5) Half days in the summer are the absolute greatest.

6) Please keep telling me how hard my life is going to be in a few months.

7) Also please keep laughing about minivans. Hardy har har har!

8) Someone said to me, “You would have twins”. In kind of a nasty tone. I said um what. And she was like, “You know, you are just always such an overachiever” in like a lighthearted singsong voice but I sensed some rudeness. First of all, what does that even mean… Like did she spy on me and know that I’ve been sending my ovaries to a special crossfit gym to beef them up for extra ovulation? Because if she did then good for her for being so committed to my secret life. Second of all, what a bizarre thing to say out loud to someone about an event so unrelated to any type of personal achievement. Where was she when I beat a bunch of dudes in a PBR shotgun race in the parking lot of the CVS on Brady Street in 2009? Where was she when I got my hand stuck in a Pringles can while driving and miraculously dislodged it while steering with my knees? How about all of those rousing, lecture hall-wide “C’s Get Degrees!” chants I led before tests during grad school? Or are these the other achievements she was referring to that when taken into account with my apparent reproductive accomplishments earn me a spot at the top? The world may never know because I never asked her what she meant and instead just looked at her like this until she walked away:

9) Anthony Bourdain died in an apparent suicide and I am very bumming over this news. It feels like a long time ago, but it really wasn’t that long, when I was struggling with some depression and finding my place in the world, and I stumbled upon Bourdain’s first book Kitchen Confidential and I’m not going to credit the guy with fixing my life but I was greatly inspired by his journey and growth despite his struggles with addiction and weaknesses. His books and his TV series and his interviews and his narratives and his general love of the world, people of all kind, travel, and food absolutely sparked my passion of all things culinary and started my journey of cooking as a hobby and outlet for some of the things I was dealing with. It really does sting to imagine the pain someone who has inspired you so much must have had that caused them to think that suicide was the only relief, and I wish he could have known how much the words and advice and wisdom that he gave to me helped me out of a darker place. And I’m sure helped countless others. All I can say is that I’m going to try even more than ever to put positive energy, love, and acceptance for all that I encounter out into the world in front of me in the hopes that I can help give some light to someone else who might be feeling alone in the dark.

10) Aliens are real:

11) I feel like I’ve been really cranky and not fun to be around lately and apparently am fine with him canoodling with a sisterwife so I wanted to do something nice for Gates for Father’s Day. I mustered up every bit of energy I could like a penguin making the journey home to cough up fish for its kid across all of Antarctica and I cranked this puppy out in one day. Time is of the essence when you only have a short child-free time frame to do manual labor.

The hardest part of the project besides hauling bags of gravel was putting together those freaking Adirondack chairs. UGH! I managed to bang my thumb with a hammer and burn myself on the top of a screw after going HAM with a power screwdriver (neither tool which was supposedly needed according to the poor directions provided on the instruction sheet). Rude! Also Home Depot was 2 hours late with the delivery (and also forgot the grill I bought him, oops) so I had to do the brick work and gravel hauling in a mere 2 hours. But I did it! And as many of you are aware, math is not my strong point – and math was needed to figure out the number of bricks and amount of gravel to order based on the radius of the square footage of the number of the circumferences squared divided by the diameter of the inner circle… wait… ANYWAY I was only off by THREE bricks in my very specific calculations and short about 5 bags of gravel for the depth amount I imagined. THIS IS A SUCCESS STORY IF YOU HAVE EVER HEARD ONE. Also I did not listen to my dad and buy a caulking gun for the landscaping adhesive and that was a big mistake but IMPROVISING is my jam and I hacked that damn tube open with a bread knife and slathered the glue on the brick with a spatula and this is why women are the future. Happy Father’s Day, Papa Bear! Sorry I am such a brat. You are such a good Dada and step in to handle our world when I am crying about Anthony Bourdain and climbing up and down the spectrum of emotions like a never-ending game of Chutes and Ladders. Thank you for grounding me and lifting me all at the same time.

12) There might not be anything more satisfying than burning a dried out Christmas tree:

13) I’m just going to rattle a few things off here:

• No, we are not going to find out the genders. No, I will not have the doc write down the genders on a piece of paper and give it to you so that you can know. We are almost halfway through you guys, you can wait a little longer. It will either be: 2 boys, 2 girls, or one of each.
  • No, we don’t care what they are.
    • No, we are not going to try for a boy in the future if it is two girls.
      • No, Gates will not be disappointed if it is two more girls. Bring on the estrogen!
        • Yes, one of us is probably getting snippered after the big show.
• Our squiggles are in 2 sacs with 2 different placentas which mean that they are most likely fraternal twinnies, but have a small percent chance of being identical, and we will not know until after birth and if we have some testing done that will tell us for sure. If one has a penis and one does not, this may shine some light on the question. Here is a helpful article if you are interested in the madness that is twins: http://hdydi.com/2014/03/12/identical-or-fraternal-a-primer/
• I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again because this pregnancy has been WAY worse and weirder already for people opening their big fat gabs – if you see me, or any person you suspect may be, or know for a fact that they are, indeed, knocked up – there is truly no need to comment on anything related to belly size. I don’t need to be informed that you feel that I don’t look big enough to be carrying twins. You don’t need to tell me that I look “barely pregnant”. And for the record I AM barely pregnant you dodos! I’ve got (hopefully) about 20-22 weeks left to cook these suckers. That’s a long ass time, and I am sure that at some point I will get giant enough to please your weird expectations. In the meantime, you don’t even need to talk to me anything pregnancy related at all if you don’t want, because I am still me and still have plenty of other things going on in my life that have nothing to do with pregnancy and I would love to talk about:
  • My absolute devastation with what is happening at our borders.

You don’t get to justify this. This one is black and white my friends. Also this:

• My love of private swimming pools. If you have one, I would like to talk about it. I would also like to be inside of it. I am not opposed to public swimming pools, but I do not like seeing foreign clumps of hair floating around my water space. I don’t even mind bandaids, boogers, or other people’s pee… but I have this thing with hair. And don’t give me an open invitation to “use it anytime” if you don’t mean it. Because you will find me spinning around like Eeyore in the river at any time of the day. Or night.

• I would love to discuss any recommendations for good books you’ve read lately! I’ve been plowing through a list I made of mainly thrillers/suspense of the Gone Girl variety but am going to need more to add soon. My goal is to read as much as possible before the Dos Amigos Demon Bambinos arrive and suck all of the fun out of my free time.
• I really, REALLY miss enjoying food. I don’t have many actual food aversions this time around (just chicken sometimes and occasionally mayo and some vegetables) and am usually quite ravenously hungry, but as soon as I nibble I feel like shibble… But I am all ears to hear about your culinary adventures. What have you enjoyed lately? Are you growing your own herbs this year? Any new spices you recommend? What’s new on the MKE food scene? I would love to get fat vicariously through you, if you’ll have me.
• I’ve recently stumbled upon something called ASMR. Please Google, pick a YouTube to watch, and discuss with me. I am v disturbed.
• I ordered an iced coffee at McDonald’s this week and I literally think it was just hot coffee poured over ice. Is that a thing? It was extra no bueno.
• Pick N’ Save was clearancing knackwurst the other week and I bought 10 packages and froze them. If you have a need for some chodey little delicious sauseeges, I am your girl. Also if you’ve never had yourself a knackwurst before you are missing out my friend.

So: any of these topics will be fine, and much more appreciated than a discussion about the size you’ve imagined in your head is a better representation of what my belly should be than what it is. If you are truly interested I will give you a graphic and lengthy description of what has been going on with my body that is contributing to my growth this pregnancy. It starts with “nonstop” and ends with “barfing my brains out” and it is a medical condition that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It is also not a problem that can be fixed with ginger and peppermint, and yes, people have already tried to peddle me their magic supplements and oils and shakes, so I’m gonna have to take a hard pass on whatever you’re selling too. And no, exercise and staying active will not “take my  mind off of it” – in fact, the last time I checked my doc was about one more near fainting episode away from tackling me onto bedrest, so please don’t offer to “coach” me in having a fit pregnancy. Speaking of which, it is literally terrifying to me that there are people who are marketing themselves at fitness/health coaches to people who have medical conditions. My general rule of thumb is I don’t listen to any medical advice from anyone unless they have my degree equivalent or higher (clinically licensed specialists aside) which may be kind of a bitchy thing to say but I don’t really care what anyone or anything has to say unless it’s been published in a medical journal and that’s just how I roll. And sadly, all the medical knowledge in the world still isn’t helping me fully digest much of anything consistently that isn’t found in a brightly colored bag and covered in a orange colored powder. So there’s that.

Body by Cheeto

14) Yet somehow, despite all of this – the two inchworms are growing. And wiggling. And squiggling. And my pants are tight even though my ribs sometimes peek out and my hair is falling out and my skin is a delightful grey color. Miracle of life yo! Kinda like how those flowers I ambitiously planted when the Wisconsin weather tricked me into thinking spring had sprung still pulled through even when temps dropped down to near frost conditions again and now are bursting with color and a delicious perfume that actually doesn’t turn my stomach. Life finds a way!

Slowly but surely!

Deep in the heart of summer already, and loving it!