Blessed

Ok, I admit it. It was just too cute for me to say no.

We went for a trip to the pet store and came home with Nemo. Ben spotted him, an orange gold fish with white splotches, and proclaimed it to be Nemo. He was thus so attached to said fish he didn’t want to look at anything else – there were puppies and kittens and baby bunnies! So we have a new little member of our family. Though we have a long history of not being the best fish owners – they seem to die rather suddenly no matter what we do.

And then the boys decided they wanted to go swimming like Nemo. That fitted in perfectly with my plan to fill up the paddling pool, so after waiting about half an hour for the hose to fill their pool, many trips with buckets of warm water so it was a nice temperature, the boys hopped in and spent about a minute in there, then wanted to know what we were doing next.

Indeed.

I came away from the Cardiologist appointment not feeling happy. Not because of anything that was done, more that I didn’t find out anything and a whole heap of uncertainty now lies ahead of us again. I’m going to divulge some information I am very embarrassed by just to get it off my chest. Thus far I have avoided having to speak of it, but it’s part of the mystery now so here goes:

I was taken off my diuretic at the beginning of the year. Shortly afterwards I started to slowly but surely gain weight.I went back to my doctor repeatedly questioning if it could be fluid. I have very little appetite and when I do eat I make the effort to make healthy choices. I am by no way a health nut, I have slip-ups but nothing major and not repeatedly over any period of time. I have seen a  nutritionist, kept a food diary (Which the nutritionist said she saw very little she would change), tried dieting, tried not eating at all, tried limiting fluid, tried having more fluid and nothing is working. I am continuing to gain weight. Through all this it has been mildly suggested by my doctor I am not telling the full truth about my eating habits. I’ve given up trying to make them believe me.

I’ve gone back on my diuretic, and lost 3kg overnight. I then forgot to take it and that weight came back on. Coincidence? Besides this I am now the heaviest I have ever weighed – heavier than I was at FULL TERM with TWINS!! I don’t like the way I feel or look.

So today I hoped there would be some kind of answer. But everything looks ok, at least no different from last time. So I’m going back for an Echo on Thursday just to rule out any worsening of my heart condition. Meanwhile my White Blood cells are high, my CRP and ESR (Inflammation markers) are through the roof and it seems no one is able to put all the pieces of this puzzle together.

And it just kinda hurt, because I really like my cardiologist, trust him a lot. I explained my lack of apetite and weight gain regardless. He was so nice about it, but did suggest a nutritionist. Which I’m fine with, but it just made me feel again is no one listening to me? I am barely eating at the moment and still gaining weight.

Just feeling very weighed down (Literally and figuratively!) by this at the moment. Doctors keep stressing how important it is I lose weight, but don’t listen when I explain how hard I am trying. Or they listen but don’t believe me which I suspect is actually the case.

So I’ve had more bloods, and it looks like I’ll be back to see the rheumotologist early next year. But what in the meantime? Will this uncontrollable weight gain continue? That is what I am so very scared of. I already don’t want anyone to see me!  And how ridiculous is that when I have much bigger worries – ie that my heart continues to function close to normal. But how does one go from being a low healthy weight to being in the obese BMI category in a matter of three years and deal well with that? Plus the fact even when I was at my lowest weight I still had issues and wanted to be smaller, oh how I wish for those days.

This is just how I feel right now. A little bit of wallowing and I’ll be all good. Plus you will all still love me if I continue to get bigger. Won’t you?

Today being Tuesday I will write all about my terrific talented twins. I hope to make this an ongoing thing so Please leave comments about anything you’d like to know about my twins or twins in general, and I’ll see what i can do.

So to start off Twin Talk Tuesday I’m going to have a look at two other T words – Toilet Training.

Some comments I got right before I started the toilet training journey:

“It’ll be so much easier to do two at once. They’ll just copy each other and use the toilet.”

“Toilet training the twins at the same time will make it so much easier on you.”

“Just train them when they are ready, much easier.”

Number of above comments that have proven right so far:

0

And here’s why:

1. My boys certainly do copy each other. They copy each other by seeing how many different places around they house they can poop in. They have yet to copy each other by using the toilet or the potty.

2. Toilet training them at the same time seemed a good idea in theory, but in reality we were always running out of clothes for one twin. He simply could not be less interested in this whole using the toilet business, so we consentrated on his brother whom is now pretty reliably toilet trained. Now it’s Twin B’s turn.

3. If we waited for twin B to be ready, he would possibly never toilet train. He doesn’t mind if he’s wet. Why go poop on the toilet when he can keep playing and just do it in his pants? Now he’s a smart young man and can totally toilet train if he wanted to. And therein lies the problem.

So, Toilet Training Twins. I have learnt to take it slowly, not get hung up about how long it takes, and to take my cues from my boys as to when to start. I have also learnt the Great value of the STICKER CHART

So, the first of December. A day the twins have waited for with bated breath, the day we could unwrap the Advent calenders! There was great excitement as we all gathered around the couch and I took the plastic wrap off revealing Dora! and Lightning McQueen! There were many smiles until I explained the picture had doors that opened which would help us count down to Christmas. Then I was accused of trying to ruin their new presents.

With the bribe promise of chocolate we finally managed to open the first door. This was the time for the great discussion. Do we start at 24 or 1? The great debate ensued – I say start at 24 as then we know how many sleeps are left. Others say start at 1 as it’s the 1st of December. Nonetheless, it was decided for us by eager boys and the 24th it was.

Much perturbed by the fact the chocolate was quite small, and the fact they seemed to suddenly realise again that I had ‘wrecked’ their new presents, the calenders were quickly abandoned. Ah well, I thought it was a cool idea.

Tomorrow is a big day – the first full day the boys have with their Nanny and my Cardio appointment and myriad of blood tests. Fingers crossed all goes well

This week you shall see what totally toilet trained twins I have. And also how much common sense and foresight I have

It certainly wasn’t me who took both the twins to the supermarket, proceeded to give up on the hunt for a twin trolley and decide – against my better judgement – to let one of them walk. It definitely wasn’t me that decided the safer option was to put James in the trolley and let Ben walk, and then move on to the deli counter and find I no longer had Ben with me. I was not distraught and certainly didn’t call his name out frantically while people looked at me wondering if I had lost my mind. It also was not me that then had a very nice Mummy approach with a tearful Ben and ask if I was his Mum.

And then, it wasn’t me at all who was very relieved, and yet very embarrassed when Ben proclaimed “Mama left me with the yoghurt.” That wasn’t me at all (and even if that had happened it wasn’t me that lost Ben, but Ben that lost me). I certainly would not be that inattentive!

I did NOT have to take a pair of play scissors off James because they had a rather large clump of poop dug onto the end of them. I was not then horrified to find aforementioned poop actually belonged to his brother whom had used the floor as a toilet. I did not have to stop myself from gagging long enough to clean everyone and everything up.

I Certainly did not buy the completely wrong sand for the sandpit. Even though I asked specifically for sandpit sand, the nice salesperson did not give us gravely sand that was anything but good for a childs sandpit. I was not very frustrated, and certainly did not think “I’ll show them” and then proceed to steal sand during yesterday’s beach trip (as an aside, we only needed two buckets). No way, I ‘aint no theif and would certainly never help myself to free sand.

And I did not go outside and cut down a bunch of trees and branches when I knew I should be resting. And I most certainly DID NOT lift said very heavy branches so they all sat in a ‘nice pile’. No way, I know better than that.

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