Things Go Moo In The Night…

The twins hit a growth spurt, new stretch marks have appeared, and I’ve lost the ability to sit in ANY position with any comfort what-so-ever. (And most of the time I just plain can’t as The Belly gets in the way haha)

And I’m as ill as a dog. Lost my voice. Have some kind of infection and I’m on antibiotics. I hope they work because I feel worse every day. This’ll be a sluggish Christmas ~ but wonderful just the same.

I can hear my wean wailing. I’ll see if she wants a sook of milk. We had twin calves born last night! I’ve been beaten in the race by a cow!!!!

As we are not able to shut the electricity off here on the farm we did our best to participate in the “Power Off Weekend” by visiting Malcom and Rachel at their candle-lit home instead. The three of us (Me, Erlend, and wee Elspeth) spent a lovely afternoon, and part of the evening, at their home before an open fire. I sat by one of the windows and was afforded a fantastic view of Scapa Flow and Stromness in the distance.

As the sun set (and Stromness lit up!) there were candles lit, the conversation continued, and toasted cheese made ~ as well as roasted chestnuts heated in a cast iron skillet. As we sat aboot talking and enjoying each other’s company Elspeth made sure and spread her toys far and wide and then poke aboot everything that she could get her hands on. She was especially interested in The Coffee Table of Delights! But I must admit, she’s a very accomodating baby and had no problem allowing us adults to enjoy ourselves for several hours ~ all without her having taken an afternoon nap! She slept in her car seat on the way home and now we are preparing the wee beastie for a quick crawl aboot the sheep byre (while daddy feeds the sheep) and then off to bed with little miss curly head!

We have a friend from America due on the midnight Aberdeen ferry so today, “Pink candle Sunday” in Advent, is turning out to be Gaudate Sunday indeed! As well as tiring haha! I’ve not had a nap so I can hardly type and Erlend is the one that has to drive into Kirkwall at 10:30pm. It’s nice having an Aberdeen-to-Kirkwall ferry. Just wish it came in at a better hour…

Double Pram for Twins

Thanks to a friend that happens to be a Bargan Huntress we now have a much more affordable Dream Pram option ~ to the tune of nearly £600 less!!!! Erlend said we can get it and so V~~ is going to make an offer and do all that fancy Ebay stuff for us. I’m so thrilled!! Now I won’t be hoose-bound after the twins arrive! I can get back to my nice daily walks… good for mum and for babies!

Turns into double pushchair

Photo evidence that Elspeth DOES, on ocassion, hold still long enough for a cuddle!!

(A bit of a rambling post. Hope I don’t bore you to death… but I dunno, I feel rude if I just ask for help locating stuff without having a bit of a conversation at least!!! Haven’t given very many updates about anything since getting preggo again…)

Ok, so, I have really sensative skin and I break out with synthetics and the same goes with Erlend so I am playing it safe with our kids. Problem is, I can only find super-expensive organic cotton hats and such on line. Is there anywhere here in Orkney that sells basic cotton (or even wool, wool-blended-with-cotton) baby hats that don’t cost the earth?

Also, last time I ended up with a bazillion scratch mitts that were HUGE! They were sold as “newborn” size and they are so big Elspeth could wear them right now! Are any of you in the know where I can find small, actual *newborn* sized scratch mitts?? Either that or I could use cheap cotton socks.  (We used socks for Elspeth’s hands ~ even after she left the newborn scratchy phase she kept ripping her own hair out and leaving awful lumps on her little scalp!!! If these two come out hairy… we still use socks as mittens for Elspeth. That’ something I learned from mom…)

If you know of an on-line store with decent prices or a store here in Orkney I’d love to be let in on the secret haha! I just haven’t been able to waddle about toon with this awful pelvis. I go shopping for the basics like food and then I’m too trashed to poke around from shop to shop looking for cotton hats and mitts and such.

So far I have two cotton swaddling cloths, a lovely cotton bumper for the cot we were given for FREE via the Bruck Swap show, cotton sheets, .. I’d like to have some of those nice cot drapes to pull around the top of the crib as it will be in the livingroom but they cost something like £35 on naturespurest.co.uk … not sure if that’s a good deal or what? Any ideas? Can I find cot drapes elsewhere for less? I’ve been googling but to no avail. They don’t need to be cotton as the weans won’t be snuggled in them. But I’d like to avoid garish bright colors. If I could sit down like a normal person I’d just sew some up from an old, mellow-color sheet! (This pelvis issue won’t let me sit on anything that’s hard. Even the chairs at the mart are hell!)

The other thing I can’t find anywhere on-line or in the local chemist shops any more: these FANTASTIC Tommee Tippee milk bibs. They are plain terry-cloth edged in either cream, pink, or blue. But their selling point is the padded collar that snugs right around the fat baby neck and keeps milk from rolling down into those newborn fat rolls. We’re still using them with Elspeth but I need another stash as Elspethy goes through them quickly! Have any of you seen them either on line or in any shop around Orkney??

(I love organics and I love to buy Fair Trade but these things are so expensive and thus are not necessary for newborns because the babies grow so fast! (Or even young babies for that matter.) You spend £28 for a hat-bottie-and-mitt set only to have it not fit in a few weeks! Regular cotton or wool or other natural blends are fine.)

Everyone back home keeps asking me, “What do you need? What do you need??” but to be honest, except for scratch mitts, baby hats, and those stellar Tommee Tippee bibs, we pretty much have everything that we need! So I don’t know what to tell folk. They are dying to spoil the twins rotten but everyone, even folk here in Orkney, spoiled Elspeth so rotton that we have enough clothes to outfit a small tribe!! We have several winter coats, several winter “snow suits” (I don’t know what to call them ~ one peice padded wintery outfits for ouside in the or car seat??) boatloads of clothes for 0 - even 18 months!! Our attic is absolutely groaning with clothes.

Oh!! I know: I can ask folk back home to send some hooded baby towels. We only have two. But wait… if I do that we’ll end up with 300!!! Nevermind. Eeeek! Uh… hmmm… I am tempted to say, “We don’t need anything, thanks” but will that make people feel shut out and snubbed?? It’s not that we wouldn’t use what is sent it’s just that… at what point do you tell folk to save your money ~ we’re honestly 100% all set… and at what point do you zip it and let people enjoy GIVING??

(Yessirreee… Elspeth is on the go and several of our doors are so warped they won’t close properly. Besides, who wants to live with closed doors? I’d rather have gates so we can all see and hear and… breathe!!)

And now: how about some cheerful updates?? The twins are doing very well. Growing like fat weeds in my belly while tormenting my internal organs to no end. However, regardless, I’m doing very well also! No health issues, just crippled pelvis galore. Which is awful but not a threat. Meanwhile our friend from the States is on her way TODAY! Erlend will pick her up from the Aberdeen ferry at midnight on Sunday. (Er… midnight Monday morning??) She’s staying until mid-March and cannot wait for the adventure of seeing Orkney!!!!!

Elspeth is doing REALLY well. We still haven’t seen any of those major spasms. Her cluster-spasms (less violent) still come and go but not as frequently. They cause weird problems like the other day when she crawled head-first into the kitchen cabinets while having them. (Yes, she can crawl while having these spasms. As a medic I saw epileptics having seizures while stumbling around and talking! Seizures are odd things.) Me and Erlend are crossing our fingers and hoping Elspeth is outgrowing these things ~ which apparently isn’t uncommon!! They get them for the first year or so and then they go away… but without test results we don’t know if this is brain tumor or what? She does have developmental delays (also learning delays) of a minor nature but hey, no matter what we’ll accept her for who she is. And the cool thing is: even with the delays, she learns! She’s very bright and sharp even if it takes a bit longer for things to “click.” Eventually they DO click so that’s great!!

When Elspeth grows up she

If anyone would like to see Elspethy in the flesh… we are having a carole service at our kirk on December 17th at 7pm. (Athiests, agnostics, Pagans welcome hehehe!) I just can’t get out and visit. I can’t walk. I can’t chase Elspeth if she’s at your house. I just sit there like a slug in pain going, “no, don’t touch that!” 857 times while YOU chase MY kid. I waddle aboot town every now and then but I’m so trashed I end up back in the car. So if anyone wanted to say “howdy” and have a good visit ~ and a good time singing! ~ and a good pinch of Elspeth’s fat wee cheeks ~ I’ll be in a central location on the 17th hahahahaha! With Amy, our Mennonite friend, and Erlend my handsome farmer. You’ll easily spot me: I’m the HUGE one dressed like a French peasant. (I love my maternity smocks!!) So, with all of everything said in this lonnnng post, I wish you all a lovely Advent season (not Christmas yet!) and hope you are enjoying a lovely winter wherever you happen to be!! And now… I’m going to TRY to work through a pile of laundry upstairs. Erlend has the wean… I have freedom… will my pelvis and heart allow me to work? LOL! That is the question of the day every day hahaha!! Cheerio for noo!!!!!!!!!!

Which, uh, isn’t a surprise. More then likely the results are in but you know how hospitals are. “Call the patient and let them know the results? NEVER!” We are trying to be patient but once I can take it no longer I’ll make an appointment with Dr. H~~~ and whine and see if he can find anything out. But “they” doon sooth are so incredibly oot of touch with “us” up here in the Wild North and I’ve yet to have anything show up on my records here that have been done down there. Will this be the same fate with Elspethy’s tests etc??? Arrg.

There is good news: She hasn’t had any of her really big spasms in a while. She continues to have the smaller clusters of spasms every day (Where she’s far more responsive and they are much less violent) so maybe she’s outgrowing these things?????????? That’d be great!!

Sweet little booties for the twins

 We were given a lovely gift the other day from our friends Rachel and Malcom ~ hand knitted wool booties for our winter weans! They are so sweet and soft. I can’t wait to put them on two pairs of tiny newborn feet.

By the way, for those of you that might be interested: Malcome and Rachel have a lovely website where they are sharing great frugal, “good stewardship” ideas and tips, complete even with video instructions sometimes! They’ve stareted something called, “The Touchwood Project.” Really interesting! Not one bit preachy or radical while deffinately informative and helpful. Their website address is:

www.touchwoodproject.com

Even if you aren’t sure, it’s still worth a look.

Cheerio for noo! Time to get Elspethy changed and ready for a sook and a kip. :-)  (I’ll just conveniently kip with her hahha!)

Erlend and Elspeth are away to Aberdeen so our peedie bairn can be checked for epilepsy at the Children’s Hospital. Being pregnant makes me soooo hormonal that I’m like a coo looking for her calf! And the thought of my wean and my husband on a plane… yeah, it’s not as if the plane wouldn’t crash if I was there but that’s my main worry. So I told Erlend to call me as soon as he gets to Aberdeen so I can breathe a sigh of relief.

My poor Elspethy! She has to have brain scans and heart scans and blood tests with needles! But she’s with daddy and she adores daddy and Erlend is a fantastic father so that brings me endless comfort.

It’s easier when we drop her off at her godparents’ house and go somewhere ourselves because we’re so distracted. To be left behind uuuugh! But even when me and Erlend are off to Aberdeen ourselves for appointments we still get depressed and miss our baby!

While my wee family is gone I’m going to try and get some decluttering done around this hoose. But my heart is really strained with this twins pregnancy and now it’s gotten to the point where the least exertion on my part sets it off. I’ve been assured that it’s not dangerous ~ but it certainly is exhausting and I end up in bed gasping, short of breath, and feeling like death warmed over.

I’m certain I can at least get the clutter cleared off of the kitchen counter. I’ve done that before without too much complaint from my heart. Erlend kindly picked everything, every toy, every baby book, every anything off of the kitchen and livingroom floors and set them onto higher places so I can put stuff away without having to bend over. Which really sets my heart off! (Not to mention my furious pelvis.)

I’m due for a c-section at the end of January but I will not complain if my body decides to show these twins the door a bit earlier! But only as long as it’s safe. The twins are doing VERY well: Big, robust, healthy. But it feels as if my own body is getting more and more trashed as each day passes. I try not to stress it but it’s rough being crippled, in excrutiating pain 24 hours a day, with a crazy heart to put the icing on the cake! It’s not dangerous etc etc etc… I know. It’s easy for medical folk to be relaxed but that’s because they are on the outside of all this physical crap!! The heart issue is genetic and runs right through my mother’s side of the family like a wide river. I made it to 28 before I felt anything. For a while there I thought I had escaped!! But nope. I guess you can’t run from genetics haha! (Turns out the pelvis thing is probably genetic too. Mom had issues, couldn’t get me out and I was only 6 pounds vs. Elspeth’s robust 8 pounds. I have other relatives that couldn’t get their kids oot either. Their pelvises just plain wouldn’t open up and were shaped kinda funny. My Aunt Diane is adament that my pelvis is TINY. But I’ve been buxom for so long I forgot that yes, I was a very slight girl with absolutely no curves. “A male pelvis” as our community midwife commented. “Yes.” I told her. “Even when I’d wear pink and have fingernail polish … I’d be called ‘young man’!!”)

I don’t look young man now! I look like a buxom pregnant lady with a delightfully matronly figure! How fun to have children even if pregnancy totally SUCKS.

I miss my wean already. And my mellow, easy-going-even-with-a-pregnant-hormonal-wife husband! They’ll be back in twelve lonnnnng hours. Hopefully I can get something done around here so the downstairs at least looks decent. Just in time for Elspethy to rip it apart again hahahaha!!

Cheers!

Twins!! Can you believe it? Yeah, I know I haven’t been around for like six months but pregnancy is rough and I’m sooooo crippled. Been down with some hard-core heart misbehaviors but fear not, none of that stuff is dangerous. Keeps me too lightheaded to think straight but it won’t kill me. But my heart is starting to quiet down and I’m beginning to feel slightly human. Albeit a very over-stuffed human being! I’m in my 6th month but look like I’m at least TEN months along!!!!! I’m due at the end of January with a scheduled c-section since I can’t get babies out the regular way.

TWINS!! It’s just so cool! Two babies for the price of one pregnancy. A bargan if I ever saw one! Erlend is just as thrilled.

Elspeth is doing great! She had her first birthday at the end of October ~ a strange day because it’s also the day her grandmother died in 2005. (My mum, not Erlend’s.) Elspeth is standing up now so any day she’ll be walking. She loves to chatter away and she says a lot of cute things like, “Light on!” and she blows when she sees a candle. (Or I say “candle” haha!)  Me and Erlend are having so much fun being parents. Elspeth is a joy to have in our lives and we can’t wait to add these next two into the fray! Hopefully Elspeth won’t mind too much???

Ok, time for bed. This beached whale of a too-pregnant woman (can’t…breathe…no…room…for…lungs…) doesn’t have the stamina to stay awake much at all haha! And it’s going on 11 so I’m about to keel over!

Cheerio fae noo!

(Since I don’t have permission to use names, I’m being vauge on purpose.)

The press is coming!!

Which is actually a good thing because once we discovered that our bees were not wasps, but in fact honey bees, neither myself nor Erlend wanted to exterminate the critters. But they have to go. What to do?!

Killing them woudl be such a shame because of all of the colony collapse disorder and honey bees disapearing in droves all over the world! Personally I think killing them all off would be quite irresponsible too, in light of the dearth of honey bees. Hence our desire to have the bees removed rather then exterminated.

So we’re kinda on a “Save The Bees” kick and it seems that the local press is very interested in helping these honey critters to live and be relocated.

We have the local radio station + one of the local papers coming here to the hoose.

But in an interesting development, we also have two beekeepers coming as well! The local paper called (sorry, no names!) and told me of a lady that can help, gave me her name and number, and wished us good luck. Well, said lady actually called me! We chatted about the situation and then it turns out WE KNOW EACH OTHER hahahaha! Too funny!

Having two beekeepers coming is a good thing too because now the press won’t have to be worried about “What are we going to do to save the bees?” and can report on a hopeful outcome while also broadcasting the story and possibly enlisting the invaluable help/knowledge of more bee people.

(Also, the beekeepers can do most of the talking and that’ll get me off of the hook hehehehe)

I’ve been informed that removing this colony from our lum is “going to be hell” so any help will be deeply appreciated ~ especially by the bees!!

I’m actually not all that nervous about the press arriving because they’re not coming here for me hahaha! So I can relax. They’re coming for the beezees.

We’ll have the radio station, the local paper, and two beekeepers aboot ~ all while, get this: a man from the department of agriculture is here inspecting Erlend’s silage pits.

And here I thought that our 3rd anniversary was going to be a dull, non event!

Yeah right. On a farm????

Flying Cat, that clever feline indeed, was spot on: I said to Erlend last night, “Well… I did want to try my hand at keeping bees. But not inside of the hoose!!”

So, anyhoo, it seems that K~~~ and H~~~ up the road not only rescue me when my tarts blow up in the oven but they also specialize in rescuing panicking pregnant ladies from an infestation of bees. While K~~~ called around to try and find a bee getter-outter, H~~~ hustled down to the farm (in an antique car no less!) and closed himself in the bee-ridden livingroom armed with a can of wasp spray. I heard a lot of moving aboot, shots of spray, silence, more moving aboot… and H~~~ soon emerged with the bottom of a pasta sauce jar full of wriggling bees. They looked like honey bees to me. I don’t think that our lum dwellers are wasps.

H~~~ then whipped out a folding ruler and proceeded to engineer a Fireplace Blocking Device created out of cardboard and duct tape. With this in place we soon had peace and quiet in the livingroom.

Until this evening, at exactly the same time as yesterday evening! All of a sudden… the livingroom began to fill up with baffled bees!! Only they were anything but agressive and always stuck to the window in a desparate bid to escape. So Erlend got rid of the bees and then we perched in the livingroom and watched the cardboarded fireplace like a pair of hawks. A bee appeared, then two more… but we had no idea how they got out! An hour or so later we saw two bees wriggle their way out of a weensy crack in the mantelplace!!!!!!

I give these bees much credit for creativity… “C’mon, mates! Just follow the light!!”

Erlend set upon this (and every other crack he could find) with paper towels and stuffed everything good. Then we sat there and listened as a massive swarm of honey bees built up behind the cardboard. TALK ABOUT CREEPY!! I was just in there working on my book (by now the wean had been bathed and put to bed) and all I could hear was bee upon bee buzzing away just behind the cardboard, looking for a way to escape…

I fled. It’s all just a bit too Alfred Hitchcock for me!!!

With that said… are there any beekeepers aboot that might be able to help us remove the bees from the lum without having to kill them? Because their days are numbered otherwise…

(Seriously, I could write my own “Katie Morag” version of life on Orkney!!)