Another one bites the dust. A pair of cords I’d bought second-hand, maternity but too big even for that. When I tried them on (pre-twin news) I could shimmy them clear off my hips and thought Ha! Never. They’ll always be too roomy but at least they’ll be really, really comfy when I’m on the way to the hospital.

The early retirement of the Too-Roomy Cords marks the beginning of the end …of the beginning.

I’ve even had to break out the dreaded nubbly sweater, the only article of clothing left standing at the last pregnancy’s bitter end. After nicknaming it The Hedgehog, Justin made me promise to throw it away. Alas, I didn’t. When I think it's at the bottom of the laundry pile, it takes its two-stroke dirtbike to the store to shoplift bags of jellybeans. After bedtime when I think it's stuffed in a drawer we hear it in the living room, munching on microwave popcorn while watching reruns of The Addams Family.

On me, its magnetic nubbles trap crumbs and other food-borne droppings. My belly, thanks to The Hedgehog, is a catalogueable exposé of everything I’ve eaten in the past week.

I emerged in it a while back and Justin shrieked like a little girl.

These are desperate days. The Great Heaving Mass pops out the bottom of every shirt I own, irrationally social, an upside-down shelf of breeze-exposed beach ball. Even The Hedgehog can’t contain it. My belly has its own MySpace page with a “My L’il Sluggers” explosion ticker, typed IN ALL CAPS WT FLSHING SMILYS :-P AND OMGs AND LOLs AND U GO GRLZ CUZ UR MY BFF HUN HAHAHA!!!!!

I am 27 weeks pregnant. I’ve gained somewhere close to 25 pounds, but my belly already appears around corners four seconds before the rest of me. People say, "Oh! You’re not as big as I thought you’d be," but they forget, I think, just how much farther I have to go. I wonder: when will they start saying, "Oh! You're... you're... oh dammit woman, you're ENORMOUS! Crap, did I just say that out loud? I was all set to tell you that you weren't as big as I thought you'd be, but no... no. I can't do it!"

Two months left… maybe less, maybe more. I still can’t figure it out: is it folly to lust for the end of this pregnancy when the end means two newborns?

Ants in their pants, the both of ‘em — do not rest your gaze on my independently wriggling belly unless you have a strong constitution. They are like pre-pubescent raccoons on a sugar high trapped in a potato sack. This morning, one of them blew a ziebert on the other side of my skin while the other played tetherball with a kidney.

So what's the upside? The 'trapped' bit, to be sure. Even though I'm sporting The Hedgehog for the third day in a row, I sleep through the night and wear underwired bras and smell delicious.

Two months. Precious little time, that is. All the pantless hobbling in the world can’t dilute the inevitability of this runaway train.

Twin and multiple-offspring mamas of all varieties: is it better to be humongously pregnant plus a toddler, or not-pregnant but immersed in newborn-bootcamp plus a toddler? The fact that I can't decide between the two says enough, methinks, about just how much I want to do the funky chicken around a celebratory Hedgehog bonfire and be done with it.

Kate: I dare you to hassle me about the amount of cream cheese on this bagel. I double-dare you.
Justin: I can’t wait for you to not be pregnant anymore.
Kate: Watch it, mister. Don’t poke the bear.
Justin: (sigh)
Kate: Some mornings you shouldn’t even try to talk to me before I’ve eaten.
Justin: SOME mornings? Are you kidding?

In what has to be a high point in dorkery, the only thing I could manage to say to famed Dutch for his unbelievable plug of this blog was the following:

I am Wayne (or maybe Garth)… and you are Stephen Tyler.

Dutch, Wood and sweet, sweet Juniper: do not be alarmed to see a very rotund Maritimer camped out on your lawn with pom-poms and platefuls of cupcakes.

“Sweet… Juniper!” (…is my new holy sh*t! exclamation for when something really bewilderingly lovely happens.)

When we go there, I can sit on my a** without guilt. The giant sandbox. The beach. Within minutes of where we live, there are a dozen more of them than there are playgrounds — most often deserted and easily a dozen times better.

That’s why you're seeing the same scene played out on Flickr again. And again. And again. It’s what we do. We go to the beach with a picnic and we pile sticks, collect shells and pop dried-up seaweed.

And sometimes we just sit. I Sit, he declares, plopping himself next to me in solidarity. It’s like he knows I haven’t got it in me to run circles with him, and he’s forgiving me for it. It’s okay mama, I just sit. We sit together and we watch the lobster boats, and I dig, and you tell me about whales and pirates and treasure.

After a bleak winter the sky is pure brilliance, blown squeaky clean by the wind, humming with colour and possibility. My camera has leapt back to life. I can’t get enough of that blue. Can you?

He is occupied, and I am still. Pure perfection.

Whenever the doorbell rang in the first few weeks of Evan’s life, I’d open the door four inches wide, just enough for my fist, and then — as unexpected visitors chirped, “We were just driving by…” — KA-POW!

In my dreams.

I wanted privacy. I did not want to be on stage. I wanted the freedom to be as dishevelled as I felt. And not just vain-dishevelled (“Pardon me, but I haven’t showered yet today!”) but diagnostically, hobblingly dishevelled (“Pardon me, but it’s time for me to soak my crotch again. Would you mind helping me get settled on my epsom salt butt-bath?”)

This is what becomes ordinary after giving birth. If you come to the door expecting to immerse yourself in a BabyGap ad, expect instead to be schwucked in the eye with spraying breastmilk. Expect to get regurgitated upon. Expect that smell (from me, not the baby).

I am not dressed. Literally. I am hanging out. Literally. Besides, this much should be obvious — I’D RATHER BE SLEEPING. In fact, I’d rather be doing bloody anything else other than hosting visitors and enduring chit-chat.

Sounds miserable, doesn’t it? It wasn’t. We were just intensely inwardly-focused. We listened to Miles Davis, and rocked, and stared at him in wonder as he slept, and explored his soft, floppy body. We fed him, and fed each other. The rest of the world went ‘pouf!’ and we couldn’t have cared less.

From the moment visitors stepped over the threshold, any sense of calm was vacuumed out of the air, replaced with friction. It didn’t matter how much they’d smile and congratulate — they were gawking, an unwanted audience despite the best of intentions.

How’re they holding up? A bit awkward, didn’t you think? Don’t quite seem to have the hang of it yet. They seemed really, like, tired. She was limping around… them’s the breaks with a labour-fresh patootie. Gawd. And did you see her boob? It looked like a botched implant. Or a live grenade. Yowza. The kid was.. uhh.. pretty cute though.

My parents: check. Justin’s parents: check. Relatives of all shapes, sizes and sorts: check — as long as they’re willing to roll up their sleeves and help me get settled on my epsom salt butt-bath. Anonymous casseroles: check.

Anyone else? Do Not Pass Go. DO NOT park yourself on the couch and make me offer you a drink. Do not just sit there and watch me with the baby with that simpering grin on your face.

I’m already anxious about the first few months, dreading the inevitable magnetism of twins. During boot camp, I want peace, and quiet, and solitude — and everything on my own terms.

I don’t need people to be in awe at the sight of us: Wow, look at them, so unaffected by the new baby. Haven’t let it change them at all! They were out at the pub a week afterwards, did you see them? They just hop in the car and go! They just bring the baby with them everywhere. Good for them.

I know what people thought after we had Evan: They really need to loosen up. They need to just keep doing the things they did before. They said they couldn’t come out for dinner, did you hear that? They said it was ‘naptime’. Hmph.

Truth is, we were like that for a good many months. But it worked for us. We were too consumed with keeping care of ourselves to miss the company of the civilized world.

We knew it wouldn’t be like that forever. And in the meantime, being uptight gave us freedom. Within the safe haven of our ecosystem we learned how to be parents in peace. And to us, peace was more important than getting a stamp of approval from the In-Order-To-Be-A-Cool-Hip-Parent-Your-Life-Should-Continue-Uninterrupted camp. The moments when we tried free-spiritedness on for size were disruptive and exhausting — and almost never worth the effort involved.

But that’s just us. We’re natural hermits, peas in a pod.

Fast-forward to three months from now: I fear a steady stream of ooglers lined up to witness the spectacle at our expense. I’m totally serious about the sign on the door. And I’m totally expecting that the random visitors will think it applies to everyone else except them.

Another twin-mama advised post visiting hours, and make no exceptions. I couldn’t agree more. We’ll have a twin-oogling open house, and I’ll have plenty of time to apply industrial-strength undereye concealer and tuck in my exploding nipples. Otherwise, the phone will be unplugged. The windows will be blacked out. The door will be booby-trapped, dumping unexpected knockers with vats of steaming baby shit.

That’s what this blog is for, after all. Not real-live steaming baby shit — but pictures of it, supplied plentifully to be enjoyed at a distance, at your convenience and ours. You’ll get a closer view from here without getting sprayed or punched in the face. Spread the word.

What’s your take on boot camp etiquette? Any other new-baby scrooges out there, or am I just a first-class ‘If-You-Put-A-Lump-Of-Coal-Up-Her-Ass- In-Two-Weeks-You’d-Have-A-Diamond’ grump?

He is Borat. He sinks into a warm bubble bath: is niiice. Takes a bite of crispy pear: is niiice. Snuggles into bed with mama and dada in the morning: Jammies: off. Diaper: off. <stretches> Ahhh, is niiice.

He takes my hand, leads me to the couch, positions me like a raggedy Jabba the Hutt doll and curls up, doggedly perching on the last remaining ¾ inch of lap. Cuddle, ahhh. Is niiice.

Everything ends with ‘okay’. Okay means Yes, please. But it also means OBEY ME NOW. Dada, cuddle — OKAY. As if to say “This is settled. It has been discussed and decided upon. I now give you permission to pass me that cookie.”

He is Obi Wan Kenobi: These are not the droids you’re looking for. You may go about your business — OKAY.

Meanwhile, I am a giant banana slug. It is the first trimester, the sequel. The movie trailer booms: "Like before, ONLY BIGGER! In a time when time stood still…"

I am plastered to the couch, constantly winded. Blood rushes from my head and legs simultaneously, begging the question: where does it all go?

<sssccchhwuck! as Kate gets hit square in the forehead with cluegun> Uhh, right. The Belly. Duuh.

I can’t stand or walk for long without bending over, bracing hands to knees. I lay prostrate with my feet up, one pillow between my legs and another tucked underneath The Great Heaving Mass.

Some wretched, sheltered dolt asked me tonight, “Aren’t you doing yoga, like last time?”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “It’s very deep. Only the most elevated of yogis can appreciate the intensity of such devotion to my practice. Twelve hours every day, sideways-sprawl corpse pose. Lululemon is on their way over right now to shoot it for their fall campaign. I’m going to be so totally IT.”

To the perspective of all except my fetuses, I am completely useless. They thrive despite me, a nutritional black hole. I crave fluffy white carbs, nestle quik, salty eggs and spoonfuls of butter. I inhale fresh broccoli and omega-threes as I waddle past at the grocery store, banking on osmosis.

Evan and I share cans of alpha-getti. There. I said it. I can’t believe I just said that, but it’s true. Justin asks me what we had for lunch, and I tell him, and he stands there grimly with his hands on his hips, shaking his head at me like I’m a dog that’s just shat on the living room rug. “Oh, not again! BAD KATE!”

On getting up from the la-z-boy (whose velour is now permanently wile-coyoted with an imprint of my pregnant butt) I’ve actually been heard to moan, “Ohhh, my sciatica!” while bracing my lower back with the heels of my hands.

I am, finally, sitcom-pregnant.

And on a related side-note, Justin is a saint.

“I can’t believe I still have, like, MONTHS to go,” I said to him last night.

“Me neither,” he replied, quite miserably.

See, I wait until he gets up of his own accord, then: Oh! You’re getting up? Can you do me a favour? Can you fill up my water bottle and cut up that pint of strawberries and grab me a cookie? But only if there’s chocolate left if it’s just the ginger then never mind because ginger doesn’t go with strawberry. And can you put on some milk to heat up and can you stir it and add nutmeg and vanilla? The real vanilla, not the cheap stuff. And then can you pass me the duvet because my feet are cold but I can’t reach them. While you’re there is there any chance you could scratch my…

Poor guy. All he wanted was to take a piss.

Just like how <cue movie trailer narration> "IN THE BEGINNING... in a time before time stood still... all he wanted to do was PLAY HIDE THE PICKLE..."

There’s lightness, almost unbearable. He brings his face an inch from mine and places an open palm on each of my cheeks. Mama kiss, he declares earnestly, and presses his slack, spitty mouth to my upper lip. We stare at each other, eyes clownishly wide, lash-to-lash. I always crack up first. Now dada turn! Dada, whea ahh yoooou?

But then there’s darkness. From the moment you see squirming purple legs, something deep and visceral, almost animal, takes root. The umbilical cord only gets stronger with every moment that passes since it’s been cut.

We hear of it ending prematurely for others — parents parted from children — and it reverberates like an electric shock. Alone in a roomful of thieves you crouch over a treasure, knowing that one of them will inevitably succeed in taking you from it, or it from you. Will it be today, tomorrow, or fifty years from now?

To contemplate the answer ties us into knots. Thank goodness for emotional respite: continued, grassroots demand for kisses, fresh bums and grilled cheese sandwiches.

I occupy the vast gulf between compost and white beards. There’s too much mystery in the world for life’s end to be the exclusive domain of micro-organisms. Yet there’s too much relativity in life for heaven to be a club, at which a father, son and ghost reduce the sum of our deeds to You Get In, and You Don’t.

My God smells like Murphy’s Oil Soap. He is a kindly university professor with a nubby argyle sweater and sensible shoes. He’s not awesome, fearsome or any other sort of -some. He listens to what we don’t say. He never needs to point out when we’re on the wrong path. He simply asks the right questions until we figure that out on our own. He has nothing to prove, and he’s far too rational to hold it against us when we doubt him. He invites Darwin and Galileo over for tea and whoopie pies every Tuesday. He’s a little worn out, but endlessly patient. He thinks we’d get along much better if we weren’t so insufferably literal. He’s not nearly as cut-and-dried as religion would have us believe.

Everything so far — God’s argyle sweater, unbearable lightness and darkness, the great void between worms and an afterworld of cottonball clouds — came to mind when Thordora and GNMParents put out a call for posts. Tell us about your parents, they said. Or someone who’s parented you.

My contribution is loosely interpreted. Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant, a time when the darkness and the dread picks up strength, a chemical phenomenon. Parenting and loss, absence and presence. Vulnerability and fleeting preciousness as these babies turn somersaults inside me.

Recently, I got a letter from my Grandma Joe. She had a friend pass it on.

She had written it in the late-1980s to a friends’ daughter who had given birth to twins. They forwarded it on to my parents a few months ago after finding it in an old desk. The Robsons might like to see one of Billie’s old letters, they thought randomly, and put it in the mail less than a week after our twin-confirming ultrasound. They knew nothing of me, Billie’s granddaughter, clobbered flat with this news.

But she knew. She was the first to know. She was with me in the ultrasound room as I lay staring at the ceiling. She didn’t say anything — she just sat quietly in the chair, hands folded on her lap, looking from me to the screen and back again, smiling.

She died in 1997.

But if you knew my grandmother, you’d agree: it is so like her that she willed these words to find us. She is practicality incarnate.

…I feel a strong bond with anyone else who has twins. For one thing, I felt so blessed — after all, it isn’t everyone who is smart enough to produce twins, and the joys far exceed the ‘difficulties’… which is hardly the right word to use, as things do work out and it’s fun to meet the challenges — sort of like learning to juggle, I suppose!

What a memorable time your mother will have when she visits you and gets acquainted with the babies! I’d like to be a mouse in the corner. Those babies won’t be tiny for very long — before you know it they’ll be running around getting into mischief and you’ll wonder where the time went.

I didn’t know until after they arrived that I’d had twins, so I had no time to figure out how to handle things. But one day at a time, we managed and enjoyed it. And you will too! Love, Billie

An umbilical cord stretches from one dimension to another, regardless of mother or father, making itself known. Have you ever felt that tug? An inexplicable feeling of company, commentary, listening or watching?

The love of a mother or father endures, a constant force, even though it can be faint, transmitted through many layers of interference. After all, the origin of that love — that enduring, unconditional love — may reside a long, long way away, munching on tea and whoopie pies in some other dimension.

I am well-rehearsed by now. Easily digestible, ten-second soundbites: Oh yes indeed… <chuckle> it’s more than we bargained for. But once they get here, I'm sure we won’t be able to imagine anything different. <smile>

I should have a keypad installed on my belly: PRESS ONE TO DIFFUSE SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS. PRESS TWO TO BASK IN GESTATIONAL GLOW. At which point appropriate blurbs will plop cheerfully from my mouth, satisfying one and all.

I don’t even think about what I say anymore. I just pick one at random and out it bubbles, giving young couples a chance to snap dropped jaws back into place (you don’t think she registered our vicarious terror, did she? Did I look like as much of a bullet-dodger as I felt?) and making book clubs and quilting bees swoon.

I’ve reverted to a state of second-wind denial.

But then Evan ties himself into knots over some horrific injustice (inconveniently crumbly cheese, for instance), flailing and kicking, and before I know it I’m two slammed doors away, hyperventilating. Justin comes in and it pours out: I didn’t want three kids. I don’t want three kids. I can’t do this. I can’t add two infants to THIS. This can’t be my life. I didn’t want three. I never wanted three.

To feel this way — I only wanted one, and even then, I wanted it to be a girl — while they squirm and kick under my skin… it’s traitorous. It makes me unmotherly. They pick up these currents, I have no doubt. Emotional pheromones souring the ph balance of my womb.

I’m not asking for you to prop me up, tell me how well I’m going to cope. When it comes from you, even when it’s said with love and concern, it still comes from you, you with your peanut-gallery tickets. Don’t tell me everything’s going to be fine unless you’re offering to take my place.

Why couldn’t I have just become pregnant with one baby, like everyone else? Why? It would have been so much easier. That’s the truth of how I feel. It bubbles up past my defenses, past the poker-face I’ve adopted: intense, throat-swelling panic.

'Japanese boy legs'. 'Humongous breasts'. 'Sexy kitty messy face'. 'Midget mud-wrestling'. And, the recent landslide winner: 'men in rubber boots'. They find me by some random, perfect storm of words (or not so random), click with breathless anticipation and then… GACK! Un blog fricking de la mama! ¡Lo único que deseo es acción muy pequeña caliente! *##%^@*$&!!  …and click away inside of zero seconds.

But lately, the worldwide fetish community devoted to men in rubber boots has exploded. I can’t figure it out. From Peru. Japan. Spain. All over the States. Upwards of ten a day land on the same picture from an image search. They land and leave: that’s fine. But a few of them STAY. They click on the one hot man category and devour post after post, rapt with Justin’s potent straightness.

While I can’t blame you, I have to admit that you give me the queebs. Thanks to the big brother that is StatCounter, I see you. I’m keeping track of you so that if you start lurking, I’ll know where you came from. My hands are tied but my eyes are open. Last night, ‘Pervy Rubber Boot Googler #4’ from Milwaukee went through 27 posts. And returned this morning for 6 more.

Here’s what I hope: you’re a young wife just married into a family-run footwear factory, and you were online searching for new and innovative rubber boot designs. You saw Justin’s picture and thought, “Hmm! There’s an interesting variety of hosta in that yard. I enjoy gardening. <click>… hey! Fancy that, a mommy blog! I’m about to become a mommy, and I’m feeling very skittish about it. I wonder what this mommy has to say?”

To all my sisters-in-skittishness known and unknown, I extend a hearty welcome.

But you could also be a pantless, pervy nutcase who drives a windowless cube van airbrushed with frolicking unicorns and who’s become obsessed with my husband and figured out WHO WE ARE and WHERE WE LIVE and has decided to camp out in our blackberry bushes like so many Tom Cruise fans and lost-sheep scientologists. Except we don’t have bodyguards and electrified fencing.

YOU. You creep me out. Please go away… unless you’re a mama or papa in search of solidarity (by way of… uuhhh… rubber boots). If that's the case, I’m thrilled to see you. I’ll make you a pot of tea and sit you down and feed you my pumpkin spice cookies and let you take a warm bath in familiar anxieties and you’ll feel restored and laugh a little and know that everything is going to be okay.

But here’s what makes me figure that Milwaukee Pervy Rubber Boot Googler #4 justifies his newly christened IP label. It's two things: first, women are more likely to focus their pervy googling on somewhat less obscure targets (Viggo. James Alexander Malcom MacKenzie Fraser. Those oozing chocolate lava cakes baked in tiny ramekins.) And second, the reaction we used to get in the west end of Vancouver. You’ve seen the ads in the classifieds section of the Georgia Strait: Man Seeking Straight-Looking Man.

Walking down Davie Street, oblivious, Justin would cause a seventeen-car pileup. Painters would tumble off their ladders through sheets of plate glass. Entire barbershop quartets would wander into speeding traffic, dazed. It was pandemonium. The faded levi’s, the hiking boots, the plaid shirt, and, even sometimes, for those with reeeeally fortunate timing, the thick, luscious beard. He was so straight he glowed like Rudolph in thick fog. I mean, look at this: he WASN’T POSING. And for the love of Cher, you all dig it.

Please accept my sincere apologies, residents of the Davie Street area, for the lingering stiffness <ahem> ...from the whiplash my husband caused with his presence on your street. Heck, it always made me proud, to have him on my arm. I snapped a few z’s, I must confess. I worked it, girl!

Shout out to Milwaukee. Are you a pervy nutcase? Or are you a harmless fellow breeder in need of a virtual pot of tea and spice cookies and steaming shared-anxiety bath? I’d like to know.

For the record, I’ve got nothing against pervs. Some of my best friends are pervs. And anyway, it’s not the mere man-seeking-man bit that’s pervy (I’ve known men-seeking-men who are practically more wholesome than me).

It’s the sitting-at-your-computer-in-Milwaukee-without-pants-on-making-your-keyboard-all-sticky thing.

I’m off to take a scalding shower. And so is my laptop.

Oh, greeeeat. Now I’ll attract all kinds of human-showering-with-machine fetishists. <sigh>

A family played tunnel in the gloom of early morning, burrowing under the duvet, the ritual. The little boy reached his hand up to grasp his daddy’s chest hair, and said with great conviction:

Bird’s nest. Daddy’s bird’s nest.

And we were speechless.