Molly Piper

My husband’s uber-talented cousin Sunny has a very informative step-by-step post about how to make this homemade tent.

I think this is so adorable, and totally want to make one. I was thinking it might have to wait until Christmas, but it’s somewhere on my radar, at least.

I just LOVE this thing!

What crafty projects are on your wish-I-could-do list?

If you jump over to Abraham’s latest post, you’ll see a very short video he edited last night of Morrow doing his latest trick.

Morrow is 20 months tomorrow, which means he’ll be turning two after the twins are born. Lord have mercy…

One of the weird things about expecting twins is not knowing my timetable. When I thought it was a single baby, I was kinda like:

Okay, baby at the end of August. I’ll stop working at the end of May, and then I’ll have the whole summer to hang out with the boys and do fun and productive stuff.

Hmmm…

I get the most stressed out right now by the not knowing. Mostly it’s not knowing when I’m going to be basically incapacitated, or functioning at a very low level.

At my doctor’s appointment last week, she told me to expect to look and feel 40 WEEKS at 28 weeks. WHAT?!?!?

So now the twin-time time crunch is on! In the next couple months I need to:

• Buy a mini-van. We started the process on Saturday, and it was exhausting! I will definitely NOT want to be traipsing waddling around car lots when I feel 40 weeks pregnant.
• Get stuff! We now have our infant car seats, some hand-me-down cribs, and a double Snap & Go stroller (which I hear is an essential for twins).

Little Morrow excitedly checking it all out.

Funny side story: Morrow loves babies. He loves to say baby. He loves to wave his hands in front of babies’ faces and say, “Hi baby!!!” So when he saw Abraham out the back window bringing this loot home, he started yelling, “BABY! BABY!” I think he thought we were actually getting 2 babies, not just 2 car seats.

Anyway, back to my twin-time list:

• Get a bunk bed for the boys’ room. Our friend Phil is going to build one for us! By the way (shameless plug coming), Phil has his own custom woodworking and remodeling company. If you live in the Twin Cities and need anything fix-it related, he’s a trustworthy man who’s great at what he does!
• Transition Morrow and Orison into the same room. This was always the plan (because I don’t think kids need their own rooms), but now the timetable is really moving up!
• Set up the cribs and decorate the girls’ room. My friend Jenna is going to help me make the bedding. These are the fabrics I’m thinking of using:

Right now everything seems kinda moved up on the calendar.

In other news, my stomach issues have improved so much! Thank you for praying for me. I’m able to eat more fatty foods now, though I’m still staying away from pork. I’m able to eat beef, though, and my first cheeseburger over the weekend was glorious! And I can eat regular ice cream, which is simply awesome! I’m very thankful for this change, too, since I actually need a good bit of fat each day to support the development of two babies.

Well, I’m sure this isn’t the last of the news on the preparations we need to make for the twins to come. Thanks for being interested enough to read this!

This weekend our family went to our church’s Spring Retreat. The theme of the weekend was “I Hope.” We looked at lots of Scripture passages about hope, and talked about how we can apply hope into our daily lives.

But for me, hope is a really scary concept–really scary.

I remember feeling, in my darkest days of depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), that hope is what God tells you to do so he can distract you, then sucker punch you in the gut with reality.

At that time, hope for anything good from God felt impossible. It felt like we only got calamity. And I know I “should’ve” stepped back a bit from our circumstances, taken a broader view, looked at the big picture and then I could’ve seen how good we had it–one healthy child, a home to live in, a car that got us where we needed to go, a job that paid for all of what we needed and much of what we wanted. And that did help sometimes. But I still had a deep, gaping, bloody wound.

I was stuck. So deeply stuck in the hopelessness of Felicity’s death. So confused. So wounded. I don’t think saying, “People in Cambodia (or North Korea, or Congo) have it really bad, Molly. Just look around and get over yourself,” would’ve have been healing for me. It might have taken the “bad thoughts” away quicker, but would it have healed the wound I was feeling or mended my broken view of God?

I think taking a broader view of God’s world can be incredibly helpful for getting us outside of ourselves, don’t get me wrong. But it’s insufficient by itself for healing when you’re up against some deeply painful personal issues.

I was dealing with questions like:

• Is God trustworthy?
• Does he listen when I pray?
• Does he care about me and my anguish?
• Has he forgotten me?
• Have I wearied him with too many requests?
• Am I being punished or “taught a lesson”?
• Is my loss “small” in the big picture of things? Does it matter to God that I’m still so sad?

And of course a really simple division that one can make about hope is that there’s hoping in our circumstances and hoping in God and who he is. As you can see from my list of questions above, my circumstances and who God is were pretty enmeshed. And I think that’s probably the case for most of us. Our hearts aren’t so easily compartmentalized, are they?

Anyway, there was (and is) lots of undoing that needed to happen for me to begin healing. That’s another post. But I realized this weekend that I am still so afraid to hope for the arrival of the twins. Kind of like, if I want it too much, God’s going to teach me a lesson, smack me on the hand, flex his muscles, and show me who’s boss.

I want to believe that God flexed his muscles already and showed me who’s boss by giving these babies to begin with. I don’t want to see a taking again. But I suppose on some level, we all have to be prepared for that.

So how do I hope that these babies are going to come? How can I hope in God (who gives and takes away) and not get that tangled into my circumstances? is that even possible for those to be completely separate?

I’m afraid I can’t wrap this thought up with a pretty bow and present it to you all figured out. These are my wonderings, my laments, my questions that I wade through as week #20 with two babies in my belly pushes on. I desire to hope, but I’m still slogging through what that means. It’s messy, this slogging. Who’s with me?

Most people post Friday Funnies or something like that. I’ve not been in a very funny mood today, so these were the posts that grabbed me and I found myself wanting to share:

• My husband wrote a really thought-provoking piece on his blog that I thought some of you would enjoy reading. Sometimes his wanderlust scares me, sometimes I encourage it. It’s part of who he is, and I love him. So…I live with a husband with a serious case of wanderlust. Regardless, this is a great post. And also kind of ironic, since he takes a couple lines to hate on having a car, and we’re in the market for a minivan.
• My friend Elizabeth Esther wrote a gut-wrenchingly honest post about losing our joy in motherhood. I can so relate today. And knowing that she’s a mother of twins, it’s a sobering thing for me to read. But it’s also good for me to have people like her in my life who don’t pretend that everything’s peachy-keen. It helps me pray and prepare for the hard days ahead, as well as the joyful ones.
• And lastly, my dear internet friend, Mrs. MK, lost her baby at 18 weeks yesterday. I’m crushed and devastated every time I think about it. She lost a daughter just after I lost Felicity, and we’ve grown to love each other over these here internets. I was so excited that she and I were pregnant at the same time. Perhaps you have some time to drop over and share an honest condolence. And if you don’t have one to give, then don’t feel obligated. I just know she’s hurting. So many of you have reached out to comfort me. Let’s share the love with my friend Mrs. MK.

It would seem weird to say “Have a good weekend!” after all that heaviness. But that’s life, isn’t it? Not all of us are having “a good day” today. I want to live honestly and share openly, even if it’s a Friday.

For those of you who guessed these:

You win!*

Ahhh, Marshmallow Peeps. I eat them once a year, mostly for nostalgic purposes. I was always a fan of Peeps as a child, the fresher the better. My sister liked hers stale, and I can’t remember how my brother took his Peeps.

And for those of you interested, I thought I’d link to a series of photographs showing how Peeps are made (in my home state of Pennsylvania, thank you very much).

*Contest rules: 1.) Eligibility is restricted to those living in the continental United States 2.) Contestants must be present to win. 3.) Prize is to be determined by contest author and subject to change for any reason, including acts of God. 4.) Prize has no monetary value and cannot be exchanged for any amount in any currency. 5.) The prize is having the satisfaction of guessing correctly.

A few weeks ago we played Name that Movie. Now let’s play Name that Candy.

Last night, as we came home from a day of friends, family, fun, and food, Orison asked:

“Can I have one of those sparkly penguins before bed?”

What was he asking for?