Look, Ma, No Hands!!!

One of the benefits of nursing two babies at once is that you don't need your hands to do it. You just latch them on and let them go!!! Even though I feel amazing and a sense of awe providing for the girls and value our bonding time together every day, nursing, as an activity, can be quite boring in general especially by the third or fourth feeding of the day. Try sitting in one spot for 45 minutes at a time every three hours with something tugging at your nipples, and you will know what I mean!!!

As the girls have gotten bigger and stronger, they are getting faster. But, I have also discovered that Mommy has gotten better at occupying herself. Daytime television sucks (funny how it entertained me while pregnant...that pregnancy brain must have made me stupid), so I watch Netflix, talk on the telephone, or READ!!! At this point, I have only read paperback novels...reading a hardback is too heavy and the newspaper is too cumbersome. Since the girls have arrived and I first attempted nursing them simultaneously, I have devoured three novels. They are not great literature, but enjoyable all the same:

(1.) A Simple Plan by Scott Smith. Character study more than action filled. People have told me that his novel, The Ruins, is much better than this one. Story is that a man, his brother, and his brother's best friend stumble upon a wrecked private airplane. There is a duffle bag with over $4 million in cash. They decide to take it and split it. Seems simple enough, but things quickly get out of control and a seemingly normal person ends up a multiple murderer. The money is eventually destroyed. Brings up an interesting topic of discussion about whether you would steal money from a criminal if no one would know, whether you would kill someone to protect said money or to keep from going to jail, etc.

(2.) The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer. Medical thriller involving the trade of illegally-obtained organs. Kinda like that urban legend in which a guy wakes up in a tub full of ice to find that one of his kidneys has been removed, but much more complicated and nefarious. Again, Jon and I had an interesting dialogue about whether some people should be denied organs because they are not worthy or refuse to correct behavior (i.e., smoking, drugs, etc.) that put them in need of a transplant in the first place and whether people who make important contributions to society should be bumped up on transplant lists.

(3.) Natural Causes by Michael Palmer. Another medical thriller, but slightly less believable than The Fifth Vial. The author wrote the novel 15 years ago, and it is clear that he has honed his skills since then. The basic premise surrounds women who die during childbirth (good thing that I didn't read this a couple of months ago) and what is causing it.