Hallo"Winnie" the Pooh

I'm kinda late on this post but thought everyone would like to see their super cute little Halloween costumes!  My mother in law and I went into a consignment store right before halloween looking for any 3 costumes that went together and this is what we found...for a grand total of $16!!  Not too bad!

Bryce was Tigger, Emma was Pooh, and Ava was Piglet and she did not want to wear her hat one iota!    We pulled them around in their wagon for a little bit...not really trick or treating since they don't eat much candy and since I didn't feel like running in every direction to try to get them to walk up to someone's door.  That's all for now... I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season!

Triple Trouble

I know it's been a while since I've updated this but we've had our hands quite full lately!  The babies have all started walking which has just completely thrown my world upside down!  They literally get into everything and if something isn't kid proof, I know in about two point five seconds!  There must be something preprogrammed in little kids brains that says to touch everything possible that's dangerous and that they aren't supposed to touch...no matter how many toys are around, the most off limit thing in the room is always the most interesting and the first thing they go to!  Not only are they all walking, they are starting to talk a little bit...saying simple things like "mama" "dada" "ball" "woof" and a few other babblings that mean things but don't sound quite right just yet.  Other happenings in our life are as follows:

1.  We moved to a bigger house so now we split the kids up into two rooms instead of one...basically it's the good babies in one room and the bad baby in the other... ok I'm kidding... kind of.  We put Bryce in his own room but if one of the babies suddenly starts sleeping poorly or is sick you better believe they will be in that room alone!

2.  No more bottles!!!  We are officially done with bottles and have moved onto sippy cups!  YAY!!!!  This means waayyy less dishes!!

3.  The babies have full blown pacifier addiction!  Emma collects them and carries around as many as she can find...I'm pretty sure she stashes them around the house like a squirrel.

4.  They've learned if they throw everything out of their crib someone will eventually come in there to get them.

5.  If we leave the gate open at the bottom of the stairs it becomes a free for all... all three babies make a bee line to the stairs and race to climb up before someone sees them.

6.  The vet told us Vida needs to loose weight which I completely attribute to Bryce...he feeds her and apparently we don't feed her enough because she's always hungry for whatever he has to offer.

7.  Bryce continues to feed Vida and has taught his sisters how...Vida has also let all her manners go out the window and begs like she's never been fed.  At least when she licks the food off the table she doesn't put her paws up there... she supports herself with her neck and lifts her front paws off the ground when she thinks no one is looking.

8.  If Vida is not near the table because she's in trouble for begging, Bryce flings food as far as he can so she can get to it.  He also flings food when he's done eating or doesn't want to eat.

9.  Brocoli is their favorite food!  Who are these kids?!?

10.  We've started venturing out more, mainly on weekends when Brian's home.

11.  They're learning body parts and it's so funny to watch them point to different parts when you ask them...of course that's if they want to cooperate.

12.  They go to a gym class once a week and it's so much fun!  They love it and I love getting out and talking to the other parents!

13.  The babies finally sleep!!  They sleep from about 7:30 until about 6:30 with one good nap a day!  They really love their cribs and will go and stand by them at night because they want to get in there!  It's great!!

14.  Sibling rivalry has begun...they ALWAYS want what the other one has, including me.  They get very possessive and want me all to him/her self.

15.  Apparently everything belongs in the toilet or the trashcan so beware what you leave laying around my house:)

I think that's enough for now.  I'll try to update more often as I'm finally getting a good break in the day when the take a nap!

Law of Multiples

This update is going to be short and sweet...I had about 35 minutes to do laundry, dishes, pay bills and brush my teeth before the babies started to wake up from their wayyyyy too short of a nap:(  Two are already up and playing on the floor but they're a ticking time bomb because it's almost lunch time!  Speaking of, naps have been a struggle lately...I'm ready to transition them to one nap a day but apparently they can't handle that yet.  Right now, I put them all down around 9:30, and by the time they all fall asleep, I have about 30 minutes before someone is waking up already.  And that second nap?!  For the most part it's an epic fail...one baby sleeps while the other two decide they don't need it until about 5:30 when they all fall apart!  Oh well!  For now, that's all I'm going to update about but I wanted to share an article I wrote for a national triplet magazine...kinda silly but it was fun to write!

Where do I begin?  Being a mom of multiples, I guess the better question is which topic should I tackle first…there’s so many to choose from.  I could talk about sleeping problems, eating issues, NICU stays, routines, which product works best…but as I sit here today, I think I’m just going to do my best to cover them all!  Yep, you heard me…I’m going to talk about all of them.  Not in the typical way though, I’m going to wrap it up in a neat little package we like to call the “Law of Multiples.” 

Let me begin with the fact that the “Law of Multiples” has been playing a prominent role in my life since the babies were born 10 months ago.  You see, writing this article has been on my to do list for literally weeks, I just haven’t had the time to sit down and actually organize my thoughts enough to do it!  I’m sure you understand.  This lack of free time is an effect of this “law” I keep referring to.  In my previous life (before multiples that is) I was a teacher.  I taught math and Spanish (at different times of course…it would have been really crazy to teach math in Spanish!), so naturally I came up with a “law” that defines my new life.  This law is a mixture between the Chaos Theory and Murphy’s Law.  The Chaos Theory states that chaotic systems appear to be disorderly but they are not…beneath all the random behavior is a sense of order, while Murphy’s Law, on the other hand, states anything that can go wrong will go wrong.  Combining the two theories, we created our own that basically says our life looks crazy, but there is a sense of order…except when things don’t go as plan, which happens quite frequently.  Does any of this sound familiar?  Whether you like it or not, if you are the parents of multiples, you more than likely follow this law religiously on accident and it can pertain to almost every aspect of your life…from pregnancy through when the kids go to college!

Just like any other parents of multiples out there, we purposefully try to make things orderly, yet we accidentally somehow manage to make it look crazy.  The “Law of Multiples” allows for all kinds of out of this world situations to arise, such as the simultaneous poop…you know, the one that happens when all three kids are packed up and sitting in their car seats when you’re already running 10 minutes late…oh and to top it all off, at least one is explosive which means a wardrobe change.  Now if that doesn’t scream “Law of Multiples” I don’t know what does! 

There are a million different situations I could give you that fit perfectly into the law, but I’ll spare you the time since I’m sure you can think of tons of your own scenarios right off the top of your head…you may be in the middle of one right now!  In all reality though, we wouldn’t have it (nor could we imagine it!) any other way!  We think back to our DINKY days (Double Income No Kids Yet days) and wonder what we did without our little free-time vacuums around to occupy us all the time?!  I mean seriously…what did we do with ourselves?  Having triplets has taught us so much…one of the most important skills we’ve mastered is multitasking.  There were days where I would be hooked up to the breast pump while feeding two babies and somewhat tending to the third.  I look back now and wonder how we did it but we did…just like everyone else would if they were in our shoes! 

The happy, yet sad, part about all of this craziness is that it goes by way too fast!  By far, raising children is the most rewarding, yet most difficult and frustrating thing we’ve ever been through, and it’s during those frustrating moments where you feel like you’re stuck forever and that things will never get better.  In reality, those moments quickly pass us by and all we’re left with is a fuzzy memory, blurred by all the sleepless nights, baby spit up and poopy diapers.  It’s possible that this may be our only shot at this baby thing which means, we are a one stop shop for baby training and we’ve slowly started to realize we better enjoy these crazy times because they are going to be gone before we know it!  We may never have the opportunity again to snuggle a baby in the middle of the night, or listen to those sweet little newborn sounds…this could be it!  Which got me thinking… we so often keep track of all the babies’ first…the first time they smile, the first time they laugh, the first tooth, the first time they sit up on their own…what about all those lasts?  It’s hard to pick a definite point in time when the baby stopped cooing, or stopped being swaddled, but as the parents of multiples we have to try to enjoy every moment! 

As a stay at home mom, I’m really trying to just engulf myself in these little nuggets as much as I can…the rest can wait!  I’ve just come to accept that my house will never be as clean as it use to be, my to-do list will be never-ending, and getting out just won’t happen as often as it use to!  Instead, we’re diving head first into days filled with bottles, poopy diapers, drool, giggles, smiles, screams, temper tantrums and everything else that comes wrapped up in that cute little baby package.  I’ve mentioned this before, but I feel that parenting is an evolving art…we continuously have to change and adapt to what each day has in store for us.  Everyday is different and we just have to be encouraged that if we have a bad day, there’s always tomorrow. 

At the end of the day, when the kids are finally in bed and you feel like you can sit down for a minute (before you have to fold laundry or do dishes), take a deep breath and know that all of this chaos will…well, never really end.  Instead, it will just change and morph into a different type of crazy which can all be attributed to the one and only “Law of Multiples.”  I once asked a mother of grown triplets if it ever gets any easier and she just looked at me and laughed….I’ll take that for exactly what it is…a laugh; a gentle reminder that we have to keep a light heart and remember to just laugh at the messes, at the choir of crying, and at ourselves, because in the end, who really wants to break the “law” anyway?

On the verge of...well...lots of things!

It's been quite sometime since I've been able to update this thing but since it's Saturday, Brian's home and he's manning the baby monitor while the babies sleep so I have some time to blog for a minute!  Where to begin?  Well let's see, since they are on the verge of sleeping through the night, let's start there!

I'm sure any of you parents out there know how little sleep you get with babies in the house.  Now imagine three...let's just say there were nights where it felt like no one slept!  Around the new year, Brian and I started to try to take shifts at night.  Up until that point, we both usually had to get up as all three babies needed feeding and it was quicker to just have both of us there.  So like I said, sometime in January we started breaking the night up and just feeding the babies when they woke up.  Now I have no idea what happened in their little brains, but they decided that sleep wasn't going to happen anymore.  Brian and I would both write down the times we woke up to go comfort one, feed one or change one and no joke, it got as bad as 25-30 times a night!!!  Talk about sleep depravation!  We finally decided to let them "cry it out" for a bit to see if they could comfort themselves back to sleep.  I know some people think this is mean, but you can't judge us until you've walked in our shoes...babies who are up constantly all night cause cranky parents...we needed sleep!  The first night they cried, so did I.  I hated every minute of it but it took them less than 30 minutes...so I agreed to continue trying it.  Unfortunately, Ava likes to cry until she throws up, so our plan kind of backfired.  Things got a little bit better, but still not great, until now!  On Easter Sunday, our nerves were shot, the babies were tired and things were getting out of hand.  It was taking us close to two hours to put all three babies to bed at night and that's just not cool.  We weren't trying to be unloving parents who don't have time to spend on their kids, but we literally had no time to do anything else...by the time we were done putting them to bed, it was 9:30 or so, we hadn't eaten dinner yet and all the bottle still had to be washed and made for the next day.  At this point, I feel like I was mentally ready to let them cry and put themselves to sleep and let me tell you...it's been fantastic!  They put themselves to sleep in about 5 minutes, and now, they hardly cry.  Instead, they just kind of coo and play around with their glow worms and go to sleep.  It's awesome!  I feel like a whole new person during the day...I have more time to get things done that need to be done like laundry, dishes, cooking and cleaning!  Lately, they have all been going to bed around 7:30 and sleeping until at least 6 in the morning!  We can totally handle that!  Even if one or two gets up at some point in the night, it's so much better!

Let's see what else they are on the verge of...well Bryce is on the verge of crawling.  Honestly, I wasn't too worried about them crawling...I kind of thought it would make things easier since they could crawl to a toy they wanted and could just explore, but the other day, when Bryce started army crawling all around the house, I kinda started to panic.  He's mobile and the other two aren't (at least not as much...they tend to get places by rolling), which makes it really hard to keep an eye on him.  We are about to bust out the baby gates so we can barricade them to one side of the house!  

In addition to crawling, we're also on the verge of eating lots of solid foods.  This morning for breakfast, I made the babies some baby apple cinnamon breadsticks along with some cut up cooked carrots.  They are doing really well with finger foods...Ava actually prefers to feed herself rather than me feed her with the spoon.  Sippy cups are also starting the be used more often...if only they could figure out how to hold their bottles that would be great!  All in all, they are doing really well though!

Speaking of feeding them, we have this great feeding table that my uncle made for us and we love it!  I sit all three of them in there and they entertain each other.  It's hilarious to watch them interact!  I love it when one is fussy and throwing a fit, and the other two just look at the fussy one and crack a smile...it's hilarious!  Just recently, Vida seems to have discovered that the babies are messy eaters so she has been hanging out around the feeding table like a hawk...conversely, the babies have discovered Vida and think it's fun to put their hands over the edge of the table for her to lick.  Oh well...hopefully baby food is nutritious for dogs too because I'm pretty sure she's going to be getting a lot of it!

Overall, this crazy life has just become normal.  I only can get out of the house when someone else is with me...taking all three anywhere is virtually impossible still...by the time we get all packed up and get to where we are going, it's time for them to eat or be asleep again so having an extra set of hands with me definitely helps.  I am able to get out with just one or two of them sometimes when we have help in town or when I get a babysitter to come over so I can go to the grocery store.  I'm pretty content with just being home though...I find all kinds of stuff to keep my busy.  Sometimes, when they are sleeping, I just go sit outside and read a book while trying to catch some rays...I've even been brave enough to put on a bikini, but only in my backyard though...which leads me to my next quick blurb.  Many people are curious how I'm doing physically.  I feel great!  My body will never be the same though...I have what's called a rectus diastasis which means my abdominal muscles are basically torn apart right down the middle.  I can literally stick three fingers between my ab muscles when I flex them...this is really something that can only be fixed by surgery.  Unfortunately, doing crunches and stuff can actually make it worse so I'm stuck with doing static exercises, like the plank.  I've been able to lose most of the baby weight, just a few more pounds which is probably made up of lots of extra skin which sags from my belly too!  I know this is too much info, but other people having multiples may be interested in hearing that!  Oh well...it's all worth it though!

Here's a brief update on all three of them:

Ava

• She is now officially the smallest weighing in at 16lbs4oz
• Her head is big...we had to have an ultrasound done on her head to clinically diagnose it as big and not as something else.  It's ok though, big heads mean big brains!
• She is bossy...if one of the other babies takes her toys, she lets me know!  She screams at them and lets them have it! 
• She pulls hair
• She is the least mobile of them all but she sat up first 
• She got teeth first...she currently has 2!

Emma

• Her fussiness seems to be coming to an end...we think she had colic.
• She does this hilarious thing with her head...she bobs it around to the point where it looks like it might fall and and says "da da da da da"
• She is the tallest of the bunch...99th percentile for height.
• She's super skinny for how tall she is putting her in the zero percentile for height and weight.
• She weighs about 17 pounds
• She has a big head to...must be genetic!
• Last one to get teeth but has 2!
• Emma makes a hilarious "denture face" as Brian likes to call it...she looks like an old lady who forgot to put in her dentures!
• Prefers to roll everywhere for transportation

Bryce

• He's such a ham!
• He loves to rub his head when he eats and he just likes to rub his head on people in general...it's like an endearing thing for him...his sisters don't find it so endearing...they just scream when he heads their direction.
• He blows raspberries all the time!
• Loves to jump in his johnny jumper.
• Very mobile...army crawls everywhere.
• He tears his bed up at night and thinks his pacifiers are grenades...he throws them over the side constantly!
• He weighs 18lbs more or less

Finally, here are some more pictures from Christmas up until now!