Settling back into our previous routine after traveling is both easy and difficult! The girls took a great nap after we arrived home from the airport on Sunday, about two hours earlier than they normally go down. Unfortunately those zzzz’s only made up for the missed sleep from going to the airport at six AM, so we had a couple of hot tempered grumps for the afternoon. While my Mom and Craig ran errands, we had a mini dance party with the girls down in the family room (coolest room in the house right now) and thankfully Aunt Kerstin came over later and played with everyone!

In the past week the girls are picking up new traits (again!). Everyone is morphing farther into the biting stage; biting Mom, and Dad, Grandma, even the nanny! Thankfully there isn’t much biting of each other, unless fingers go into someone’s mouth intentionally. Emerie believes she can pull herself up on anything better if her front teeth are involved. It doesn’t matter if it is the couch, a chair, or your leg! I have a tiny tooth marked bruise to prove it!

Everyone’s first molar is through their gums. The weird thing is that all three are getting the back, top left molar at the same time. So far on the teeth adventure they are holding to their identical triplet status quite nicely, with everyone having the front top and bottom four teeth and now the same molar on the way. It will be interesting to see how this saga continues to play out!

This video is a great example of the newfound trait of climbing on everything. Learning to walk wasn’t as stressful as I expected it to be with three. Learning to climb? Definitely stressful and back to having to keep an eye out every second to ensure they aren’t getting hurt. They improve this skill daily and we now let them try to see how many things they can actually pull up to. I brilliantly discovered we can keep them off the couch for another week or two (optimistically) by moving the couch pillows to the edge of the cushions- so far that is deterring climbing in the family room.

Because our heating system is baseboard, the girls figured out standing on top of the baseboards and pulling themselves into the window frames or on the end tables, with the only way to stop them to move the furniture or block it off entirely. They are so very proud when they get up there, until they can’t figure out how to get back down.

In an effort to not completely embarrass my children when they someday read these blogs, I believe Reagan may be figuring out how to unclasp her diaper. This is still a hunch, but so far we’ve had two incidences in two days, with her specifically, and diapers halfway on her or falling off. Trust me, you don’t want to know the full details of this, just that bath time definitely occurred with the first one. This could also simply be because they are wearing dresses more frequently and not pants or onesies that mostly cover the diaper. We shall see what today brings on that front!

Emerie’s eye is improving by the day. The dilation drop, that we did twice a day for a week post surgery, was definitely the least favorite and she is very glad it is over. We have a couple more weeks of the other two drops a number of times per day. Craig is definitely tired of giving them to her, probably about as tired as she is receiving them. Eyelid swelling continues to go down and with each passing day her eye is a bit less droopy. She isn’t rubbing it anymore either, meaning it’s less irritated!

With everything that occurred last week, we really slacked on the goal of two hours of good eye patching per day. This was partially since we were out of our element in a different city and in a bit of chaos from that, but also, even when attempted she immediately pried it off the moment you take your eyes off of her…literally in seconds. She is fast!

Nanny Chris reached expert level this week on a way to solve this. Emerie knows she can get the patch off herself as soon the opportunity hits; so, she creatively put band-aids around it. Since band-aids adhere better than the patches do, she is unable to pry it off, much to her dismay. This genius plan is going to improve her eyesight greatly! Hopefully it won’t peel off her eyebrows though (hehe).

Having survived our first air travel experience with the girls, I’ve been mentally reminding myself of the things I’d do differently as I have time to plan for the next trip (a long time from now). Since I won’t remember these things for very long, I’d better write them all down:

2. Follow up with the airline prior to travel day: we didn’t anticipate that Alaska Air would mess up our reservations so royally. They are generally really great to travel with. We now know reservations must be verified ahead of time to ensure our tickets are accurate in the system. I am not a toddler! 🙂
3. Bring a portable playpen: this one is a biggie and would have made our week a lot easier. We would have used it where we stayed as well as for outings around town and the park! It is much easier to corral babies at the park when you have a safe spot to set one down and pick up the next one, especially when babies outnumber adults.
4. Bring three portable highchairs: I really wish I had brought two more of them. We have one small, fold up version that fits in a suitcase and can secure to a normal dining chair. Having two more of them would have been helpful for meals as well as eating out with friends. The other option would be the portable chairs with trays (like the ones for camping), since they are portable and easy to use. In fact, we just purchased a set this week from another local triplet mom! Having a place that contains the girls and helps them focus on food, even for a few minutes, is really helpful.
5. Scope out parks ahead of time: toddler friendly parks are few and far between, since most park design is aimed at children better established in their mobility than a 15-month old. We managed to find a few fenced ones, but knowing locations ahead of time would have been helpful. Bringing an amazing sister in law is also recommended for such adventures!

1. Check out the weather report: Alaska is unusually warm this month, and I can’t remember the last time we had any rain. Because it is WAY hotter than typical (record breaking!) and no one up here has air conditioning, looking at the projected temperatures in Juneau when packing would have told me to bring more shorts and tanks for the girls than I did. The girls didn’t wear a single long sleeve outfit the entire trip other than during the airplane ride. We compensated for this by doing lots of laundry!

A few essentials that we would not have survived the trip without (that I must remember for next time!) are:

1. Baby monitor camera
2. White noise machine
3. Three pack and plays (luckily we didn’t have to bring our own)/pea pods will work in the future once everyone is a bit bigger. They are far more portable!
4. A few familiar toys for the girls to play with
5. The triple stroller
6. SNACKS

I am still wrapping my head around the past couple of weeks, but happy getting back to the normal routine and (almost) sleep schedule.