douglets

From Fans to Curtains

As we enter into Month 14 the girls are moving (get it?) right along toward their toddler milestones.

Everyone figured out the food pouches this week, which is a great win to getting more fruits and vegetables into tiny tummies. While all three now understand to suck on them, they also tend to fiddle and play with them and squeeze the guts out over their heads and down their backs (Emerie of course…). Harper’s first job is as a table wiper; by that I mean she uses her arms as “windshield wipers” and pushes all food away from her seat, at almost every table feed. Once she does it, the other two usually do too and then no one is eating! She also likes to take a piece of food from Craig or I, look right at us, and hand it to the dog with a giggle.

As we increase food intake we are finding that they still want a decent amount of milk. In fact, on many occasions they will casually eat food but then insist on a bottle afterwards, especially Harper and Emerie. Reagan is a little less bottle enthusiastic than her sisters but I also think she is distracted by all the fun things she could do instead of eat!

Constant interactions are now occurring; not quite to the secret baby language yet but definitely sounds and giggles and staring into each others’ eyes for periods of time.

It’s really cute when they try to give each other kisses!! Makes your heart melt…like here- Harper is in pink and Reagan and Emerie (purple) are giving each other kisses.

Remember when everyone’s first love was the ceiling fan? This discovery was about a year ago and lasted far into 2018. The fan is now replaced with window/door curtains. This past weekend we opened up the living room, taking part of the baby prison wall for a few minutes each afternoon so they could all wander. This was quite the hit and the curtains were discovered to be amazing. Everyone played in the dog water bowl (before we put it outside), and enjoy standing at the back door, balking at the dogs and playing peek-a-boo with the curtains. The kitchen is also fair game. For the moment we are enjoying they do not understand how to open the cabinet doors.

Funny how I wrote that sentence a couple days ago…since then Reagan has figured out how to open them. I find it incredible how quickly they pick up on new things or try to mimic something you do. I constantly see mini hide and seek games or turn around and one of them is wearing something on their head and peeking out at you.

Reagan has her outfit and two dresses on her head for peek-a-boo

We also went to the elementary school park down the street and our twin/triplet outing overtook the play equipment! It is definitely a bit of chaos (and added anxiety!) when you have multiples. The girls certainly polished off some playground rocks before we pried them out of their mouths. Everyone enjoyed the swings and the sunshine.

I think I foolishly thought I could handle taking all three to the park at this age. After our outing I don’t quite think so, especially when they go three different directions all the time. Maybe once we are past the rock eating stage?!

Mother’s Day #2!

My first Mother’s Day was wonderful, but very vague in my memory now (we were a bit tired last May lol). We left the girls for the first time last year to go get pedicures together for an hour. For my second one, Craig made all the stops!

They were so tiny last year!!

We bailed on work a few minutes early on Thursday and picked out a new wedding band for my ring. Is there really anything better than a request by your husband to leave early to go buy jewelry? Yeah not that I can think of lol.

I came home from work to a wonderful gift from Nanny Chris and the girls. They decorated a flowerpot for me to enjoy, in the girls’ colors, with tiny baby fingerprints. So very thoughtful and sweet! Also quite impressive she did arts and crafts during the day…that takes a lot of effort!

Craig took the girls to Dad’s group on Saturday and did another little project that I adore. It’s definitely going up on the wall once I get a frame on it! Emerie apparently made him work for it…she does not have a giant foot.

The other amazing present in honor of being a mom? The girls slept alllll night in their room (on Saturday night), with barely a peep! That means we both felt rested and I was able to enjoy a cup of coffee bright and early with some Netflix and my feet up. A rare occasion.

Of course, the girls ended that present with a very grumpy day and only a 40 minute nap for the day. Thank goodness we had a decent night’s sleep. They were still cute in their dresses, even through the grumpiness. Oh well!

Interaction Update!

The past two weeks or so have been very exciting! The girls are all figuring out their legs, balance, and coordination. It is crazy to see how fast they learn it, especially when you consider they were just learning to crawl a little over two months ago and earlier this year Harper wouldn’t even roll, let alone move crawl or walk!

It’s pretty typical for first time parents to be super (overly?) excited at the bigger baby milestones, such as rolling, crawling, HOLDING BOTTLES, and walking. I’ve been asked several times, “why are you pushing them to walk!? Do you realize how much harder it will be for you?”

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think this situation is a bit different for those of us with multiples. Why? Because we are excited for them to walk, to be more mobile, while still containable. We are excited for the additional independence, because it makes our lives a little easier, albeit harder is a different way. The girls now entertain themselves for periods of time, we catch them giggling in their playhouse together or playing peek-a-boo with one another (without us!). Yes, we have to keep track of where they go, which is usually three different directions, but we also get the freedom to put them into the play areas and know their safe and having fun.

Harper is a pro walker after about a week of effort. She tries to walk places now as opposed to making that “in the moment” decision that crawling will get her to her destination faster. She ops for walking now over crawling! Her balance is greatly improving every day; she can walk around with toys and at a pretty quick pace!

Emerie believes crawling is still her fastest form of transportation. She will takes steps here and there, but overall drops down to all fours. She adores the singing puppy walker and practically runs forward when she pushes it. When it hits any roadblock, whether that is furniture, the dog, toys on the floor, whatever; she gets so angry, turns and looks back at us and shrieks. It’s pretty funny…and shows off her impatience to figure out how to move around the obstacle.

Reagan is somewhat in between the two. She can walk across the room, or to you when you call, but she often gets SO excited that she loses balance in a big giggle and flops to the floor. After more giggling, she will get up and try again. Her giggle “cackle” is pretty cute.

Once again we are rearranging the house. Last night we moved our china hutch out of the dining room and into the garage, with the hopes we can have use of our kitchen table back by the end of the weekend. It is rather impressive how much smaller a house appears after the arrival of children, let alone three of them! Outgrowing our house will be a real reality in another year or two, and ensuring we stay caught up on maintenance and other house projects is still important, even in our busy, everyday lives. More to come on that later.

For now, we should have a new and improved play area in the living room in the next few days. The family room, or now the playroom, will remain the same for a while and is mostly good-to-go for baby mischief.

Oopsie-Dais…er Douglets…

Funny story, something we’ve either done a bunch of times and never noticed or just did for the first time. Take a close look at this picture…what is wrong with it??

It’s a great photo right?? Everyone is looking, almost smiling, and in their matching Minnie Mouse pajamas. But if you look a bit closer…

You are right…we are swapped! We aren’t sure when that happened, either at bedtime or after the early morning feed (more likely), but I definitely picked up Harper from Reagan’s crib, thinking nothing of it. After putting on sweaters and settling everyone for breakfast, things just didn’t look quite right and they weren’t! Unlike when they were smaller, Craig and I can tell looking at them who is who (90% of the time), at least when we are paying attention! But it definitely doesn’t help when we dress everyone in matching pajamas…

Or maybe we just need some more sleep 🙂

Snotfest & WALKING!!

While we continue through the current snotfest, the girls are quickly picking up new skills and traits. I would say the parents are as well…I’ve accepted the fact that I am constantly covered in snot and used as a human tissue (I should add that to my resume lol. I’m pretty I just wipe the snot on my pants and shirts now instead of getting up to grab another tissue every time a tiny tot’s nose drips.

A couple nights ago everyone slept ALL NIGHT in their cribs…for the first time in 2019!! In fact, I didn’t wake up once the whole night to a shriek or a cry and it was oddly refreshing.

  • Sleepy Harper
  • Sleepy Reagan, butt in the air!

Sadly, that success only lasted one night. We had three grumpy babies by 11:30 PM the next night, with Emerie ending up with Craig, Harper with me, and Reagan eventually settled down in her crib and went back to sleep, after quite a fight!

What I’ve found is lack of sleep is relatively survivable, as long as the first 2-3 hours in the night result in straight, uninterrupted sleep.  Last night was one of those nights, where I slept solidly from about 9 PM to 11:30, and probably back to sleep with Miss Harper by about 1:30, and then getting up at the typical 4:30 AM wake up time. That first chunk of sleep really helps me stay awake for the day!

As we continue in the second week of the cold, the girls are off and on grumpy snot factories. Their most hated thing in life right now is the tissue, or anything that might go near those little noses. For the most part I believe we are out of the previous teething rage, so moods are improved from that. Everyone has four top teeth through the gums, and are much less slobbery. You will notice that the girls aren’t wearing their amber necklaces in pictures now; not because teething lulled a bit, but because they try to rip them off each other (not themselves tho) and cause a great deal of angst with each other. We may not be using them anymore, at least until they understand not to pull on them.

I hope you are enjoying the lovely photo of Reagan, proudly displaying her snotty nose before I brought the rage to wipe it off…

I realized this weekend that I passed the 13 month milestone without posting anything! Now that we are over a year, I’m not sure people still do monthly photos. But for your enjoyment, here is a nice photo of the girls in their matching Minnie Mouse pjs.

A few new cute things for you…such as Reagan dancing to a video. She is definitely the dancer of the group so far!

One of my coworkers gave me a play “puppy walker” and we tried it out with the girls earlier this week during Emerie’s therapy session. As predicted, the only one that figured out how to walk with it (figured it out a little too well) was Harper, who discovered how fun it was to push forward while she walked! Reagan and Emerie were more than happy to sit on it while we pushed it forward, but not walk behind it.  Not sure I am quite ready for walkers yet…a few more months of crawling works for me!

Within two days the girls are all attempting to walk with it! Reagan is the least excited about it, and Harper is the wing leader. Emerie is really good at climbing into it and now is walking forward too.

Harper took four steps on Saturday, teetered and balanced herself, and took two more. No I did not get it on video, was way too in the moment for that. And after only two practice tries… a little TOO quick!

I predict by the end of May we will have walkers. Everyone’s coordination is improving so rapidly and they definitely watch and feed off each other as they learn new things. I cannot handle how mature Emerie looks in this photo!!

A few other fun new things include Harper raspberrying my leg (and thinking it was hilarious), Emerie gaining great coordination with moveable toys and doing things on her own, and Reagan is a speed crawler! Everyone enjoyed the gorgeous sun this weekend and we set up the new Regalo playpen. It’s light and useful at both the park and in the front yard as we start spring cleaning the garage. I also figured out it folds up perfectly to fit across the stroller bars so I can single handedly bring it with me somewhere and let the girls out to play.