growth spurt

Busy little bees

Toddler time continues to become more interesting! There’s certainly never a dull moment. I think I am overdue for another hour time lapse to prove that no one ever sits still!

Little Miss Em playing around with me.

Last night I could tell Emerie was chewing something that she wasn’t supposed to. I looked at her with a “come here” and hand motioned. She immediately came over and pulled air out of her mouth and handed it to me with a big smile on her face, all the while chewing! I then told her to give it to me again and she put her hand in her mouth, motioned, and dropped air in my hand again. Silly baby! Is she already learning sarcasm?? This repeated several times and she smiled so big while handing me nothing. The last time, she pulled out a tiny piece of plastic and placed it into the palm of my hand. One point for Mom (this time anyway!)

We are trying to teach the girls as much coordination as possible, even at this young age. Who knows if this will backfire on us later when they are coordinated and wreaking even more havoc, but for now their progression continues to move forward at a fast pace! The fine line is trying to determine what to learn and how to keep from injury while doing it. Sometimes that works out, other times it prompts a nice head bonk/goose egg (Harper) or slipping off a toy (Emerie) or baby to baby collision (everyone!). So far nothing is too significant except my anxiety about it! In another year or so they can safely use their new skills during gymnastics, dance, and ballet classes. And, of course, soccer too…counting down the days until we are old enough to break into the sport hobbies!!

  • Miss Harper
  • Fort time with Dad
  • Em guarding her phone
  • Playtime on the deck

At first we were skeptical about stair climbing, even after PIC clearly suggested we start it. The girls proved us wrong and mastered it not only quickly, but really well; they are already pros at it. The next logical “step” (haha) is to master going back down (safely), and while I’ve been a bit more apprehensive about it, Craig is proven right that they are ready for it. Ready for it, other than the occasional I will learn forward with my full body weight and forget I’m on the stairs…. The girls now climb up the eight stairs to the bathroom for bath time, and we are starting to add to the cycle by going back down afterwards. Craig will holler at them to come up once stripped down from their post dinner, full-of-food clothes (still with diapers on mind you-I learned that lesson!!). They will run across the living room and up the stairs, then full sprint down the hallway and into the bathroom. Most of the time they don’t divert into a different room or try to climb up to the loft; every once in a while it becomes an impromptu game of tag, 3 versus 1…

Taking off up the stairs. So speedy.

They all have different methods to climbing down stairs and all do it surprisingly well when they aren’t distracted by all the cool railings, or the dog, or the thought of running back upstairs. Harper tries to go down like an adult, on her feet, without holding on! She’s given me several mild heart attacks, but luckily an adult is always close by to catch her. Emerie scoots on her butt now and I’ve seen Reagan try both ways. We are working on railing safety and so far no one has fallen forward, even with the dogs “helping”. While the stair baby gates are not leaving anytime soon, it is good to know that they are starting to understand how to safely climb down. This is especially the case when the dog door is accidentally left open and Miss Harper goes through it like a heat seeking missile, running straight for the three unblocked deck stairs…

In case anyone was wondering, because it has been a while…yes, Craig can still carry all three at once, although he doesn’t test this out too often. For some reason they are starting to get heavier! Instead of immediate baby rage like prior months (insert the “stop touching me” kid voice), they all think it is just so funny! Nothing like carrying 65 pounds of wiggly baby at once and not letting anyone leap off, fall, or collide. Enjoyment ensued in the triple baby bedtime laundry basket ride, as Craig dragged them down the hallway in the midst of many goofy giggles. With the growth since December’s earthquake, I’m not entirely sure I could load everyone into a laundry basket and carry them to safety during an earthquake; they are much bigger now!

Laundry basket rides
Using that arm muscle!

Other daily activities include climbing on anything available, running maniacally around the house, speed running while pushing their walkers (into each other or anything in front of them), pulling all food utensils and cookware out of kitchen cabinets, and playing out on the back porch. Cardboard boxes are also popular; who needs toys when you can play with the Amazon box, or the macaroni and cheese box, or the huge goldfish box from Costco?! The girls also push each other on toys now, whether it is with one sitting on the lawn mower and one pushing or one sitting in the mini airplane and two pushing. It brings many giggles and hasn’t resulted in too many crashes so far. We’ve also started building blanket forts. That is a hit literally, as they run full blast at the fort only to hit their forehead on the table under the blanket. We are still working on that…

  • Emerie
  • Harper
  • Reagan

For the most part we have the danger zones blocked off on the main floor. They can’t climb into windowsills because it’s blocked by a baby wall, the couch and diaper changing area also behind it. Every once in a while someone will discover they can squeeze behind the armchair and make it to the windows, but this typically results in minor baby fights and enough yelling that we intervene and reset the blockade.

One new sport now invented in our household, the “how-to-catch-the-kitty” game. Now that everyone can pronounce kitty (sounds like “ki-eee”), they become unbelievably excited anytime either cat is within view. For the past year both cats have been fine with the random toddler petting, even purring from it, but now it’s progressed to a new level, with three babies running full blast across the room, after the cat, and yelling kitty! Apparently this is less fun for the animals, because they make every attempt possible to escape now.

Here is a nice collage of this week’s at-home baby adventures. We are loving the continued summertime shorts weather!

  • Vehicles for all
  • Table dancing? Oh boy…
  • Harper on the move
  • Emerie smiles
  • Fort building with Dad
  • Baby gates
  • Watching Dad build a fort
  • Fighting over snacks
  • “Mom, stop with the pictures”

Sleep is for the weak right?

The good news? We don’t have ear infections.

The bad news? We don’t have ear infections.

Exploring all the cabinets at the pediatrician’s office. Somehow they are not baby proofed!

Why do I say that? The last week or so have resulted in grueling overnight routines, very little sleep for both the parents and the girls, and lots of crazy grumpy mornings, afternoons, and evenings.

Tuesday night was the epitome of it all, with a very early bedtime because survival of all was in question. That didn’t work either, but at least there was 45 minutes of silence before the next round of screaming began. You can get a lot done in 45 minutes…such as a shower, prep for the next day, and pumping for the morning feed!

We just went to the pediatrician last night, hoping this terrible week could be blamed on ear infections and a workable solution would be in sight. But alas, they are healthy with clear ears. I guess that is good news, but it doesn’t feel like that on over a week of close to no sleep and very grumpy minions. We opted to do Emerie’s 15 month shots while we were there, instead of waiting until her Friday appointment. It’s not like she would sleep any less post shots than she has all week, so we just got it over with!

I am happy to report that as of this doctor’s appointment, everyone is finally past the 20 pound mark! Only took 16 months…

  • Harper: 22 pounds, 4 ounces
  • Emerie: 20 pounds, 4 ounces
  • Reagan: 22 pounds, 5 ounces

The doctor claimed the grumpiness is most likely caused by teething. He took a good look in each mouth after clearing their ears of any issues. Emerie is generally the most difficult one to pin down at the doctor, probably considering that she has the most appointments of the three, but surprisingly she was a good sport and Reagan was the least cooperative. In fact, Emerie is taking the teething the best of the three this round, with Harper and Reagan both completely angry and miserable and wanting to fuss and snuggle.

An example of one of our fun evenings this week…

Harper has THREE molars on approach right now, one starting to poke through and the other two close to it. Reagan and Emerie both have two molars coming in as well, with one of Reagan’s showing already.

This week will consist of a lot of teething treats…a particular favorite is Pedialite frozen into popsicles. Now that they understand popsicles are for eating, not beating into each other, the table, or throwing on the floor to see them “explode”, they are useful and well liked. Other cold “treats” at mealtime include cut up blueberries (always a favorite), cold pepper slices to chew on, and cold nectarines! The frozen teethers are again a hit and we rotate through many different types in a freezer container. Depending on the day they will enjoy chewing the cold silicone ones versus the ones that have ice in them. These provide moments of calm, at least until someone steals one.

In an effort to achieve some level of sleep last night, and because it really couldn’t get any worse than prior nights and minimal napping days, we switched up a few things to see if that would improve everyone’s night. Long sleeved pajamas were worn, with the ceiling fan off (it’s been on since the great 2019 Alaska heat debacle of June/July), and put the muslin sleep blankets back on in hopes that they would be a little more comfortable when they randomly wake up and start screaming. We also did Advil and put clove oil on their gums rights before bedtime, which they dislike, but it seems to work. That could be the distraction of a weird taste, or the clove actually helps with pain; I’m not quite sure which one.

I’m also unsure which change improved sleep, but we only had one fussy baby (Emerie) at about midnight. She settled down after a bottle and some snuggles and slept pretty well between us until I got up at 5. Harper and Reagan slept all night…hallelujah!! First night with more than one happy, sleeping baby overnight since we returned from Juneau. In fact, I think that is probably the first night in two weeks I didn’t have an upset Reagan at some point(s) during the night. I feel revitalized with a little sleep today.

As we continue to survive through this grumpy couple of weeks, a few developmental improvements are visible as we go through the ninth developmental leap. This leap relates to rules; toddlers at this age are learning they have new boundaries and skills that must come with ground rules. These rules generally revolve around social cues, us trying to teach them things so they don’t get hurt, and watching them begin to understand they can change the order in a process and still achieve the desired result. For example, they can climb up the slide directly, or go to the side of the slide and use the stairs; both result in getting to the top of the slide. This week I have witnessed each kiddo climb down a stair (monitored of course) on their belly and not fall. That is definitely a recently learned trait.

Playing together on the slide

In between the grumpiness new skills are emerging. Emerie, for example, may end up being our little designer or (cough) engineer. She quickly took to the Duplo blocks and understands she can stack them together or pull them apart. Harper and Reagan watch her do this and are starting to catch on too, but she definitely figured it out quickly. She also likes to play with the sensory toys we originally bought for the airplane and doesn’t need help to use them.

  • Harper stylin’
  • Emerie block building
  • Reagan and her binkie
  • Harper and her ball
  • Emerie loves her toys
  • Reagan having a picnic

All three girls still love the picnic basket and improving on pushing the shapes into the correct holes. They also carry it around all over the house. This past weekend we put a ball pit/princess house into the living room and they crawled through it, through the balls out of the pit as fast as we tossed them back in, and giggled and giggled. Reagan greatly preferred climbing out of the pit, right over the bendable walls, which was pretty funny to witness. Harper used the tunnel and thought it was so cool while Emerie stayed in the ball pit for a good 45 minutes, completely entertained.

And after the fifteenth try at a style of sippy cup, I believe we finally have a winner!!

Sipping on those sippy cups, hanging out in their summer rompers…

Fingers crossed we have reset the lack of sleep into better nightly routines; and if I’m being optimistic…into better nap times as well. I guess we will see what today brings…

15 Month Shenanigans

Summer solstice means we are hitting the 15 month mark in the Douglet household! It also means the girls’ youngest cousin turned one this week! An update for everyone on the current day-to-day chaos that is triplet toddlers…

Health: While we continue to grow, grow, grow, surprisingly the girls remain on the smaller end of the weight scale. Emerie weighed in at 19 pounds, 3 ounces (29%), Harper at 21 pounds, 2 ounces (49%), and Reagan at 21 pounds, 4 ounces (51%). This puts us solidly in the middle of the weight spectrum for their age (based on actual age, not adjusted). Their heights, on the other hand, show we have some tall ladies! Emerie is 31.25″ tall (74%) and Harper and Reagan are 31.5″ (81%).

Everyone has individual personalities that continue to emerge. I need to look back on an old blog noting who did what the most and see how different six months makes the answers! Everyone also knows their name as well as their sisters’! If you say “hey Reagan”, the other two will look at Reagan. It’s pretty cool.

Miss Emerie is often the instigator on climbing and getting into things and is a fearless daredevil. Eye surgery is scheduled for next week to remove the cataracts from her left eye. We are told she is handling the daily hour of eye-patching like a pro, and we should be very happy with her “good” attitude. And we thought she was grumpy…apparently we are very blessed in that arena and it could be far harder. That’s encouraging! She still goes by Em, Emerie, Emsy, or Peanut, depending on the moment she will even answer to all three, and can say Mom, Momma, Dad, Daddy, and Baby.Emerie likes both mom and dad right now, but not Uncle William. She gives him funny looks and will not take a bottle from him. If he throws her in the air, well that’s another story. Then she seems to be okay with him

Miss Harper is still the hardest one to get to giggle, but will definitely chuckle if you tickle her tummy! She still responds to Harper and Hay Hay and has such a big smile. She is our only eater that enjoys meat (for the most part) and is highly skilled at getting through the dog door and across the back deck as an adult frantically tries to reach her sneaky butt. She’s done this several times and now we block the door.

Right now she is a momma’s girl, and comes to me most of the time. She has a new game that if you call her over, she will come part way, giggle, turn around and run the other way. She’ll do this several times in a row, especially when she needs a diaper or clothing change and sometimes for snacks.

Miss Reagan, also known as Ray Ray, is still our smiler and giggler. You can find her hanging out in the family room playhouse giggling with either of her sisters or dancing to any type of music. She’s a great dancer! She is also winning the hair contest at the moment, and has one tiny curl behind her right ear.

Reagan is a daddy’s girl right now and is all about Craig. For a while every time he walked into the room she would squeal in excitement. She doesn’t have stranger danger yet but will pick Craig over anyone else every time! She’s also a bit shyer when it comes to adventurous things, like a slide or riding backwards in the wagon. Like me, she has to ease into the new activity and then she is good to go!

Food: The girls typically eat less when they are cold-ridden. This holds true for the past two weeks, but also shows us what foods they really like and will eat when stuffy. Now that we are back to healthy and happy, current favorites include bananas, fresh avocado (ate a whole one at dinner the other night) and blueberries, green beans (straight from the can!), breakfast sausage, and udon noodles. Favorite snack foods are veggie straws, cheese puffs, and stringed cheese. One of the girls is sitting in another highchair at some meals, as opposed to the triple table, because they tug on each other and irritate one another to the point they don’t eat as well.

Sippy cups are not the girls favorite, but we are starting to learn them. For now everyone is still drinking quite a lot at bedtime and a dream bottle at six am so they will sleep until about 8:30 AM, give or take. By 18 months our goal is full use of sippy cups and whole milk, so I can get some time (and SLEEP) back from pumping!

House Stations: Having a living room and family room play area greatly helps the girls stay busy and happy(ier) while at home. We are planning on redoing the living room setup in the next week or so- I am comfortable letting everyone roam the main floor, even when I’m solo, as long as the stairs and dog door are blocked. The girls love running around in the living room, outside of the baby prison, and looking out the windows, playing with shoes or cooking utensils, or chasing around the animals. They all seem to enjoy window licking also…

The next step is to convert the dining room to be more kid friendly and give us more space. A third “station”, the new, rebuilt back deck, is also quite the hit and allowing us to enjoy some of the beautiful Alaska sun! The baby lawn chairs are out and the walkers are used to climb on and run back and forth with. We still need a better gate to block the deck stairs, and will get that project started soon when Grandpa Cliff visits next week.

Sleep: Bedtime routine is still going fine. For the most part, other than a few outlier nights, everyone goes to sleep in about 10 minutes once they are down at 8:00 PM. By about midnight we almost always have someone with us for a couple hours; although putting them back in their cribs has gotten a bit easier and they don’t have to be fully asleep for us to set them back down. The consistent thing remains it’s nearly always a different baby. One night Harper will be the grumpy one, and the next night it will be Emerie, or Reagan, and then switch! They are consistently inconsistent about it. And I also find the better sleep we get, the crankier the day seems to be. Try to figure that one out…

Playtime: Playtime continues to become more rambunctious as the days pass. We now have three “pint sized explorers” that want to check out anything and everything around them.

This week the girls discovered how to climb onto the couches downstairs, with Emerie leading the charge and making it all the way onto the window sill after a few tries. They are so very proud when they walk across the cushions, clearly showing they have no fear and don’t realize they can fall off. We enjoyed a solid two months of brief relaxation at night where the girls would play on the floor in the family room and we could attempt to watch an episode of television (slowly marathoning Parks and Rec and some of The Office) while sitting on the couch. Those days are gone. Now the girls all want to climb up and explore their newfound skills.

Emerie figured out how to climb up to the window sill…great…

Everyone LOVES peek-a-boo and patty cake. We are working on a few new songs now too like “head, shoulders, knees, and toes.” The girls instigate peek-a-boo to us and each other, often using a blanket or random pair of pants or shirt that is on the floor. This creates a lot of giggles from everyone.

I am anxiously awaiting the “triplet talk” to begin. Everyone interacts a lot more since their birthday, but we don’t yet hear the baby chatter. There is a lot of giggling between them, but no gibberish yet. Here’s a video from last night with quite the commotion in the kitchen. Silly babies.

Dancing: Everyone enjoys a little hip and butt shaking now. While almost all music triggers at least one kiddo to dance at a time, other specific songs have great affect on everyone. Current favorites include Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, Patty Cake, a few Ariana Grande songs Craig keeps playing, and of course some Baby Shark melodies.

Much more to come as the mobility continues. I can say month 12-13 we probably the easier months for far in this triplet journey and we are edging back into a bit harder. Why? Those two months everyone started walking, but not climbing. So they were mobile enough to move decently and play and learn new things, but not so good at it that they could climb on the couch or take off full sprint in three different directions like they do now!

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?!

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.