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!

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…

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!

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”

Jul 26

Fearlessness

Where to begin…so many things…

The farther into the toddler hood we go, the more difficult it seems to become (again). Learning to walk was a “cake walk,” because while mobility started, they were still easily contained. Now that everyone is so very busy running around and climbing on everything, we are constantly trying to monitor all activities while successfully feeding, cleaning, and playing (sleeping is apparently not on this list anymore!).

We are now in the “no fear” stage, meaning the girls are up for trying anything and don’t yet comprehend possible injury when they climb into the windowsill, or up onto the fireplace hearth, or run full blast at the stairs (after successfully making it through the dog door).

How to you manage to keep three toddlers from injury? Well, you don’t…at some point they will understand it, and for now we just try to keep the bonks to a minimum. Harper seems to hit her head on the table edge, or anything equivalent to her height really, while Reagan more often gets bumps from moving quickly and Emerie from climbing on things. Everyone is quickly learning how to go down the stairs too (safely).

Ironically, no one is identical at the moment, because everyone has different injuries. That makes them temporarily fraternal right? Minus the whole DNA thing…

Emerie still has mild redness in her eye from last month’s surgery, although it continues to improve and is now less irritating for her. The doctor told us this week it is healing up nicely, but that her eye tracking is not improving as much as we were hoping. That could indicate the need for a second surgery later this year to correct it, or optimistically it might improve in the next month or two; we’ll have to monitor it and see what happens. Her purple colored eyelid is mostly faded now and she’s back to those big, smiling eyes. She’s also patching more easily and will soon have glasses!

Reagan’s left arm has almost healed scratches from the dog versus cat tussle last week, where she happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Luckily they weren’t too deep, although it looks pretty terrible and scabbed over quickly. I’m pretty sure I took it worse than she did; that is a mother’s right, isn’t it? I’m sure it’s only the first of future tumbles and bumps and bruises as we navigate toddler hood full throttle ahead!

Luckily that shouldn’t scar and doesn’t seem to bother her now; she didn’t really stress too much about it, even later into the day after receiving it.

Harper has a tea drip stain down her chest, with the top portion blistering a little and the run to her belly button nearly gone. In terms of her fearlessness, she climbed the deck chair and made it onto the table (you know, in the 10 seconds we weren’t looking), picked up the cup of hot tea, and proceeded to pour that straight down on herself. While she was definitely less than thrilled at that, I’m not sure how much of a lesson she learned from it or if it’ll take a few more painful things to teach her to be more careful. Surprisingly she doesn’t have a forehead bonk right now either!

A cute observation we’ve noticed- Emerie and Reagan are light footed when they walk and run (more like me), while Harper is so heavy footed that I can tell who is walking around without even seeing them…like a heavy, but adorable, baby elephant. She walks like Daddy for sure! She also likes to stand in one spot and stomp her feet, not angrily, and often to music. It’s very adorable.

Emerie graduated from PIC last week! We were meeting with our wonderful PIC consultant twice a month, just to monitor progress and give us ideas on how to help with development. We are now fully caught up developmentally for all three, before the standard age of two! This means our adjusted age doesn’t need monitoring quite as much as their actual age, because we are now hitting milestones pretty typical to their age.

The window is the place to be apparently.

Another thing I’ve been tracking is the baby talking. I can’t wait for the bigger conversations to start and am impatient! Everyone’s vocabulary has expanded to about five words. Conveniently it’s the same five words for everyone: momma, dadda, ba (bottle), baby, and the new one for this week, kitty (minus the “t” sound). Emerie says baby all the time and it’s incredibly cute, while Harper and Reagan have been saying kitty a bunch when Rafi or Rory are nearby. Harper also grumble talks, she’s done this for quite a while now, when she’s upset or mad. She will tell you all about it in baby speak, especially to tattle on her sisters! Overall, the goal for our 18 month pediatrician appointment was five words, which we tackled by 16 months!

Trying to get them to say kitty for the camera without said kitty in the room!

Essentially, everything is going pretty well except the actual concept of sleeping. No one wants to nap, especially Reagan, who hasn’t napped even a whole hour in several weeks, let alone two! Some days we get a solid two hour nap out of Emerie or Harper, or both; other days they only go for 45 minutes. What makes it more difficult is they aren’t supplementing less nap time with better nighttime sleep. Nope! Craig and I haven’t had a full nights sleep since the week before we went to Juneau; and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight on how long we will have to drag on this way, since new molars are still popping up for each kiddo and our neighbors are still putting up new siding (which has been going over three weeks now and is noisy).

I’ve graduated from sleeping in my (our) own bed with no kids, to sleeping in our bed with one baby (who varies), to sleeping in the guestroom with a baby while a second baby sleeps next to Craig, to the last two nights, where Reagan slept in our bed with Craig, Harper slept in the guestroom with me and then I ended up holding Emerie in the nursery arm chair so she would attempt to calm down and sleep. Such fun…we are definitely deteriorating and becoming crazy, sleepless parents a little more each day. This is the first week since they were born that I put food in the oven and forgot about it (sorry bacon!). I hope this phase will end soon and that those molars will get here already!

The last minor household change in the past couple of weeks involves more freedom. During the day the girls freely roam the living room, with the baby prison opened up to block off the couch and living room windows, which are clearly meant to be climbed on. Everyone once in a while someone figures out a way around the gate, but for the most part we’ve been able to outsmart that toddler geniusness (for now!). We aren’t too far from no more baby prison, although luckily no one has figured out how to climb the walls yet, unless there is a climbable toy nearby.

Fingers crossed my solo Friday is survivable. It’s pretty great that I managed to finish the blog before the rage started!

Update…by the time I posted this everyone was up and mad. Oh well…

Jul 21

This house is “pooped”

I can confidently say there will be no more diaperless running around in THIS house for a while! Let me explain…but I’m sure to can guess…X three!

They say parenting always brings new (or gross) challenges, and they are right…

We had a busy Saturday, Dad’s group and playtime in the morning, a nap (kinda) and then off to a 2 year old birthday party at a park in Eagle River.

We rocked the park this time, bringing our new portable (and compact!) high chairs with trays. They worked amazingly at several things. Keeping the girls from running all directions? Check. Allowing us to eat and socialize while they ate? Check! Get the girls superrrrrr messy with fruit and cupcakes? Check check.

By the time we made it home everyone was very sticky and messy from food and park adventures. Luckily they all stayed awake for the drive back, until about the last ten minutes; and once home, it was definitely bath time.

While Craig set up the bath upstairs, I changed dirty diapers and then set each kiddo down in the living room, naked, for a few moments of full fledged freedom until all three were ready for the bathtub.

Mind you, we don’t generally let them wander around sans diaper, but since they were about to bathe, I didn’t think much of it and it always takes a couple minutes to have everyone ready at the same time. The fact that the weather keeps the house warm means they wouldn’t freeze their tiny tooshies off for a few moments. I can confidently say I will not repeat this again for a long time…

In an effort to not have them disown me someday…let’s just say all three contributed to this disaster.

I look over to see one sitting on the bottom step, quietly minding her own business. Looking closer… she was pooping on the carpet! As I’m shrieking about that, Craig comes down the stairs and points out another one is also going on the living room rug! WTF!

Before the house was destroyed…

As the first baby is whisked off to Craig for cleanup, I grab number two (pun intended!) and hand her off to him a moment later. I then see my third child push the puppy walker right over “it” and drag it across the floor and the toy. She then squats down and goes on the dining room floor.

At this point I am just thinking WHAT IS HAPPENING!? I mean seriously, they were diaperless for a total of about TWO minutes and all three decide it’s the time to do their business?? We did an hour outside a few weeks ago with just swimsuits on and no diapers…and no one did this out in the yard!

I guess I should be impressed with how well they teamed together to destroy the main floor of the house. Maybe it was their way of reminding us how overdue the floor was for a good steam mop. For the record I vacuumed the entire house yesterday, which clearly no longer matters.

So yes, lesson learned. A gross lesson…and the rest of the night, during and post bath time, was uneventful, thank goodness; and our floors were clean…

PS. We went to the same park exactly a year ago, look at the difference:

Jul 17

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.

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…

Jul 10

Let there be climbing

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:

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! 🙂
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.
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.
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!

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!

Summer 4th of July rompers and see that hair??

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

Baby monitor camera
White noise machine
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!
A few familiar toys for the girls to play with
The triple stroller
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.

The Douglets

Triplets in Alaska

tripletlife