tripletlife

PIC Assessment

Quick update on the girls since we haven’t posted in a few days.

PIC (Parent Infant Children) came out on Thursday and did an assessment on the girls. They are a non profit program that assesses how babies are developing and if they need any special assistance or therapy to continue to grow and thrive.

The girls were on good behavior for the visit and all cooperated. Reagan went first and passed everything with flying colors, showing the lady how well she can hold up her head and do tummy time.

Harper also did well and both girls are considered in the normal development range for their adjusted age (7 weeks adjusted/14 weeks actual). Harper enjoyed the different things the lady tested her on and was a good sport!

Emerie put up a bit more of a fight, probably because she was in the middle of a bottle, and…because she’s Emerie (lol). Since she’s a bit smaller, she has more to do to catch up. She is also our fussier and more demanding baby in terms of feedings and tummy time, so her assessment showed she is on the cusp of the normal development range. This is typically for the smallest premie and no reason for concern.

Overall everything looks good and there isn’t anything we need to worry about. At their suggestion, we are going to start transitioning from sideline feedings to the normal front feedings, and get them used to that. Hopefully they pick it up pretty quick and we can find a new, efficient propping method for all three.

Butterfly Feet

Yesterday we decided to attempt an arts and crafts project with the girls. They weren’t super thrilled at the idea but I think it came out pretty decently! We will definitely give it another try soon, and have a few other body part ideas!

A list of items for this include:

  • A cute baby with baby feet!
  • Acrylic paint (it washes right off): don’t want any permanent purple baby feet!
  • Mini brushes
  • Canvases of any size: I got a few different ones so we could try out a few different things.
  • Newspaper to limit the mess, and a wash cloth to wipe those feet off when the hate rage begins!
  • Two sets of hands is also helpful, one set to coddle the minion and one set to press the foot into the canvas. We had a few alien feet attempts…

They didn’t particularly like the feeling of paint on their toes, but overall were good sports. We did individual butterflies for each of them and a group canvas as well.

Next I want to try a few handprints on a coffee mug. After painting their feet, we gave them each a break to recuperate. It’s surprising how strong they are when they don’t want their painted feet pushed against a canvas! Reagan definitely fought back the most, and Harper and Emerie tolerated it for the most part. I think it will be a great addition to their memory boxes.

Father’s Day Adventures 2018

Yesterday I had big plans of writing a nice post, singing praises to my hubby for Father’s Day and all the great things he’s been doing!

That plan was still in effect until our evening feed, when some tiny newborn sized monsters were unleashed for an epic battle of babies versus Mom. Needless to say, I did not get any screen time for blog writing.

Last night was definitely in the top five of hardest nights since the girls came home, with 3 straight hours of bloody murder screaming. As soon as one settled, the next would start wailing within seconds that they were absolutely starving, you know, since 20 minutes ago and how dare I not immediately feed them and stop feeding their sisters. To top it all off, instead of having two of us versus the three babies, it was only me because Craig had the pleasure of spending those hours puking in the bathroom from his back pain pills. Not a great night for either of us.

As everyone suggests, after a long and drawn out 3 hour baby battle, my patience was wearing quite thin so I put everyone in their bassinets and took a sanity/pumping break downstairs. Apparently that was the answer because that put everyone to sleep…or maybe it was all the energy burned from crying; either way it worked. And they slept five hours!

Now enough complaining about that. Yesterday was Father’s Day, and the first in a long line of them that I’ve actually acknowledged or celebrated. A good friend of mine designed cute onesies for the girls and Craig (well not a onesie for Craig hehe) and everyone was styling for a few photos.

Her shop is called Super Crafty Maye and is on Facebook! She is very creative and read my mind on what I wanted with minimal effort needed on my part! The girls looked so very cute and the onesies are so soft.

In true Craig style, the theme was triplet elephants.

After a little photo op, we managed to eat lunch out at our favorite place, Sushi Sushi, with all the girls, Grandma Sue and Uncle William, and Kerstin, and not have any crying fits! I think they were saving those for the evening, little did we know…

In closing, happy Father’s Day to all those dads out there, supporting and loving their kiddos. I’m glad we would celebrate Craig’s first holiday as a Dad, with many more to come! Hopefully future ones will involve less crying and puking. It can only improve from here.

4-6 Adjusted Week Growth Spurt

The past week or so has been full of fussy babies and finicky eaters, but also new facial expressions and sounds from the girls.

We were warned a big growth spurt was about to occur, and it started slightly ahead of the 4-6 week timeframe, with the girls 12 weeks old today, but 4.5 weeks adjusted.

This growth spurt is more developmental than physical and involves sight, focus, and hearing. Their vision is starting to improve, with colors a little more visible. They are starting to listen to sounds and music more intently and can focus on it. They also begin recognize our voices better, and the change is very noticeable. Such big cognitive leaps!

The girls are all starting to really smile when we talk to them and express new facial expressions. Reagan, who has always been our smiler, now smiles even more and with eye contact and in response to minimal coaxing.

Harper now enjoys the play mat a little more (or maybe she’s just tolerating it now) and is showing us new sounds and shrieks.

Emerie, our little pea pod, has started to smile in response to our voices and be much more interactive with us.

It is exciting to see the changes and I look forward to the next few weeks of growth!

First solo workweek

On Monday a friend texted me how the first solo baby day was going with Craig back at work. My one worded response of “hell” pretty much summed up day one. The girls would not sleep at all, they wouldn’t bottle prop, and there was a great deal of crying. Thank goodness the week improved from that.

Now that it’s Saturday, I look back at the work week and see how much I’ve learned on 3v1 baby days:

  1. Leave the house – going somewhere, even just to hit the McDonalds drive thru or a coffee stand, counts as leaving! Getting everyone loaded up and prepped takes a lot of time and really makes the day pass quickly. The kiddos get a little more stimulation in a changed environment and that changes their moods after a tough morning.
  2. Time your feedings – one day Craig left for work midfeed and I was up the rest of the day with cranky babies. We’ve discovered if the feed is mostly done, i.e. maybe two girls are back in bed and I’m feeding the last one, then I can actually go back to bed for an hour or two. Huge game changer.
  3. Tummy/play time – feeding three babies at once when alone is really difficult, especially if they don’t feel like cooperating. Feeding two simultaneously is manageable. If one is on a play mat within view, that seems to entertain them long enough I can feed one or even both their sisters. Helps a lot when Reagan is on the mat; she likes it a lot more than Harper does!
  4. Support – attending a multiples group with women who have multiples around the same age as mine is really great. It gives us the opportunity to have grown up conversations, hear advice from those ahead of us, and once again, to get out of the house!
  5. Prep the night before – having all the bottles washed and in the nursery, snacks in the fridge, and my pumping gear ready to go is really helpful when three babies are all screaming and hungry at the same time!
  6. Tracker – keeping the food/diaper tracker current helps with my sanity! I often can’t remember who ate what after like an hour!

The most valuable thing I learned this week was that I can do it – I can leave the house solo with three in tow and we all survive! It’s definitely time consuming, stressful, and would be a lot easier with another set of hands, but also good to know that I can do it.

Here’s to a few more weeks of solo girl time. We still have the fan for moral support too 🙂