triplets

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.

Spring into Easter

This week was our second Easter with the girls! Last year we were about 11 days into our NICU stay since the holiday fell so very early. In fact, this year’s Easter fell exactly a year after we brought everyone home for the first time!

Now that the girls are bigger, more mobile and observant, we participated in a few activities over the weekend. Everyone is coughing and super stuffy, so instead of spreading that around, we minimized play dates and socializing and had a nice weekend just the five of us.

On Saturday we opted for photos with a real bunny, instead of the big (and creepy) costume one. The girls thought it was really fun to pet the little guy (his name was Yatzhee!) and the bunny handled three sets of tiny hands quite well.

Luckily we made it right at opening and didn’t have to wait too long to see Mr. Bunny. For future reference, setting the girls in a wheel barrow works great for pictures with all three together. They didn’t even try to climb out, smiled and even looked at the camera.

After a quick run to Target, we spent the rest of the day playing at home and watching movies. When I say watching movies, the littles let us get through two whole movies in a single afternoon. It felt wonderful to sit on the couch and relax, snuggling with any baby that momentarily wandered over from playing with their toys. Harper was especially snuggly, probably because of her cold, and actually sat still for periods of time. Everyone played and played and played!

Easter plans consisted of chocolate bunnies (for breakfast!), finding Easter eggs, and playtime. The tiny chocolate bunnies became tiny, airborne bunnies at first, but eventually turned into food. Reagan went right to chewing on the ears while Harper and Reagan threw their around a bit first. Emerie eventually discovered the delicious chocolate taste while Harper was a bit more skeptical. After a few minutes everyone was chomping down with and eating a bit of chocolate.

After a quick breakfast at Ihop, with very well behaved kiddos, we came home to relax for the rest of the day. Spring tutus were added to outfits! I filled plastic eggs with treats, such as cheese puffs, yogurt melts, and crackers, and spread them around the family room. The girls were immediately curious. Filling them with something that made noise when shaken definitely worked to peak their interest. They enjoyed their snacks, making our first “egg hunt” a success!

I will leave you with these smiles!

You just have to laugh at some things…

So funny story…I am pretty proud that we have escaped many of the embarrassing things that often occur during that first year of sleep deprivation. Of course there are the small things, such as completely spacing out on something, or setting your phone down in the fridge because, well, triplets…

Harper

Earlier this week I was reminded that these moments may continue to happen for an unforeseeable amount of time into my future, including my ever present “mommy brain.”

The past few days sleep deprivation is in full force. The girls came down with a fourth winter cold in a matter of a few hours; they were fine when we both left for work on Monday, and enjoying a major snotfest by the time we came home that afternoon.  My point being…Craig and I were tired. The girls aren’t sleeping well and are grumpy. We are grumpy too. Shocker….

About 9:00 AM on Monday morning, two and a half hours into my typical office work day, my boss called me into his office.  When I walked in to see what’s up, he matter-of-fact pointed out I “had something on my shirt.”  First thought was baby food, milk, or a nice concoction of something baby related. As it turned out, I had a large pink/teal plastic bib…STUCK TO MY BACK.

Seriously, guys, I was wearing that shirt for 3+ hours before anyone noticed a little “friend” was tagging along for the ride.  That shirt came off a hanger in my closet, meaning that bib made it from the dryer, into the closet, onto me, under my coat, throughout my morning work time, and until my boss pointed it out. There are days I wonder where I put my cell phone down, AND I’M HOLDING IT. That bib showed certain dedication on its “take me to work day” morning.

Ah the life of a parent…I guess it could have been worse. It was a clean bib after all!

I tried (I literally just typed “tired” instead of tried….) to think back over the past year to other similar, silly things we’ve done; luckily I can’t come up with too many. That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen…more likely means they did and we were too tired to remember or even notice! One afternoon I found a half gallon of ice cream in the fridge, courtesy of Craig (being dairy free means he couldn’t blame this one on me!).

One of our jokes throughout the first six months home was using the word “burp cloth.” I don’t know about you, but I have a very hard time remembering this word. Why? I have no idea. What I can tell you is, in our house, it is referred to as a “drop cloth.” Different word, same meaning?! I think so. We used a lot of drop cloths for bottle propping, pumping, and cleaning up baby spit, throw up, you name it.  All those years renovating our houses must have resulted in the exclusion of burp cloth from our daily dictionary. Plus, with triplets…don’t you think a drop cloth might be necessary?!

Speaking of laughs…I made the girls experience big, wet snowflakes the other day for our random, freak April snowstorm. Reagan definitely liked it the most, but everyone thought it was cool to check out. Enjoy.