Wonder Days

Hello out there!  I was reminded today by a friend of our long infertility journey, rocky and anxiety-producing pregnancy and subsequent impossibly difficult first couple of years with our triplet boys.  I felt compelled to post to saw how deeply I relate to all of you experiencing infertility and miscarriages, and to those of you raising multiples (or just one newborn- that is hard enough!).  I wanted to give you a peek into our daily life.  It is full of joy and laughter, but also sibling fights, sharing battles and the difficulty that raising four young kids, three of whom are the same age, brings.  Each and every day I get snuggled, loved (and occasionally, whacked with a dump truck).  Tuning into the small and tiny details of our days together allows me to navigate the insanity; like seeing the way C's eyelashes lay on his cheek when he is reading with me.  Coffee fuels the rest.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos

HI! I am going to pretend like I haven't been away for far too long and just say this: HOLY HELL. Triplet toddlers are trouble.

I cannot believe the things they think of! They moved their table over to the oven after I had to hide their chairs- quite resourceful!

They like to jump off of things. They even like to build things just to climb onto something taller to jump off.

There are moments of cooperation, but these are few compared with the battling over toys...

There is a major interest in being inside of toys. They always exclaim they are going to "Costco for popsicles!"

And my little guys are TWO! They are an all-at-once roving horde of destruction, full of snuggling (still nursing) gang of boys with whom I am totally in love! Each day is different, but always a challenge for me. Mommy is growing gray hair.

This was our thank-you card photo after their birthday- lollipops got them to at least look our way.

I won't promise more posts, since I am notoriously bad at following through, but I will try! Interesting identical twin connection versus our fraternal guy... also, pondering preschool for next year. SO much to think about!

Happy, happy season of gratitude and Thanksgiving to everyone. I am so very grateful for the amazing communities of mommies around the world, outside my door, and online too.

18 months already?

How did my sweet, four-pound preemies become such big toddlers?

As a result of excitedly over-volunteering, I find myself with only a few minutes for this post, but as I stated last week, brief and frequent is the goal.

What are we up to, you ask?

Still nursing, and loving it! (Except when they beat on each other or me in order to get a latch position...)

Egg Decorating

O-Bear

Egg Hunting

Four SERIOUSLY handsome boys

This is how we roll; the comments about the stroller are truly endless.

Happy half birthday, sweet boys! I adore each of you!

Coming posts: "Why I Want to Have Another Baby OR My Husband Thinks I Am Nuts-o" and "What the Boys are up to These Days: the Chaos Files".

Roadblocks to Blogging

HELLLLOOOOO!!!

Somehow, I knew life with three toddlers (nearly 1 and 1/2 now) and an almost-kindergartener would be busy, but really, I had no flipping idea of how busy it would get once mobility set in. Insanity! Chaos! Overwhelming Activity! These are the headlines that fly through my mind while I try to figure out how to adequately catch you up.

I have come to the conclusion that since I am not going to write a retrospective summary of what life has been like, we should just jump right into it. I am hoping to be able to blog more regularly as the boys become more manageable, but in order to do that, I should address some of the Blogging Roadblocks I have identified that get in the way:

1. TIME. Could I please have three extra hours in each day? I need the children to either be sleeping or playing independently though. Thanks! Seriously, between child-caring-for, preschool shuttling, cooking, cleaning, organizing, meal-planning and shopping, I am left with about an hour of truly "free time". And this is with the help of an amazing nanny and my mom. My free time is frequently spent running or at the gym, volunteering for A's school, or maybe grabbing tea with a friend. I will add blogging (reading AND writing) to that list again!

2. PICTURES. Okay, I have tried to keep my kids faces off my blog. I have, so far, done a good job of it. However, I find that some of my very favorite blogs are the opposite of anonymous. We are invited into someone's life, see what their days are like, and reflect with them on what it all means. It is hard, but not impossible, of course, to do this without photographs, but I find myself wanting to share more. I have almost blogged a thousand moments, but felt without a picture of what the kids all look like covered in ice cream from their first sundae, or a video of A pushing her brother in his red toy car, something would be lacking. I am hoping that this will help me document those small moments, and take more pictures!

3. QUANTITY. I have so much to say, and so little time to do it. This space will be for those moments in life that make us laugh, give pause, or connect with others in our amazing world. I want the kids to feel that we are all honoring that first soccer practice or scraped knee, taking time to say that despite the fact that I have four kids, each child's experience is important. Brevity but frequency may be the key to my blogging success.

What are your Blogging Roadblocks? How do you get around (or over!) them?

Let's start the photo-fun now...

Cheeks, O-Bear, Ace

October 2010, 2 weeks old

O-Bear, Cheeks, Ace

April 2010, 6 months old

Ace, O-Bear, Cheeks

October 2010, 12 months old

And my first born, my always-full-of-life daughter! I am in a bit of denial that she is almost five and off to kindergarten next year. WHAT?

I have some very cutie-pants pictures that are recent, but I need my techie husband to help me figure out how to connect to our AppleTV which has a Dropbox folder on it, containing the aforementioned cutie-pants pictures, from which I have somehow been denied access. (I only pretend to know what I am doing, technologically speaking.)

I do suppose that this might serve as a teaser for some of you to come back and check in with us? Recent pictures, and a video or two of the chaos that is our daily life are assured in the next post! If you are here, and reading, leave me a comment, so I can build up my Google Reader again. I would love to catch up with you and yours!

Mobility Anxiety! And the Blonde Baker!

I am excited to share my new blog with you! This whole parenting-triplets-thing requires serious baked good consumption, so I decided to channel all the time I spend baking, reading cookbooks and sharing treats with friends into a blog all it's own. Please come check it out- and try a recipe or two. (I also heard a rumor there is a picture of me on the About page. Just sayin'.) I am The Blonde Baker!

Back to our (semi-)regularly scheduled programming.

We are entering new territory here, folks. MOBILITY. Although the babies have yet to sit up without some major assistance, they are figuring out how to move. Quickly. Usually toward a sharp object or one of their sister's choking-hazardesque toys. We are entering an uncharted territory of "busy".

It is usually my mom and I (thank heavens for her!) all day with the trips and A, so we usually rotate who rushes upstairs to get ready or shower in the mornings. We take our iPhones and text if help is needed. Usually, things go fine, although I may end up holding two while pacing if they are fussy, or she could have to hold Cheeks while feeding Ace his breakfast. It's just the usual "double-arming-it" that we do daily.

Ace and O-Bear

Increasingly, the babies have been more and more content playing on the floor with lots of toys and one of us sitting with them. I usually have to adjust baby limbs so they don't conk each other in the face, sing songs with hand movements or pick up a fussier boy pretty much constantly. A few days ago, early in the morning, I was sitting on the floor drinking decaf, while A watched "Sesame Street" and the boys played. Pretty soon Cheeks became fussy and needed to be held, so I picked him up and sat him in my lap. Then A needed help in the bathroom, so Cheeks and I went to help her. By the time I got back, O-Bear had army crawled all the way to the ottoman and was half way stuck underneath it and Ace had rolled about 20 feet to the hardwood floor and bonked his head in the process. My mom rushed down to see what the hysteria was about, and all I could do was stand there, holding two crying babies, with a look of terror a glimpse of what was to come on my face: MOBILITY.

I believe the thought, "We are SCREWED!" ran through my head in stereo.

The new challenges now are not that they refuse to be set down, but that when they do, off they go in THREE directions! I knew this stage was coming, but I did not expect it yet! They cannot even sit up- what do they think they are doing, rolling/crawling/getting stuck already! We live in a three story home with hardwoods throughout the main floor and many a dangerous staircase entrance. The stairs need to be gated, the hard edges padded, and the choking hazards removed from the family room (by the way, all four-year-old girl toys are choking hazards).

Let the baby-herding begin!

Cheeks in the bath! Seriously, have you ever seen any cuter ones?

I almost just Googled, "Creative Blog Post Title"

Pathetic. Anyhoo...

Right next to the button I just pushed that says, "New Post" is the information that I have not posted since March 27! WHAT? (A very sheepish blush has overcome my cheeks...)

Needless to say, I am a bit on the busy side with eight month old triplets and our nearly four year old, but how can I continue to neglect anyone who still reads this crazy blog? This year has certainly been different from last. On Father's Day last year, we had a fun family brunch and relaxed all day. I was 16 weeks pregnant with my three perfect boys, and thanking my husband for being such an amazing Daddy to our daughter and daddy-to-be to our little guys. This year, we both had the luxury of a shower, made it through the day with three teething babies, a tyrannical almost-four-year-old and are currently trying to decide if we can stay up until 9 pm to watch "True Blood". Interestingly enough, I talked about that (most awesome of awesome) show last year. It seems some things never change.

Everything else does!

Some pictures and highlights to catch you up...

- We have three teeth among the boys, spread out over two babies! Cheeks and O-Bear, true to their identical twin-ness cut their first tooth within a week of each other, and now Cheeks has number two!

- Ace (always the rockstar nurser) has also become the rockstar eater! He eats three solid meals a day- homemade veggies or fruit and Yobaby, his fave. The other day, we were trying to entice O-Bear to just TRY some yogurt (It is sweet! And creamy!) while Ace ate some of his favorite pear-banana-peach blend that I whipped up. He saw us giving his brother yogurt and cried so hard and whacked his tiny, ineffectual fists on the tray until we shared the cultured wealth.

- Cheeks and O-Bear mostly make faces like you are trying to poison them when you attempt to spoon some goodness in. They really just want to nurse (ALL the time, which is fine by me) but are beginning to dabble in vanilla Yobaby. Only vanilla.

- They are all rolling everywhere, which scares and delights me, but are not sitting up. I really am excited for this so they can have a new view that does not include our ceiling and perhaps they'll be a bit more entertained when my mom and I try to pee/make dinner/take care of their sister.

- I have become obsessed with the only hobby that I can do at home: baking! I bake something (usually some delish cookie with chocolate in it) at least once a day, and have been on a cake kick lately. I am thinking of starting a baking blog, complete with fantastic (ha!) looking pictures of my creations and lots of recipes. It would be a fun thing to do from home, while babes sleep, and that is unrelated to parenting, nursing or multiples. As soon as I have my blog looking good and sweet, I'll share the url. Hopefully it will be a well-nurtured blog! (The best cookie I made this week: chocolate marbled oatmeal cookies. HEAVEN.)

Some happenings:

A, "nursing" her doll

O-Bear, who insists he is on his tummy at all times

We happen to be on the other side of the state with the kids (and my awesome mother, and my little cousin) in search of the sun, as it appears it will never shine again in Seattle. One of my assignments for the week: more blog-friendly pictures and another post. I promise one by Friday. Dang, I am getting ambitious around here...

I have a more serious and reflective post in the works, one that makes me all teary and sweaty, about the guilt I feel to not be the mom I was to my daughter, about how hard it is to see two crying babies and sometimes have to choose which one to hold, about how I still want to have a clean house and make dinner, which means sometimes I choose to do housework while my mom hangs with babies. It is all a recipe for guilt and anxiety for me lately, and I am working on being more forgiving and also trying to have quality time with all four of my children, each day. Even if it is only for one chorus of "The Wheels on the Bus".

I am catching up in my Google Reader while on vacation. Expect to see me in your comments!

Shameless distraction!

5 month-old bottoms!

I am hoping that helped you forget the fact that I have not blogged in over a month. A funny thing happens when I stopped pumping (!) and was able to nurse instead- no more laptop time. While this was my ultimate goal, I miss reading blogs from a screen larger than my iPhone, and really miss blogging regularly. Mid-year resolution: short and sweet updates.

The boys are five months old! The nursing continues to go well- we have not used a bottle in weeks and are not looking back. I am so proud of them! They love to nurse now, and I usually have at least one baby attached to me for the better part of the day. I think they each nurse around 10 times a day- maybe more. They demand feed at night, too, which is getting out of hand (since they wake up to nurse and promptly fall asleep after latching on) but for now, it works for us.

Everyone is growing- our Cheeks is still the largest at a whopping 13 pounds! He is on the chart for his weight without adjusting for prematurity. Clearly, his nickname still fits. He has become extremely vocal about everything. He coos loudly at himself in the mirror, grunts while I get ready to nurse him, and is the first to exhibit stranger anxiety with heart-wrenching wails. Luckily, he is never with any strangers for long, but even out in the community, he can be sensitive. He has a ginormous head that we are hoping rounds out a bit soon, but at least we know his brain is a-growing.

O-Bear is also getting so big! He is definitely our snuggler. Wherever he is, he reaches for his brothers and hooks arms with them. He will settle for just gripping their sleeve or hand if necessary, but he likes to be really linked in to his brothers. Lately, he has been bucking while laying on his back, with just his head and feet on the floor and boy, can he move! He basically refuses to roll from front to back (something his brothers love to do) and settles for sucking on his hand. Our O usually has a few fingers in his mouth and drool on his shirt.

Ace lives up to that nickname! He rolled over first and is working on back to front. While his Nanna was here, he laughed out loud many times for her and will now for us, if we kiss his neck noisily. He is sort of a boob hog and will cry when he sees his brothers eating until his turn. Ace continues to be super social and loves to be worn facing out in the Bjorn, so he can see the world. He flirts with everyone, with a wide-open grin and loves new people. He reaches for and holds toys, as do his brothers, and he has showed them how to mostly get toys to their target: the mouth!

So much to write about- more coming on nursing, "leftover" embryos, multiple parenting and other adventures! For those who still read- thank you! Better posts follow... but now, I must sleep for an hour before someone wakes up to eat.