Is it bad?

At the end of every weekend, I look forward to going back to work.  I love my time with my babies, but since tax season is upon us, I'm by myself and by the end of each day, I'm tired and sore.  (I'm done with physical therapy, but haven't dedicated any time to do the exercises that I should - hence I'm sore.)  Every minute of the day is spend doing something - here was my day:  Two of three babies woke up around 6am - so I changed them and went back to sleep for a little over an hour.  I then changed the third baby and we proceeded to feed everyone.  We then brought them downstairs - Tony made breakfast and I went through medical bills/credit card statements so we can finish our taxes.  I was able to eat a little bit while I fed babies their oatmeal oh and changed their diapers again.  I then got the laundry out of the dryer and folded  about half of it.  I put in another load - this time diapers.  I then took a shower ( my one 'me' thing the whole day).  While exiting the shower I noticed my cat that needed food and water.  So I filled both dishes for her and afterwards unloaded the dish washer from the night before.  I then prepared the bottles and then it was time for the babies to eat again. Tony fed one and I fed the other two.  They were going to eat their lunch, but two out of three were asleep and the one that was awake was my fussy eater and I wasn't going to fight with all three so they all were changed and put down for their nap.  Then I started to load the dirty dishes into the dish washer.  I then grabbed the baby monitor and went outside to do some weeding and cleaning up.  The neighbor's tree drops millions of little petals on our driveway - which is very pretty to look at, but I slip on them EVERY time I walk on them.  It's really annoying and one of these days I'm actually going to fall, but so far I've been lucky.  I came back in and realized that the dog had never gone out this morning so I let him out.  I then started the roomba in the entry way while I did a little cleaning in the kitchen.  At this point the babies started to wake up.  I changed diapers again and brought them downstairs and sat them all in a circle and read a few books to them and played with them until it was time to eat again.  I fed everyone their bottles and lunch and moved the diapers into the dryer.  I put the dog out and played with him for a little while and then heard everyone crying inside.  The unhappy hour was upon me so I decided to take them for a walk.  Everyone again got their diaper changed and I loaded everyone into the stroller and out the door I went.  I walked around the neighborhood for about a half an hour until I stopped at Tony's parents house.  I signed our tax forms, chatted with the inlaws for a few minutes and back out the door I went.  I started the dryer again - the diapers are pretty thick, put the dog out again and unloaded the stroller.  I then had one crying baby after another, so I changed diapers again and put away some of the laundry I had folded earlier.  I think I actually went to the bathroom at this point.  Tony got home, let the dog back in and it was time to eat again.  We both fed bottles, but as Tony made dinner, I fed babies their dinner.  We did baths and put everyone to bed.  We then ate dinner and I cleaned up, started the dishwasher and folded the diaper laundry.  I paid a bill online and started a shopping list as I cut out coupons from this week and last week's newspapers.  That brings me to where I am right now.  I'm about the put the dog out again and then retire for the night... here  I go.

Neighborhood full of multiples!

Not alot of updates regarding babies other than everyone is now sitting up on their own!  No more lazy baby boy! It's incredible how quickly things change.  At the beginning of the week, he could barely sit up on his own and by the end of the week, he's strong enough to sit by himself for a few minutes at a time.  So now it's really fun to sit them all up together in a circle and watch.  They typically try and reach out for each other - mostly by their bibs and sometimes they pull each other over.  If they have toys in front of them, Olivia usually ends up with everything.  We're going to have to watch her...
On a side note, I was taking the babies out for a walk on Saturday - it was such a nice day and we were coming up on feeding time, I walked over to Tony's parents house.  On my way, I saw a lady that I've before walking past the house - usually with her husband and two boys.  I never noticed, but the boys are twins!  I didn't talk to her for very long, but she shared with me that it gets easier around 6 months of age.  Well, we're past that time and I can't really say it's easier... just different. 
Jump to my trip back home - and I'm walking past the house two down from my house and notice that the woman is coming over and asks me if they can see the babies.  I was crossing the street anyway so we started chatting then her one daughter came over and then her other daughter - twins!  After chatting for a while, I learned that she works at RWJ and we both know another MoM - someone who is in my club.  Small world really.  This was also St. Patrick's day weekend.  We were supposed to go to T's parents house for dinner, but they got food poisoning the night before.  We had them all dressed and ready to go, but they cancelled, so instead we went out to Sam's Club.  I know I'm a bit biased, but these babies are stinkin' cute!

What a way to start the day!

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been choosing sleep over blogging.  The fact that my laptop is in the basement and I don't get down there that often doesn't help, plus it's another set of stairs I'd need to climb at the end of the night and sometimes I just don't have it in me.  There's so much that I'm going to try and remember over the past week - I hope I do before I'm supposed to change the clocks back.

Last weekend, we packed everyone up to go to my MoM's club sale.  We didn't really need anything, but felt I should go to show some support and hopefully see my fellow triplet mom - Kelly.  We ended up buying another exersaucer and a few other toys.  (We now have three saucers and another bouncer - I swear I live in a day care....)  The trip overall was uneventful - which is good.  Tony went to work and I stayed home with the babies.  During my time with them, I made some new discoveries.  The first one is that both ladies can sit up on their own - for at a few minutes at a time.  They're still a bit wobbly, but it's exciting!  Little T still falls right over if you sit him up, but I'm sure he won't be too far behind.  Another discovery is that Olivia has two teeth already!  Her two bottom teeth have popped through and without any major pain, but boy are they sharp!  The rest of the weekend was also pretty uneventful, or at least I can't remember anything out of the ordinary. 
The work week went by pretty slowly.  I'm basically independent with my new job, but still have to ask others for assistance quite a bit.  Everyone keeps telling me that I'm doing well, but it seemed like last week, I couldn't get anything right.  I even almost flushed my cell phone down the toilet toward the beginning of the week.  No, I didn't do it on purpose - it was an accident.  (It fell out of my pocket.)  It has since dried out and working normally thanks to a co-worker's suggestion of putting it in a bag of rice. 
Our normal routine in the morning is that I get up around 6:30am, take a shower and then start changing diapers.  Everyone is usually awake by 6:45am and ready to eat around 7am.  Now I'm sure that seeing one smiling baby as you enter the room would be really sweet/cute/etc., but seeing three smiling faces looking at you, there's no greater feeling and that's now my 'happy place'  If I'm having a crap-tastic day, all I need to think about is those sweet smiling faces as I enter their room.  It's the best way to start the day!

One final story -because I want to remember this.  This morning we had all three babies on the bed after their feeding.  Olivia was facing little T and as he always does, he smiles at his sisters and babbles at them.  Olivia, being our cautious baby, isn't always so quick to smile back.  Well this morning, she basically snubbed him and looked at him and turned away.  I felt so bad for him because he never really seems to get any 'response' back from his sisters when he tries to engage them.  Maybe then they're older, they'll want to talk to each other.  Included are a few pictures from last weekend... included one of the diapers on the clothes line.  This isn't even all of the dipes we have!

I don't know how you do it...

This is a phrase I hear on a quite regular basis.  Every time someone new learns about me having triplets, this is what I hear.  My response is usually the same - something about me getting to go to work - it's my husband that has the hard job!  The babies have been doing taxes for the past few weeks.  Tony gets everybody ready and goes over to grandma & grandpa's.  I've been going to PT for the past few weeks trying to get rid of my PITA.  All of the babies are doing well - getting bigger and stronger every day.  They are all very close to sitting up on their own.  They've tried a bunch of new foods the past few weeks.  Tony pureed some turkey yesterday and gave each baby a little taste.  It was not a pretty picture.  Olivia - who will eat anything started crying, little T started puking and Amelia just proceeded to spit it back out of her mouth - pushing it out with her tongue.
We did have another family outing this past weekend.  The babies had their first trip to Point Pleasant.  They went to Jenkinson's and strolled down the boardwalk.  Afterwards, we ate at Charlie Brown's where just the sight of them brought the hostess to tears - a happy cry of course!  Every one was pretty well behaved and fell asleep on the car ride home. 
A few pictures - from tonight right after they were put to bed  :)

Are they really asleep?

I was just reminded of something we used to do to/with the babies when they were younger, so I had to write about it before I forgot.  I was reminded when Tony raised the dog's paw in the air and let it go and it fell to the floor promptly - obviously Buddy was really out cold.  We used to do that with the babies to tell if they were really asleep.  If the arm dropped all the way, they were completely asleep.  Sometimes you'd notice that their arm still had some 'life'  in it and didn't fall down at once.  When this happened, we knew they weren't completely out so it was risky to put them down - as they may wake up as soon as you tried.  I remember at that time, I never thought they'd be sleeping through the night, but they do and have been for some time now.  :)

We had another family outing today.  We finally got downtown and ordered our new fridge (for the garage).  Tony has been hounding me for this for a while now so it'll get him off my back for a little while.  He's been requesting a new one since he's been thinking about making his own baby food.  From what I understand, it's not actually all that difficult (at this stage).  You can just puree everything!  He's done a few things so far, including squash, sweet potato and spinach.  I fed the spinach to them today and as always, Olivia and little T will eat it, but Amelia didn't want anything to do with it.  She basically spit it back right after I spooned it into her mouth.  She even went so far as to push her entire bib in her mouth to wipe the rest of it out!

Ok, back to the outing - we ordered the fridge and of course got a few questions and looks from other shoppers and people working there.  One that I never really know how to answer that I got today is "did you know you were having triplets?"  I'm not really sure what people are looking for when they ask this question, but my response is typically the same - which is "yes, we knew pretty early on that there were three".  After that, we drove up to Sam's Club - a place we've been a number of times with the babies.  It was a windy day and took one of us to just hold the stroller still from rolling while the other loaded.  It was an uneventful trip really - just the normal stares, questions, etc.  I especially love the looks from other people that have one baby in a stroller or carrier.  I often think they think that it's difficult to undergo an outing with just one - and can't even imagine what we go through... and I'd have to agree with them - they have no idea.  One person there - giving away samples of gross gummy vitamins - said to us as we were checking out..."it doesn't get any better".  I was sure to thank her for her optimism.  

We make a great team!

This past weekend, Tony & I were very adventurous and went out twice on Sunday.  Both outings were a bust, but successful as a 'family' outing.  The first was a walk downtown to the appliance store.  We're in the market for a fridge for the garage.  Tony is planning on making his own baby food and we need some place to store it.  The store ended up not even being open and since I Tony pushed the stroller down the hill, I got the pleasure of pushing it up the hill back home.  Let me tell you, it's a work out!  We got home, fed the babies and turned around and went back out.  This time was to the mall.  We're also in the market for a new mattress.  We had dreams of getting a sleep number bed and they were having a decent sale but Tony had to try them out.  The store was a mad-house.  There were people lying on EVERY single bed in the place and standing all around with ONE sales person.  By the end we had all three babies on one of the beds and even changed their diapers on the i8 model.  It's the most expensive thing their butts have been on!  In the end we had to leave before even talking to the sales person.  A funny thing happened while we were there - the sales person - who remembered me from when I stopped there a few weeks ago, had her arms outstretched toward Amelia who was sitting on the bed.  Well, my little skeptical baby smiled back at the lady, but made  no motion to reach out to her.  I'm glad :)  I don't want my babies just reaching out to anyone!  Well here's where the story gets really good.  We're exiting the mall and notice that a Mercedes SUV is completely blocking the exit - so much that there was about one foot from their bumper to the edge of the ramp.  We were able to get out, but not without some special maneuvering.  Neither Tony, nor I can keep out mouths shut about things like this, so as we walked past, we were sure to thank them for being so considerate (oh yeah, and we're both very sarcastic!)  We kept moving and as we passed the opposite side of their car, the woman says "mind your own business".  Well Tony didn't hear her say it, so I told him what she said and well, let's just say he was NOT happy with her comment.  He went over there and engaged in a loud yelling match this woman who told him that she didn't like his attitude, to which he responded, "I got your attitude RIGHT HERE!!!"  A few more expletives were yelled and as he got back to the car, he says to me... " well that could have gotten ugly" as I see SUV drive away.  The whole ride home, we talked about the incident and we both agreed we were right.  What a great team we make.  Actually, we do and that's what makes this whole thing work.
On a side note, I thought I took a picture of all the diapers on the clothesline - what a sight to see! but I guess the card wasn't in the camera so I didn't get it.  I'm sure they'll be out there again some day, but it would have been a cute picture to post.  Oh well...

This is winter?

I wrote the title of this post before I went down into my basement where it's really cold.  I used to have a space heater that I used down here, but just remembered that it's upstairs in the babies' room.  Anyways, I was going to comment on how mild this winter has been and how it was nice enough to go out and take the babies for a walk.  That said, I didn't take the babies for a walk - I had a bunch of things I had to get done at home, but now I wish I had.  I think tomorrow might be just as nice and I'll definitely go tomorrow.  So what did I do today?  What was so important - well, nothing really important, but Tony was over at his mom & dad's working so I was on baby duty.  I feel like I have something to prove when I'm with them by myself.  Basically to show him and others that I can do as good a job as he can and I don't fall apart without him.  So, I got 2 loads of laundry done, dishes done, bottles done, formula cups filled, and played with the dog outside.  I know it doesn't sound like that much, but all of that plus taking care of three babies - well it is alot - and I'm tired.  (I'll be going to bed shortly after finishing this.)  The day went pretty well.  Nothing out of the ordinary, but they did eat sweet potatoes.  Everyone, but Amelia appeared to enjoy them.  Another notable thing the babies are doing is alot more reaching for things.  Olivia reaches for her bottle and reaches for you if she's in the exersauer, and this morning reached for the papers I had in my hand.  She ended up with the Toys-R-Us ad and proceeded to rip it up.  It then was promptly brought up to her mouth.  Oh yeah, that's another thing - everything gets into their mouth (if they can lift it up).  I can't tell you how many times I see them with their bibs in their mouths.  It's really funny, but hopefully they'll grow out of this stage of everything going into their mouths.  I'm sure there's more I could write about, but I have to load the washer with dirty diapers.  We're hoping it'll be nice outside tomorrow so we can sun them.