18 Month Well Check

Well, I missed the 15 mo check which meant that they got tons of shots at this 18 mo well check. Four for Lily and Evan and five for Will since I had delayed his MMR. Otherwise it was a great visit.

Holden and I took Evan in the morning and I took Lily and Will in the afternoon to limit the chaos and help them get a good exam. It really is better if they have their own individual appointments but it takes a ton of time. I spent half the day at the doctors office and had just been the previous week for Holden's well check.

Lily said 'doctor' and 'V' for our favorite nurse Mrs. V or Vernetta and fell all over herself showing her nose and belly button. Both the boys were social and were happy to give high fives to the doctor. Evan and Lily have over 50 words and Will has over 20. I asked the doctor if she was concerned about Will and she said they only look for six words at 18 months and some kids aren't speaking yet, so they are all doing great. The one area we didn't meet was knowing the colors so that is what we are working on now.

Here are the stats:

Evan

weight 23 lbs 4 oz (20%)
height 33 1/2 in (80%) our tall guy
head 47 1/2 cm (70%)

Will

weight 23 lbs 5 oz (20%)
height 31 1/2 in (25%)
head 47 1/2 cm (45%) not sure how both boys can have same head size but different %, maybe it's not right.

Lily

weight 22 lbs 3 oz (20%)
height 31 1/4 (40%)
head 47 1/2 cm (75%)

She wasn't concerned about their low-ish weights. I told her I would be happy to give them pedisure or more healthy fats but she said they were fine and getting all the nutrition they needed for good development.

Easter Family Snapshot

Easter Sunday

7:00 AM The Easter bunny has arrived.

7:05 AM Holden catches a glimpse of the bunny.

7:30 AM The 'big' kids are up.

We kept things very simple. I started to second guess not getting more but the little baskets ended up being the perfect size for them to carry around and we had plenty of trinkets.

The eggs were filled with small cars and stickers.

Will with his new matchbox cars. He loves trucks, cars and buses and can spend hours immersed in driving them around, putting them in his riding toys and pushing them around or taking them in and out of little hiding places.

9:30 AM The egg hunt commences. We told them to grab their baskets and go outside. Lily wraps her basket around her to leave her hands free.

Will grabbed two baskets and handed one to Evan before running out the door.

The eggs were filled with a fruit gummy treat or animal cracker.

Will hunting.

Each time they would open an egg they would say 'wow-woww' and 'more'.

Evan hunting.

Will

Lily

Evan

Last few eggs before headed to Pacha for coffee then the park.

4:00 PM Easter dinner with family at the Caffrey's. Lily and Papa read a new book.

Lily, Will and Evan with Grammy Clare.

Tia Christy with Holden.

7:30 PM Home.

Let The Light Shine In

Yesterday they were to start removing our roof for our remodel but instead we had torrential rains, rivers flowing down the street. But today there is not a cloud in the sky and they have already made great progress. As the framing goes up we will finally get to see our project take shape.

*End of day update*

Views from what was previously our kitchen.


View from dining room and den.

Rub My Belly for Good Luck

Holden celebrates St. Patricks day by napping after drinking too much milk. That's Will's shirt from last year.

Someone called Holden a 'Butterball' when I was out running errands with him last week. It's true, he is wearing the boys 6 month clothes already. I project he will be the same size as Lily by next month.

Little Prince

Holden will be eight weeks this Friday. He is a doll. He has big blueberry eyes with a ring of sky blue around the pupil. His hair is turning a soft brown and will likely keep getting blonder like his siblings. He has been pushing up now for a couple of weeks and is beginning to give us some big smiles and an occasional 'coo'. He rarely cries and if he does he can be calmed in moment by simply being picked up or nursed.

He doesn't really need to cry, he is held a lot of the time and gets fed as soon as begins bobbing his head like a woodpecker and making little grunting sounds. He seems long and has a buddha belly. He is a little chunk compared to our other three when they were infants. Our two month appointment is coming up, I won't be surprised if he is close to twelve pounds.

Holden goes most everywhere I go and is most content when being carried around in my Ergo pack. I've learned how to nurse him while he is in his pack which is helpful for our morning walks or at the park or when I'm preparing lunch for the trio. I learned this trick from one of my favorite blogs - amazing trips - another mother of triplets plus one who has some amazing tricks for managing her four by herself.

Holden is still sleeping in his bassinet by our bed at night. He has been consistently sleeping a good stretch between 10pm and 3am. The time change helped us out because I tend to not get in bed until 11pm, and with the time change he slept from 11pm to 4am. At 4am when he made his little grunting sounds, instead of picking him up and nursing him like I usually do I gently patted his back and he returned to sleep for another hour. We may be close to sleeping from 11pm to 5am regularly which sounds like heaven to me. After the middle of the night feed he goes back to cluster feeding and likes to nurse off and on until morning. But at least I can doze while snuggled up to him.

My little prince does not always get first class service. Yesterday Carmen and I gave Holden a bath, one of only a handful since he has been born. At the end of the day I seem to run out of energy to give him a bath. Anyway, he seemed to enjoy it. He was bright eyed and calm and didn't protest one bit.

Today I put Holden on the sofa in his car seat while I was unloading the groceries. When the kids came back from the park, Evan came over to take a peak and pulled the car seat off. Holden came tumbling out. Thank goodness he was not hurt. He cried but stopped as soon as I scooped him up.

Usually, we keep him in the bassinet in whatever room we are in. Even when he is in the bassinet I still have to keep a close eye on the trio. They like to climb up on the side and peer in, and sometimes 'give' him toys or their sippy cups.

I'm sure Holden will learn to be tough having three older siblings. But he will also always be our baby.

Weekend

Chasing bubbles.

Hanging in the playhouse.

Playing a favorite game 'boo'. They like to chase each other around and when they find each other say 'boo'.

Picking flowers 'fow-ers' together, even Will said 'fow-er' today.

Goodnight.

Lions on the Loose

After last week's sunny 80 degree weather we had a cold snap with near freezing temps at night. On cold days Carmen puts the kids in their fleece halloween costumes so they can still play outside. It must be a strange site to see three little lions prowling the yard.

Will scaling our fence. They can't get out - yet.

New Word

Lily learned to say 'rapido' from Carmen - which is like 'quick' or 'hurry' in English, like 'quick, let's wash your hands before lunch'. I thought that was funny.

Pony Tails

Finally, my baby girl has just enough hair to put in pony tails. Big improvement from the mullet look, long in back short in front.

Tractor and Mail Man

I haven't had a chance to write about the language explosion that the kids are going through. Evan and Lily have a vocabulary of maybe 50 words and Will has over a dozen. I'm counting any semblance of the word like 'ma' for monkey, 'mil' for milk and 'bewry' for strawberry.

Since I realized that Will was a bit behind the other two I have been paying closer attention. He tends to say 'dis' and 'dat' or 'uh' even when it is a word he knows well like 'dog'. When he is not with his siblings he will speak more and it just takes him a bit more time to respond to questions. He said 'gactor' yesterday for tractor. That kid loves trucks and tractors. Which reminds me, we were watching the little people video with the farmer on the tractor. And he went into the playroom and found the little people farmer amidst all their toys and brought him into the room. I thought that was pretty amazing.

Lily repeats just about everything we say and has the largest vocabulary. She is really into shapes and can find 'balls' aka circles, stars and 'moons' crescents everywhere. Yesterday when Buddy our mail man stopped at our house she said 'bus' (his mail truck is a small minivan), then 'mail man' and 'Buddy'.

Evan is getting better at using words to get his needs met, signing more and saying 'moo - mil' for more milk and saying 'up' when he wants to be picked up. A favorite word is 'bubbles' for bath time.

Terrible Twos One and a Halfs

Let me preface this post with a note that the triplets are at an adorable age. The are terribly cute and affectionate. They are communicating a lot and becoming more and more fun each day. But they have also been testing their boundaries lately and I've had to start figuring out my parenting style.

The other day all three put me to the test. They were pushing the patio chairs up to the table and climbing on top.

I tried to follow the advice of the books I've been scanning. I would promtly take them off the table, tell them each firmly 'No, do not climb on the table' while gently holding their arms and looking into their eyes to get their full attention. They would climb back up, I would repeat.

Will will often with respond to just a serious look with a shake of the head 'no' and he did this time too - at first - but then it was too much fun to resist or he liked getting my attention or both.

After more than 20 times I gave up and took everyone into the playroom for a joint timeout. I was clear about why we had to come inside 'because they would not listen to mommy and were climbing on the table'. We had a few minutes of major meltdown and then they were fine.

I have a lot to learn about parenting toddlers. It is surely going to be a test of patience. I was proud of myself for keeping my cool that day. I don't want to be one of those screammy moms with the high pitched shrill 'no, get down! I said no, get down, get down, get down, get down!!' It doesn't seem to work anyway. I plan to save the frantic adrenaline 'Nos' for those truly urgent situations like stopping them from running in the street.

That evening Evan started acting up again. He threw his entire dinner on the floor as soon as he sat down for dinner. He then reached over and tried to throw Will's dinner. I was exhausted and finally lost my cool, grabbed his arms a bit too harshly and said NO!, then called for David to take him. I don't expect to be perfect, but I'll keep practicing my toddler handling skills and try my best to dig deep and find my patience and understanding.

So here's my my game plan - so I can re-read this post later when they are driving me batty.

Pick my battles
Be calm yet firm with enforcing those limits
Stay consistent

It is certainly going to get a lot harder before it gets any easier but I think I'm up for the challenge. With a little help from wine and chocolate we will get through this.

Activities

I'm looking for new activities for the kids. They are learning at an amazing rate, soaking everything in and thrive on new experiences.

Jenny told me that her girls enjoy playing with a big bin of rice and burying their little people toys. So we gave that a try.

They delighted in finding buried treasure for about three seconds, then Lily started eating the rice by the handful (and kept going and going). That reminds me I need to post soon about the funny way she scarfs her fruit. Must.find.video.camera. Anyway, the boys quickly discovered that it was more fun to throw the rice.


And it was not much longer before they all discovered that it was more fun to play in the bin.

Michelle and her boys Rowan (3) and Devin (1) visited us in the afternoon for a playdate. It wasn't long ago when we didn't have any children and now there are six. They are planning on having a couple more. It will be nice to have a few friends as busy as we are.

Then Wednesday we tried out 'story time' at the local library. The kids had some fun but the entire experience exhausted me.

We hadn't been there five minutes when we had our first incident. I was sitting in front with Will and Lily quietly on my lap. Carmen was holding Holden. Evan was wandering in the back of the room (which by the way the leader said that it was ok to walk in the back of the room if they didn't want to sit).

Well, there was a row of chairs along the back wall and Evan climbed up on one - because he climbs EVERYTHING. I saw him, but he looked safe to me. Safe enough for someone who has four children anyway. Well the leader saw him and leaped up screaming 'get off the chair!, get off the chair!, get off the chair!' and snatched him off. I was mortified and frozen, looking around like I didn't know the child.

When story time started she made a point to say, 'and class, remember no climbing on chairs'. Not that she didn't have a point, but I just wasn't thrilled with how she handled it.

During the class we had a few other unsettling moments. Lily standing up front because she was interested and the women telling her to sit down which of course she didn't. Evan trying to take off the felt pictures the leader was posting on the board. Will 'swimming' in the crayon box while all the other children quietly colored. Oh and someone got my nanny's phone number - but it sounded like they were talking about Carmen knowing someone that could help her. Good god I hope that's all. Certainly that is the case. The mom was chatting with me previously and says she visits our park often and knows the children. I don't tolerate nanny stealing very well.

I'm glad I went to see what it was all about. If you had one or two children I could see how it could be a decent diversion and good habit to be going to the library but it's not worth it to me to be on edge the whole time. I'd rather let them run and climb in a safe environment like Gymboree or perhaps it's time to check out a gymnastics class.

Sweet Treat

The other day I decided to give the kids a treat. Usually dessert is fruit or the occasional animal cracker. But this day we tried chocolate pudding for the first time.


It was the rare occasion that they all had nice clean outfits on, but that didn't last long.

Will was more interested in painting his shorts with the chocolate than eating it.

Lily was the most fond of the pudding.

But still took a moment to give her baby brother a kiss.