Friday, February 29, 2008

Aunt Patti

We have so many people who are always doing nice things for us. Aunt Patti is one of them. Our Aunt Patti is available to babysit and she brings our moms food to eat and she also loves to love us. She hems and alters clothes that are too big for us. She also made these onsies for us. She used a French country scene for Lucia and me, and a cowboy scene for Elliott. We love to wear our new onsies. Thank you Aunt Patti. We love you, Mazie.


P.S. Mama has learned if she wants a photo of us in certain outfits, she needs to take the photo as soon as we get dressed. Elliott has spit up on his onsie and mine had to come off and is currently soaking in a scoop of OxyClean.

P.P.S. Also, our mama loves this photo, because the entire time she was getting us dressed and taking our picture, we were holding hands.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Knock Knock

I fear we are knocking at the door of the house of sick. So far I think only Lucia has stepped through the doorway.

Here are the facts:
Everyone seems to feel fine; they are all eating well.
No one is running a fever.
Since Thursday or Friday the three have been coughing.
These aren't ugly coughs.
Since Saturday, Lucia's nose has been red.
Since Saturday I've had to aspirate Lucia several times a day as she has had copious amounts of stuff in her nose. (She hates this.)
Since Saturday Lucia cries out when she is lying flat because she can't breathe comfortably.
Monday morning her left eye is swollen and a little red.

I have been dreading our first experience with illness, and I am still not sure this will really count. We are two weeks shy of six months old; I really wanted to make it six months without them catching anything. But, "they" say getting sick is what helps children build their immune systems. As with anything in life, there are positives and negatives to what ever situation you are in. Hopefully this will just be a short visit to the house of sick.

We hope you are feeling well.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Three Times Three

Nine ways to know that you have triplets in the house:

9) You just cut a foot of length off your hair.

8) You have lost all your pregnancy weight but still have to wear maternity clothes.

7) You eat cereal for supper three times a week.

6) After walking past you and your babies, people frequently turn to their companion and ask, "'Did you see Jon and Kate Plus 8' the other night?"

5) You've been peed on, poohed on, and puked on all in the same day.

4) You find yourself saying, "Call me/Come by, I'll be home the next five years."

3) You used to memorize Mary Oliver poems
...I don't know exactly what a prayer is
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

And now you memorize Sandra Boynton books
A cow says Moo
A sheep says Baah
The three singing pigs
Say LaLaLa
No, No you say
That isn't right
The pigs say Oink
All day and night...

2) Someone has called your house and said to you, "I don't know your name, but I was wondering if I could come see your babies."

1) Your 1000 square foot house contains more cribs, diapers, rattles, joy, and love than you ever would have dreamt possible.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Sleeping Positions

My favorite sleeping position is on my stomach with one knee bent and cocked out to the side. Ahhh, I will always remember the first time after the babies were born that I was able to roll onto my stomach and bring that left knee up and sleep the night away. That night did not come until we had been home for about a month. Measuring 51 weeks pregnant the night before I delivered, my sleep positions had become very limited. The last few weeks I could not roll over and had to get out of bed to change sides. I could not sleep on my back by then. As large and limited as I was, I never had a sleepless night while pregnant. I realize this is another one of the many miracles that occurred during my pregnancy, and I am grateful for it.

The babies are beginning to show their favorite sleep positions. I was so excited when I went in to check on them during naptime last week and Mazie was on her stomach with her left knee bent up. Here are their favorites:

Lucia loves to put her feet against the crib. She is the reason we went out and bought these breathable bumper pads as she got her leg caught between the crib slats in the middle of the night a few times (thanks for the rec Tia Karen).
Elliott loves to curl his knees up under his belly and stick his bum in the air. He sleeps like this almost all the time. In the morning he has red circles on his knees.

Mazie has several different ways she sleeps. As is mentioned above, one of her favorites is on her stomach with her knee bent out to the side.
We hope you have a restful night of sleep tonight.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Babies Inc.

I can still hear my mother saying, "Karen has loved babies ever since she was a baby." My sister, the neonatal nurse practitioner, knew she wanted to go into neonatology since she was in the second grade. People would ask me as I was approaching the end of high school "what do you want to do?" After I would shrug "I don't know," my sister, approaching the end of elementary school, would pipe up, " I am going to be a neonatologist."
There is a reason I chose to teach middle school. What do you do with a baby? I can't discuss To Kill A Mockingbird or "Thank you M'am" with a baby or ask him what he thought of that NPR segment on the history of the banana. What do you do with a baby? With three babies?


Enter Rachael: Rachael, Summer, and Seth came to visit us for Presidents' Day weekend. Rachael and my sister are similar in that Rachael has always loved babies and young children too. She has been teaching nursery school since she was in first grade, I believe. She gave me new activities to try with the babies. For that I am grateful, but not as grateful as the babies. I constantly read and sing with them. We play body part and color and alphabet games; we even have puppet shows. However, I have been getting the feeling lately that they are growing rather bored with me. They sometimes look at me with eyes that seem to be saying "Spice it up, Mama." So, now that Rachael has come, we now have bouncing games, object permanence amusements, and lots of tummy time fun. We even made a batch of baby food to freeze until the babies start solids next month--butternut squash. Yum.


Of course, we thoroughly enjoyed our time with Seth and Summer too. We have missed seeing our good friends. We had lots of good discussion and fellowship, as we always do. Summer and Rachael were both kind in fielding many of our questions about what is coming next in the baby development world. We even managed to discuss a little literature and politics.
Seth is a great baby. He has a head of wild hair and a sweet disposition. It was nice to have another baby in the mix. We were even witness to Seth cutting his first tooth.

Come back soon, friends.

Photos: The top photo is of Summer and H with Seth and Lucia after our walk to the barn. The middle one is of Rachael who seems to have worn poor Mazie completely out. The bottom photo is of Elliott and Seth hanging out in the Bumbo chairs.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Mazie Talk

Here is a video from the first of the month showing Mazie's progressing verbal skills. She has become very quick to let you know what she thinks. I am sure she'll be calling you on the phone to chat in the next few weeks.


Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Lucia Rolling Over

Finally! I have at least 30 minutes of footage of Lucia almost but not quite rolling over. Elliott and Mazie have been rolling over for almost a month now. Lucia loves to roll on to her side and teeter up on her left shoulder only to plop back on to her back. This morning I caught her trying to roll over again--this time with success. We have been looking for her to roll over for several weeks now so forgive all the cheering and gushing. Elliott is proud of her too.


Monday, February 11, 2008

Steady Growing

The nurse came yesterday to weigh the babies for their sixth round of RSV shots. There are a lot of viruses and flus going around our area (probably your area too) right now. We feel like the shots have helped us stay well thus far. We do know of several other families in our community whose children and babies have RSV.

Here are the weights of the babies and how much they've gained the past month:

Lucia--13# 4 oz
a gain of 1# 10 oz

Elliott--14# 8 oz
a gain of 2# 3 oz

Mazie--11# 14 oz
a gain of 1# 9 oz

This weekend we changed their feeding schedule. We increased their volume per feed and dropped a feed. They now eat four meals and one snack a day for a total of 28 ounces. Saturday night we dropped their dream feed [where before the parent goes to bed for the night he or she feeds baby without rousing the baby too much]; they all slept through the night. Elliott woke up at five am; the girls had to be woken up after six to take their first bottle of the morning. We are still getting used to the new schedule, but I am looking forward to less time feeding...until we introduce solids next month. Carrots and peas--here we come.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Podee Video

I feel like I am just a tad old to be part of this internet revolution. When I was in graduate school I took a course on Chaucer. I loved this class; it is the A I am most proud of (a 90.2% to be exact and that I still remember 12 years later). In this class we posted thoughts to our classmates as part of assignments. The computer screen we saw was rudimentary. All we did was type as if on a typewriter and then sent it. This was so bare bones that we had to use underscoring to indicate a title, e.g. _Canterbury Tales_. Yet, we thought we were cutting edge; maybe we were.

I include these ramblings to illustrate how inept I feel with all this technology stuff. My dad and Linda gave us a video camera for Christmas (which we received the first of December so we could start using it). I am now just figuring out what to do with the videos we've collected in 2 months time. It really has taken me several hours of playing around to get to this point of just uploading a video. And, truth be told, H is the one who got me to this point. I still would not be here if it weren't for her. Jon & Karen had to then help me out with the imovie program. Maybe it will be easier from here on out.

So, we hope you enjoy our first attempt at showing you clips of the babies. This one is of Elliott drinking out of a Podee bottle for the first time. It was taken on 2/2/08. [The girls have not yet caught on to the Podee bottle.]


Friday, February 8, 2008

Some Thoughts on Mobility

The biggest challenge for me at this phase of our new life together is mobility. I think the main thing I most envy about mothers of singletons is their ability to get up and go. "It is a pretty day; let's go to the zoo" or "Let's run to the store and pick up the ingredients so we can bake some cookies." At this point in our journey I cannot fathom getting everyone ready and loaded and unloaded and corralled and monitored in order to pick up a bag of chocolate chips and a box of butter.

I must admit that I am often envious when I see a mom with her baby in Target or the grocery store. I know that some women can just pack a diaper bag and go, but this will never be a reality in my life. Arranging for babysitters or orchestrating a logistical symphony are my two options if I want to go anywhere while H is unavailable.

Last Saturday H wanted us to go out to watch the local Mardi Gras parade. At first I scoffed, "Yeah, right." Then she mentioned it again. The day was a beautiful one, blue skies and sun with a slight breeze. She asked again. I acquiesced. We got everything together, loaded up, and went. [Sounds simple, but it took several hours.] Everything went well. This was our town's first Mardi Gras parade. Everyone did a great job; the floats were fun. There was food and a DJ playing music before and after the parade. The only one of us who went down to stand by the parade was H's Nannie. She stood down there with all the kids collecting beads and candy. She even got out in the street and stopped a float to get H a Mardi Gras cup. She is 89 years young. Mazie was upset for a little of the time, but overall it was a very good outing and the babies did just fine.

I must admit though, I cried once we agreed to go to the parade. I am a bit of a homebody. I like being at home, and I love being at home with my babies. I feel safe; we are comfortable; our days go by rather quickly. I don't really feel the need to go traipsing about with three five month olds. H feels differently. She feels we need to get out there, start practicing taking the babies out, getting them used to sights and sounds and people. And I know she is right. It is good for them to experience life outside our home. But it is hard for me to expose them to the world as I have been so comfortable keeping them protected in our little house on the pond.

I started out this post saying I wish I could take my babies out more easily and then I shifted and talked about how I love keeping them at home. I don't think the two thoughts are contradictory. I wish I could easily and comfortably and safely take the babies out sometimes. But, to do this, I must practice. It won't just happen without any preparation and rehearsal.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

A prequel to adolescence


Why do I feel like this expression on Lucia's face is one I'll see often when she is fourteen?

"Mom, quit telling that dumb story."
or
"Ick. I'm not eating that again tonight. I hate that."
or
"I'll just wait until she goes to bed and then I'll sneak out and go."

A Few More Five Month Photos

Here are a few more photos from our five month celebration--chocolate chip cream cheese cupcakes and Joni Mitchell helped round out our festivities.

The three wondering what I am doing carrying on so: LEM


Lucia


Elliott


Mazie Bell


Lucia and Mazie, after Elliott had a meltdown


We hope you have a good day.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Happy Five Months


This week we turn five months old. In just one month we will be halfway to our first birthday, can you believe it? Things are going well for the three of us. We are learning lots of new skills and interacting with others more and more. We are beginning to reach out and touch our mamas' mouths as they talk to us. We enjoy looking at the pages of the book being read to us. We smile at our parents all the time, but just tonight, for the first time, Mazie and Elliott smiled at each other. They were laying in Elliott's crib. Mazie kept touching his head, and they were playing with one another's hands. Mazie has been smiling at us all week trying to get us to reciprocate. Tonight Elliott obliged her. It was a very sweet little celebration of our advancing personalities. Love, Lucia (& Elliott & Mazie)

Here are a few of the new things we learned to do this month:

Lucia--
pick her head up off the floor
roll from stomach to back
express great joy with squeals and lots of babbling
is just beginning to put weight on her legs
hold a rattle and shake it
turn her tongue to the side
and chew the hound out of it







Elliott--

turn the pages of a cloth book
roll from stomach to back to stomach
can take steps if someone is holding his hands
he is just beginning to converse by babbling
pick up a rattle and shake it
play in my exersaucer


Mazie--

can roll from back to stomach
can converse with you by babbling
can put weight on her legs
hold a rattle and shake it
communicate her thoughts with her expressive eyebrows
smile at her brother and sister


Thanks for reading and thanks for loving us.