Parade

Today was the homecoming parade in our little town. I took the babies up to where H works and we watched the band, team, and floats march through town. The babies loved all the activity and getting to run around on the porch. It was a cloudy and chilly day so we got to wear jackets. Autumn is definitely here. We hope you enjoy the snapshots from our afternoon.
They also liked watching all the big trucks go by.
Donna is introducing Lucia to the scarecrows.
Karen and Elliott watch the parade.
Donna helping Mazie give all the scarecrows kisses.
Being friendly with the scarecrow people (can you tell the girls really loved them?).
Lucia pushing the bus around.
Elliott waiting for the parade to start.
Mazie keeping her ears warm.

Baskets & Boots

I have shared a few photos of Elliott lately, so I thought I'd share some of Lucia and Mazie.

The babies really like cubbies and crannies. Mazie loves her corners. Elliott loves to get behind the books under the library table. Recently Lucia has claimed one of the toy baskets as her favorite spot. One morning she spent 45 minutes sitting in the basket playing with the toys in it.
As you can see in the last photo of her, she does not like sharing her space.

Mazie is sporting her Mama Bee's boots here. One boot probably weighs as much as she does, but she has enough personality to fill the boots beautifully.

First Night

Saturday night H and I spent a night away from the babies. While she has had to spend a few nights away before, this was my first night away from them. She and I went to the big city, got a hotel room, ordered supper in, ordered a movie, and did absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. We ate hamburgers and Caesar salad and chocolate molten cake and watched 27 Dresses. We looked out our window at the water. Saturday during the afternoon, we went antiquing, something we did a lot before babies. Sunday we walked to brunch before checking out of the hotel. The only negative of our experience was that neither of us slept very well. But, overall, it was a very enjoyable time.


H's mom stayed with the babies Saturday night. Our friends Tiffany and Clay and then Karen also took shifts. When we got home about five o'clock Sunday afternoon we were shocked and amazed to find that the babes had done just fine without us. Hhmmm, maybe we'll have to go away again sometime.

Twelve Month Check-up

Yesterday we took the babies to a new pediatrician. We loved our first pediatrician and I was sad to change. I liked the idea of having one pediatrician from birth to...whenever children stop seeing pediatricians. But, our first pediatrician went to working a half day a week and we were having some scheduling problems (like not being able to see her for our twelve month check-up until the babies were almost fourteen months), so we switched.

The babies had their twelve month shots and check-up yesterday at thirteen and a half months old, and just a few days shy of the first anniversary of their full term due date.

We liked our new doctor and her nurse. Our doctor made us feel good about where the babies are developmentally and about their diet. She did suggest we make a few changes. One, which H has been suggesting for a while now, is to switch from bottles to sippee cups. The more teeth the babies get, the more the nipples can mess with their teeth. Also, I am feeding them Way too much milk. They need to be getting more of their calories from food. The babies each get about 30 ounces of milk a day, Elliott a little more, Mazie a little less. She said they need to be consuming 16-24 ounces a day. We will make both these changes slowly. Since they are no longer taking formula we are going to put them on vitamins.

Here are their measurements and percentiles:
The percentiles are for full-term babies.
Lucia:
Weight--19#11oz (25%)
Height--29 1/2 in (50%)
Head Circumference--47 1/2 cm (90%)

Elliott:
Weight--21#14oz (25%)
Height--30 1/2 in (50%)
Head Circumference--48 1/2 cm (90%)

Mazie:
Weight--16#13oz (<5%)
Height--28 1/2 in (25%)
Head Circumference--47 cm (90%)

H and I are a little concerned about Mazie's weight. She is just so small still. She still mostly wears 3-6 month clothing. The doctor just said she has not done the catching up that the other two have done. When I looked online at a growth chart for premature babies, it said she was at about 10% for weight. (Lucia was just under 50% and Elliott was just over 50% for weight on the premature baby growth chart I looked up.)

One other issue is that our first pediatrician did not approve us for a second season of Synergis shots. We are working on at least getting Mazie approved for a second season. We feel like the babies did so well last winter with not getting very sick and we hope this coming winter goes as well. We will see what happens.

Due to the shots, today we are having a feverish and fussy day. I think I am going to take the babies to a town thirty minutes from us and pick up some dry cleaning in order to get us out of the house a little more today. I thought a ride might be relaxing for them.

The photo is of Elliott playing the piano in the middle of a diaper change.

A Great Weekend

Our good friend Seth came for a visit this weekend, and he brought along his mamas. We had a wonderful time with our friends. Living away from Summer and Rachael makes us sad. We love to be around them and the terrific son they are raising. Seth is just under three months older than our babes. (He was almost born on my birthday.) The four children got along well. We had only a few hair-pulling incidents--Lucia was quite taken with Seth's abundance of hair. Since we don't get to be together enough now, our time with them feels very concentrated and rich. Thank y'all for making the trek down to see us. Hopefully we can all be together again soon.

Here are some highlights from our weekend together.

The babies enjoyed several meals together. (Seth wore the same bib all weekend. My little triplet-overloaded brain cannot even fathom that.)
Since we had an adult for each child, we decided to walk over to the barn one afternoon. It took quite a long time but was very enjoyable.

Seth and Summer.
H and Mazie.
Lucia, making her way.
Seth, on the move.
Elliott, enjoying the flowers.
Mazie, trying to crawl into the horse pasture.
Seth and Rachael looking in on the horses.
Lucia with her favorite snack--grass.
We had quite a lot of rock eating, or at least attempted rock eating. I was never able to snap a picture of Seth with a rock. He is more mature than our babies. While our babes try to eat the rocks, Seth has advanced to just licking the rocks and putting them back down.


We spent a little time with the goats.



Mazie, starting to tire out, got a ride back to the house.
Here we all are barely making it back by dark.
One of Seth's many talents is growing hair. He is very good at it. Summer employed Holly's expertise willingness to cut Seth's hair. She and Seth did a good job, though it did take quite a bit of Nilla Wafers to get through the event.

Not Yet

I snapped this photo of Elliott yesterday. He stood at the door and watched the J boys, family friends who live in town, fishing off the pier. He watched them intently for a good two minutes, quite a long time for a twelve month old.

Smear, Rinse, Repeat

Lucia used to be our neat eater. She still is very deliberate in her use of only her pointer finger and thumb to pick things up. She will use her little pincher to pick up each morsel and then slowly chew until she is ready for the next bite. Recently though, she has been wanting to give her hair a little extra conditioner, a little extra moisture. She loves rubbing her food into her hair, her favorite choice being a yogurt hair treatment. I think it's working.

Baby in a Corner

I have taken these photos over the past few weeks. They show Mazie in her favorite place: the corner. She has always loved to get under tables and in corners, and recently she has picked this particular corner, which of course is by the trash can, as her favorite. She will sometimes bring a toy and sometimes just sit and jabber. If I can't locate Mazie, I always look here first.

What a Pear

Apparently Little E thinks he's a Big E. Whenever one of the children is being quiet, I know to go check and see what is going on. The other day Elliott had taken one of the pears we got from Aunt Patti's pear tree down off the table and started chomping. He had a mouth full of pear and was not happy when I made him relinquish his snack.




Have yourself a fresh piece of fruit today and enjoy the first day of October.