For instance:

This kind of behavior might be a bit distracting during church, wouldn’t you say?

The Sabbath

I don’t know how people do it. How they bring their small children to three hours of church right in the middle of lunch and naptime. We can barely manage to make it through the first hour without all three eventually causing a ruckus in the foyer. Forget staying in the chapel anymore. I feel like we are all totally spent by the time we get home. Three loud babies can make for one embarrassed mom. I didn’t go to church for a long time, but I started  going to again because 1) I wanted to get what I could of a normal life back, and having a reason to get ready for the day and leave the house is always welcome 2) singing hymns and being taught about various gospel topics is a nice way to start off the week, 3) it’s a great time passer, and I get to see some of my friends, even if only for a brief moment, 4) it actually coincides with the babies’ nap schedule, and 5) it’s time we get to spend together as a whole family.  But even with all these incentives and reasons, one hour is ALL we can take. These kids are really getting big and strong, exhausting me pretty quickly. The drinks and snacks do help for a little while, but they just don’t like to stay put anymore, not to mention they get hungry for real food, and there is no way for me to feed them a decent meal at church. We usually enlist volunteers who are willing to hold one for us, but I get anxious when that person has to wrestle with my squawking child, so I just take the rowdy ones out and let them play so others can enjoy the meeting. They love being free to crawl around the foyer, and that way I still can catch a bit of the service here and there, but sometimes I wonder why I go at all, and when I will ever be able to stay and enjoy the rest of the meetings. I know this is just a phase that will pass, but I really don’t know how other people do it with kids this age. Enlighten me, please.

Oh, there is one more reason we like to go to church. They look extra adorable all sparkling clean and dressed up. There is something about them in their Sunday best that I can’t get enough of. (And thanks to Aunt Camille for the cute plaid shirts, black vests, and denim dress). And fyi, we try to put Bennett in blue when there is a choice between blue and another color. That usually helps people tell them apart.

It just isn’t right.

Twins sisters just shouldn’t live 2000 miles apart. It’s cruel. At least we get to see each other a couple times a year. Melody always tries to make a Maryland trip near our birthday, and we always look forward to it.

This year did not disappoint. She left both of her kids at home with their dad. As sad as I was to not get my Juju/Gabe fix, I knew the traveling would be far easier for Melody if she was flying solo, and I knew we could party like grown-ups with less kids to manage (so much different from last year, which was still fun in it’s own way). So we crammed as much partying as we could in the four days she was here. And with Elise here too, it was sister-fun heaven. (We missed Cami and Amber desperately. A complete sisters trip is definitely in order). Here’s what went down:

• Games playing. Scatergories, Wakee Six, and Farkle, etc. Melody is a competitive game player, making it all the more fun.
• Shopping. Sometime with the babies, and sometimes without. We all mostly bought stuff for our kids. Times have changed.
• Pedicures. I think this is accidentally my 3rd year running of getting pedis near my birthday. A new tradition, I guess. I like it.
• Watkins Park. We LOVED this place. I was trying to think of something festive to do with our Saturday, and I finally settled on this park I’d heard about. With it being only 15 minutes from home, it was a prefect way to spend the morning. I can’t believe we hadn’t been there before. It was a beautiful day. The leaves were amazing. The kids loved the animals at the farm, but the highlight was the little pile of pumpkins we happened upon. I have been meaning to find a pumpkin patch, and this was the prefect substitute for my little ones. They loved rolling around in the straw, and trying to eat it too, of course. We headed home, but not without three little pumpkins of our own to put on our porch. We’ll be going back there very soon.
• Lounging/Watching Random Shows/Resting. Project Runway, SVU, Auto-Tune the News, it didn’t really matter what we were watching, it is just fun to be together.
• Hiding random rubber mice. Melody hates mice with a passion. I’m not one to play practical jokes, but she has played her fair share on me, so I thought it was time she had a taste of her own medicine. She found them in her shoes, wallet, bed, on her tooth brush, and she may have even found a cluster of them in her suitcase.
• Eating delicious food. We arranged for a babysitter on Saturday night so we could all go out. We settled on Macaroni Grill, always delicious, even if we only went for the bread. Of course we didn’t miss out on complimentary birthday cake/serenade. On Sunday Jeff, our resident Chef, made an amazing Mediterranean Chicken. So juicy and flavorful. What a sweet bro-in-law we have. I can’t wait to try more of his delicious discoveries. Melody and I usually make our own cake, but being a bit busy this year, we decided to just pick something out at Costco. We almost settled on a classic Carrot Cake, when we thought we ought to give the Red Velvet a try (I’m not usually a red velvet cake fan, or consumeing obscene amounts of food coloring, rather, but hearing good things about it, we gave it a shot). It was alright, but we decided it would be better as a trifle, so we made it into one. So we kind of made our own cake after all.

I think that sums up the Melody fun pretty well. I also have to mention that she was a huge help with the babies. And with Elise always being willing to lend a hand as well, my load was definitely lightened as a special birthday treat. And as much as I miss that extra help with all the lifting, entertaining, etc. I’ll really miss the great time we are able to have together, even when we’re just sitting around. We know someday we’ll live by each other and be together more than a couple times a year. We can’t wait. Usually I’m so depressed when visitors leave, so I’m VERY glad Lili is here so we can continue to have fun together, sister style. We miss you bad, Mel!

My real birthday was the day after she left, on Tuesday. I let the babies watch a lot a Baby Einstein as a gift to me, but they didn’t even need it. They were sweethearts anyway. They played with their toys like little angels, didn’t make each other cry at all. I was able to cuddle them just because I wanted to, not because they demanded it from me. It’s like they knew I wanted to have a great day. It was wonderful. Lili said they didn’t mind being home with the kids that night (which were all asleep , of course), so KC and I enjoyed a leisurely dinner in Annapolis, at P.F. Chang’s, mostly because I wanted the Banana Spring Rolls with Coconut Pineapple ice cream. It’s as good as it sounds.

And the icing on the birthday cake was that Penny (though I think she had a little help) left me this surprise when we got home, not to mention the place looked a lot cleaner than when we left (I hope I am not the only one that leaves the house in a huge disaster when I’m in a hurry.) What a sweet sister I have. I’m a lucky girl.

Oh, and I’m 26 years old. Yikes.

It’s okay to eat sand sometimes.

The Millers moved to Virginia a while ago, and ever since, we have been trying to plan a day trip to see them. With all the sicknesses interfering (in both families) it had to be postponed a few times. But this weekend we were finally able to pack up the car and make the uneventful 50 minute drive.

We loved the beautiful neighborhood flooded with trees. Their house was so inviting and completely baby proof, which we all loved. We got a tour of the place while all the kids went to town playing with their cute friends Nathan and Kaitlyn, and the abundance of toys. They were in heaven.   

After snacks, we all went on a gorgeous walk to a massive park. The weather was perfect, and the dads were pushing the strollers. That is my idea of fun. Then down for naps the babies went. Only Ruby took a good one, but at least the boys had some quiet time to reboot. Molly baked some pizzas and we ate on the shady deck with Nathan to entertain us. Though we did manage to get some adult conversation in as well. Then the boys joined us for pizza while Ruby was still sleeping.

We then got all packed up into the car again (seriously, with all the stuff we brought for those several hours, you’d think we were staying for a week) and headed to their nearby beach-entry lake. The babies had never played in the sand before, and I was pretty excited to see how they’d react. Of course, they loved it immediately, and ate a fair amount of it as well. We didn’t get in the water much, but I did hold Bennett’s feet in as he splashed like crazy.

R

A   

B 

Since the boys’ naps were pretty much non-existent, we only enjoyed the sand for about 30 minutes before we knew it was time to leave. It was about the time we had planned for anyway, so we said our goodbyes and headed home. The babies promptly fell asleep, which made for a nice quiet drive. I may have dozed off a bit as well.

After we fed the babies dinner, and washed all the sand off their bodies, it was off to bed with them. They didn’t complain about that one bit. In fact, none of them made a peep until they were fully rested the next morning. Ahh. I guess we really wore them out.

Thank you again, Millers, for the lovely mini vacation. It was so fun to get away for a few hours. I love that we can take the babies places like this now, even if it means borrowing a couple pack-n-plays, stuffing the car to the brim, and missing some naps. It was such a pleasant day with our great friends.

Best of Friends

It seems a special bond is forming between two of the three. Not the identical boys, though they do have fun together on occasion. It’s Ruby and Alex that can’t seem to get enough of each other. I am constantly catching them making each other laugh like crazy. Alex really likes to play steam roller with her, but she doesn’t seem to mind at all. Bennett seems pretty independent. He is often found happily playing alone. Such a sweetie. Sometimes he tries to join in the fun, but is usually ignored. As you’ll see in the last video, Ruby and Bennett hardly glance at each other in passing. I wonder what it is that draws these two funny kids together. All I know is it never ceases to crack me up .

Ruby has a surprise for you in this one.

And you probably noticed Alex is still mainly scooting, but we did notice a few crawls today. (Believe me, I’m totally fine with him not  being an expert crawler yet. I can hardly keep up with all of them as it is.) But he can also do this.  

It was only a matter of time.

We had our first head injury yesterday. The kind when you hear a really loud thump, wait for the inevitable blood-curdling scream, and rush over to the scene frightened about what you might find. After their snack time, I took Ruby out of her booster first and proceeded to changer her poopy diaper (and the rest of her clothes that she had soaked through, thanks for all the fluids I gave her that day to compensate for her runny nose). Bennett decided he didn’t want to be in his booster seat anymore, so he exerted enough energy to tip the whole chair over, and his head smacked right on the floor. I left Ruby immediately, before I had a chance to re-diaper her, so of course she peed everywhere, and Alex was yelling at me that he wanted to be freed from his booster as well, all the while I am frantically trying to get Bennett out of his booster and checking for blood. There wasn’t any, thank goodness, but I was still shaken up, trying to figure out how to deal with everything that was happening. First thing, check to make sure Bennett was not going to go unconscious, then get Alex out so he didn’t do the same thing, then find naked Ruby and put a diaper on before there are more messes to clean up. As soon as I had called my mom to refresh my knowledge on signs of severe injury, calmed everyone, change a couple more diapers, turned on a show, and gave Bennett some ibuprofen, things were much better.

After a few minutes of feeling like a failure of a mother, I forgave myself knowing full well that we have many more episodes like this yet to come. It’s just awful to see your kids suffer, and just keep wondering if there was anything you could have done to prevent it. But like I said, I better get used to this if I want to survive motherhood.

The dumb thing is, Bennett had threatened to do that a while ago, and I just said to myself,”whoa, that would be really bad if he fell over,” and banished it from my mind, not wanting to think about what a catastrophe that would be. Needless to say, we are finding a solution to the light weight chairs the boosters were on, and in the meantime they are eating picnic style, on the floor. It’s nice though, because when they drop their food or drinks from their tray, a favorite game lately, they can pick it right up.

This is definitely one of those times (kind of like when someone pooped (a lot) in the tub, and they were all playing with it, and we quickly took them all out and tried to keep the corralled while I ferociously scrubbed the disgusting tub, all the while one pooped on the floor before we finally got them into a clean second bath) that I have said to myself “it would be easier if I only had one. . . or even two.” I try not to let that thought enter my head, but I can’t help it when things get really rough. I want to be there for all of them, to hold and cuddle when they need me, to pay more attention to each of them individually, but sometimes there just isn’t enough of me to go around. I couldn’t live without all three of them, and I try to not always let the fact that I have three babies give me an excuse to pity myself, but the truth is, it’s hard to care for triplets. Especially when you are a first time mom, like me. Let me just tell you what else has been going on around here lately:

Three colds again. That mean three constantly runny, goopy noses, three clingy, heavy babies, three bad sleepers, and yes, all three are wheezing. It seems like someone is always yelling at me. Sometimes they are even fussy when they are eating, which is really annoying, as it’s usually my sure way to get them quiet and happy.

We haven’t had a good night sleep since, well, the last time I told you they were sleeping well. Serves me right for mentioning it. Their colds have something to do with it. Ruby has been coughing like crazy at night. But I also think they are teething again, and we are putting them in warmer pajamas incase they are getting cold at night. And the constant juice and water I give them to keep hydrated leads to very wet diapers at night. They take turns being to one to disrupt the peace, and I’m just feeling a little spent after a week of 2-4 am night wakings that sometimes last for hours, even after trying everything I know that has worked in the past. Luckily they usually make up for it during nap time, which I also take advantage of, but what I wouldn’t give to sleep through the night again.

KC’s car situation still hasn’t been resolved. So my choices every morning are to either go without a car all day, which I hate, or take him to and from work which entails lots of traffic, being cold, and taking the babies or feeling guilty to leave them at home with Elise. We are supposed to be getting a rental, but of course the other driver’s insurance is being ridiculous, saying our adjuster is out every time KC calls. The first few days I was patient, now I am ready to let them have a piece of my mind. This is when the mother-of-triplet babies status comes into play. You don’t want to know what happens when you mess with my sanity. 

Okay, enough complaining. We have had some fun amidst the stress and sleep deprivation. It’s been awesome having the Ribeiras here! We have already had some dinners together, played some rousing games, and it’s just fun having Lili and Penny to play with during the day.

The babies have their happy moments, even when they don’t feel the best, which is heavenly. I’ve turned the guest room into a play room when it’s not in use, and the kids love the space to roam without restrictions, since it’s pretty baby-proof in there. And I love being able to close the door for a few minutes to myself. They are really into the pool of balls lately. Even Alex. But especially Ruby. She is constantly diving in and out of the pool without fear. The boys need a little help getting in sometimes, but  they can always wriggle out.

And just now, Ruby was demanding I hold her, and within a couple minutes of rocking, she was sound asleep in my shoulder. The silver lining of having sick kids is their need for cuddles from their mom. I guess the long nights are taking a toll on her as well. I let her sleep there a few minutes, even though it wasn’t quiet nap time yet. I never get to hold my sleeping babies anymore, being a stickler for our sleep schedule, but I loved the excuse to rock my little sick baby. They are all now quiet in the cribs for an early morning nap. Oh, my sweet babies, let’s hope this craziness passes, and we are all back to our happy selves.

Let the fun begin!

Lili and Penny arrived on a very rainy Thursday night. We are so happy they made it here safely, with the weather being as bad as it was (torrential rain, tornado warnings, etc.). I met them at the airport, and sweet penny was as happy and adorable as can be. I was a little sad for her, as she had to say goodbye to all the family members we love. It reminded me of my tearful goodbyes when I left Utah over 6 years ago. But I am also excited for their family to get a taste of what it’s like to live in a new place.

They’ve been sleeping in the guest room while her apartment is getting set up. Her ReloCube arrived  on Friday, right when we got home from Aldi, a place I’m sure she’ll grow to love. Speaking of which, we get even more questions and comments when Penny joins the triplets in the carts. People are mostly confused. This should be fun. Anyway, She and KC emptied the entire thing today as I tended to the babies, made our dinner, and napped, uh I mean, watched conference. They did a lot of work, and I can see that Lili is really excited to make the little apartment her home. I can’t wait to see what she does with the place.

Jeff and his brother  are on the road, and we expect them to arrive here tomorrow evening. Then I think it will really set it. I can already tell this will do wonders for my occasional lonely mommy days at home. I must say, I feel a little spoiled having my very own sister just down the stairs to keep me company. Not to mention the the game nights, movie nights, and date nights that we are already excited for. She was also very kind to watch the kids as I took KC to and from work ( fender bender, ugh). I hated making her babysit within 24 hours of coming, but she reassured me that that is an advantage of her living here, and I would most definitely do the same for her. Thankfully they behaved well while I was gone.

Penny and the babies are really getting to know each other. Adding one more really isn’t bad at all. But my babies all of the sudden look like old people next to a younger baby. At least I have Penny to snuggle when I miss their littleness.  But I do love the stage they’re in, so I guess I’ll be okay. If we get them all on the same sleep schedule, things will really start hopping around here.

Adventures are sure to lie ahead. This is definitely a new chapter in my life, as well as Lili’s. I can’t believe this is actually happening. My sister is here in my neck of the woods! I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that they are here to stay. I keep thinking they are just visiting for a week, and then they’ll be gone. But no! It’s been a while since we had any family around here, and I couldn’t be happier. And Melody is coming to visit in a matter of days!  Life just keeps getting better.