Choo Choo

We knew Saturday was going to present us with some beautiful springtime weather and wanted to do something fun outside with the boys. A friend of mine told me about a train ride at a nearby park so I looked it up online and found out that Saturday was its opening day for this season. I was a little concerned that it might be really crowded but decided that we needed to get out and try it. We invited MaSha to come with us, packed the car, and skipped the morning nap. As I'm sure you can imagine, it's so much better and easier to have 3 adults on hand for any outings!

To my surprise, it really wasn't crowded at all and it was awesome to see this park for the first time. There are several playgrounds and covered areas with picnic tables and such. We got there right about the perfect time to give the boys their snacks. We found a gazebo right near the train and sat them down to eat a few handfuls of goldfish. They were enjoying looking around at the train and the other kids.

MaSha and Stokes watching the train

Daddy and Ryan

MaSha and Stokes

Ryan getting a bottle

William sitting at the table like a big boy

William and me

We love sippy cups!

The train ride was so much fun! It went on a nice and leisurely pace. The boys were just taking it all in and we were trying to get them to make "choo choo" noises.

I wanted a picture with the sign. MaSha is such a champ -
holding 2 at one time!

The train!

MaSha and Stokie

Thomas and Ryan

Family picture on the train

Checking out the sights at the park

 

The conductor was so nice and made a point to come by and talk to us and then even offered to pose for a picture with us!

 

After the train ride, we opted to skip the playground and go grab some lunch so we headed out to Bellacino's. Here's what we do when going out to eat. One adult will go inside and scope it out to see if there are any good seating options and check out the high chair scene while everyone else stays in the car. Imagine the horror of getting the stroller out of the trunk and unfolded (if less than 3 adults are present, otherwise we can all carry one), unbuckling 3 car seats and unloading all 3 boys, loading and buckling them into the stroller, getting the van doors closed and locked with the car keys stored somewhere that we will be able to find them later (that part is important), making it through the doorway of the restaurant (I now officially LOVE doors that open automatically), into the restaurant amid stares and points only to have to turn around due to a lack of seating and load everybody back up! Just thinking about that makes me sweat. So anyway, the scoper-outer (typically that's me!) will just go inside to check it out to make sure we can make it work. In our limited experience, it's pretty rare to have 3 available high chairs. So the scoper-outer will snag any and all available high chairs and take them to a table that seems to be the best option and rearrange the regular chairs to make room for the high chairs. The scoper-out will then go back outside to give the other adult(s) the green light and the unloading process begins. Meanwhile, we are hoping that no one inside is rearranging or taking our high chairs from the spot the scoper-outer has arranged. On Saturday we were glad to have MaSha with us so no strollers were needed. Everyone grabbed a toddler, we got the diaper bag, we got 1 travel high chair (we brought all three, just in case no high chairs were available but we were able to nab 2 high chairs from the restaurant), we grabbed the bag that has the placemats and bibs and scooped my purse and went inside. I made the mistake of getting the snack cup with goldfish out to let the boys have something to eat while we were waiting for the food. As it turns out, they wanted the goldfish exclusively for lunch, and started crying when I tried to take the snack cup away. They definitely also made a mess on the floor, but we tried out best to pick up the big pieces before we left.

He liked the fries!

We put on his shades after lunch ;)

We've only been out to eat with them a handful of times, which sounds crazy considering they're 18 months old, but it's kind of intimidating. I'm glad that we do it though because each time we go, we will get a little more comfortable with it and get our routine down a little better.

In addition to taking them out to eat, I just love getting out and doing things outside the house with them. I know it's great for their socialization. I don't want them cooped up in the house all the time. We've gotten better about taking them out to do something at least once during the weekend, even if it's just to run a quick errand. One of the challenges is working around the schedule. Between meals, snacks and naps, there is just not a long block of time throughout the day to go do stuff. I realize that snacks/meals can be consumed "on the go" but it's extra work to pack all the bibs, placemats and travel high chairs (again, in case there aren't enough high chairs wherever we are) plus food for Ryan if I think we won't have a good option for him wherever we are since he's not quite eating anything and everything yet. It's just a lot of work. Period. BUT, we're trying and putting the effort into it. It's getting easier now that we have the option to kind of skip the morning nap and just let them snooze in the car for a few minutes if they're tired.

The sunshine and warmth on Saturday were just awesome. It finally feels like spring is coming! Doesn't everyone get tired of winter?!?! Anyway, after we got the boys down on Saturday night, Thomas made us a little fire in our fire pit in the backyard. Confession: the sun felt amazing during the day, but the night was still pretty chilly. I didn't last long outside, even with the fire! What can I say??? I'm cold natured! Regardless, the time that Thomas and I spent outside together was really, really nice.

My man working on the fire

 

You'd think the red wine would have helped with the cold of the night...
but it didn't. Womp womp.

Our awesome little fire!

 

Visiting Daddy

On Friday afternoon I took the boys up to Thomas's work. It had been a while since we were there and Thomas asked us to come for a quick visit. Thomas's co-workers have known the boys and kept up with them since Day 1, so I always love giving them the updates and letting them see how much they've grown and all the new things they're doing.

A few memorable things:

• As soon as we got there, I handed William off to Anna. Anna left for a 2 week mission to Nepal on Saturday and wanted to see the boys before she left. She's so sweet! Anyway, I passed William off and he goes right over to her to hold him, but it only took him a few minutes before he realized that his Mama and Daddy weren't holding him and he busted out crying. NOT a good thing in an office! I quickly offered to take him back and hold him. He stopped crying and was fine the rest of the time. He just needed to get adjusted to the new place! Poor Anna felt bad but just had the bad luck of being the first person to hold one of them. He made up for it later by giving her a big smile.
• Michelle and Allison had stuffed dogs at their desk and the boys LOVED playing with the dogs. They were petting them and William would made his dog noises (supposed to be "woof woof" but it sounds more like  "ooh ooh").
• Pressly brought over some balloons and they were also a big hit! All 3 of them loved the silver balloon in which they could see themselves. They thought hitting the balloons and bouncing them off their heads was so fun.
• Stokes wandered off and some of the guys from the office were willing to walk around with him. I knew he must have been having a great time just making his way around all the cubes. He's Mr. Independent. Then all of a sudden I hear some loud and panicked crying. Uh oh. I see Steve carrying Stokes and quickly heading in my direction so I start making my way towards them. Apparently, Stokes was having a grand old time, until he stopped and looked around and didn't see any familiar faces he knew well. Then he lost it. He was fine as soon as I was holding him again. He can be a little shy sometimes and he and William are into a phase with parental separation anxiety.

Getting to see Thomas's work friends was awesome and they were so welcoming. They went out of their way to make sure the boys had fun. Here are some of the highlights of the visit!

Anna with Ryan

Thomas's teammate Lukas with my sweet Ryan

William checking out the balloons that Pressly brought over

"Aunt" Wendy and Stokes

They LOVED the balloons

Hey there, buddy! :)

Stokes and Mama

We just pretty much took over a whole cube in the office

Wendy helping Ryan stand up

Wendy with Ryan and the little Rukus dog

William "petting" the big Rukus dog

Triple Time

I don't think I've posted about this before, but for any triplet mamas that might be reading this, I would highly recommend getting a Triple Time schedule book. It is so very helpful when you have newborn triplets at home. A fellow triplet mom told me about it and I just ordered it and didn't even know what it was or why I needed it. Basically, what is comes down to is that it's a spreadsheet to keep track of daily feedings, diapers, medicines, appointments and so forth. When the boys were in the NICU, their nurses would consistently take their temperature, change their diaper and feed them (mostly with a feeding tube until the end) every 3 hours around the clock, and when that happened, they would record it all. After the boys came home from the hospital and I would take them to the pediatrician, I needed to (and was expected to) remember how much each of them were currently eating, the last time they pooped, how many wet diapers a day they had, how often they were spitting up and anything and everything else you could possibly think of. I do not have a great memory. Add in the sleep deprivation and the fact that there were THREE of them to keep track of and remember all the details for and I was a goner. Luckily, I had this book and religiously tracked everything. I was also insistent that anyone that came over to help write everything down as well. I would take the book with me each and every time I went to the doctor or had to call the nurse. Each time the boys came down stairs, the book came too. When we took the boys back upstairs, we carried the book up as well. I relied so heavily on it. I continued to use it until they were about 9 or 10 months old and even then I was reluctant to quit my book. I was hooked. I don't miss it now but was very grateful to have it at the time when I really needed it.

I was reminded of the importance of my Triple Time book recently when I recommended it to an expecting triplet mom. I thought I should blog about it. I hadn't thought about it for such a long time since I hadn't used the book since last May, but it re-entered my mind and I realize that I should continue to spread the word about it. I hope that any expectant or new triplet mamas reading this will get the book and will find it to be as helpful as I did.

I actually pulled it out and took a look for old times sake. WOW! Paging through the book, which I intend to keep, I was immediately reminded of our schedule and what the days were like back then. I can say without a doubt, it has gotten much, much easier. Whew!!!!

This book seriously looks old school

We didn't write down all of our appointments all the time, but religiously tracked diapers, feedings and medicine. We had abbreviations for lots of stuff and it was funny to see all the different handwriting in there from our many helpers over those first several months. Here are a few pictures of pages out of my legendary (in my mind) book.



11/10/13 - the boys had only been home with us all together for less than a week.
Check out that brutal feeding schedule - every 3 hours!

Last January - Looks like we began skipping the 3 AM feeding at this point and
we had gotten all the boys on Zantac (noted here with a Z) for reflux and 
were having issues with them not wanting their bottles at times (HTF = hard to feed).

This was a day full of spit up. 1 for Stokes, 1 for Ryan and 3 for William. Nice.

Ryan was spitting up quite a bit and had started having spasms, although I didn't
know what they were at the time. I was tracking the "weird eye rolls" that I had noticed.
I wanted to see how often it was happening and if I could make some sort of correlation
to what brought it on. Outcome - it was happening too much and there was no pattern
of when/why it would happen. 

Just another day in paradise ;)

Today's well check

Layla and I took the boys to the pediatrician today for their 18 month well check visit. Let me just say, they did GREAT! It's so much work to take them anywhere, but I am seriously always so proud of them when we're out of the house. They act so sweet and well-behaved. This was Layla's first trip with all of the boys outside the house, except for walks around the neighborhood, so it was a good experience that she got to see how we do it. I was glad to have an extra pair of hands - it makes it much easier for the loading/unloading/pushing the stroller through doorways/etc.

Stokes and William got 2 shots today and Ryan got one, per his neurologist's recommendation to spread them out and only do one at a time. Here's a surprise - William was the ONLY one that cried at all! Ryan's pretty tough but I could not believe that Stokes didn't cry, given his flair for the dramatic and the fact that he sometimes just likes to cry or make crying noises. Both Stokes and William enjoyed the dum dum lollipop they got during shot time.

My boys at the pediatrician's office

The stats for today's visit:

Stokes - 21.66 lbs (4.5%), 29.5" long (.98%)
Ryan - 21.25 lbs (3%), 31" long (13.77%)
William - 24.09 lbs (24.65%), 31.5" long (24.6%)

I asked the pediatrician a lot of questions, got answers, made notes about things we need to work on and practice and just some time to sit with the boys. This might sound weird, but it's nice to be stuck somewhere with them and just get to enjoy them. A time when I don't have to work, or start laundry, or feed them or clean the kitchen or pick up toys...you get the picture.

Speaking of pictures, here are a few I took today at the doctor and then after we got home.

Ryan: he put his hand up on the mirror all by himself!
This probably doesn't sound like a big deal, but anything
he initiates himself using motor skills is awesome!

He loves looking in the mirror, but really, who could blame him?!?!
Gorgeous boy ;) And I think he's proud of himself.

William having fun in front of the mirror

 

All 3 together

 

Playing with Mama's phone - hey, you gotta do what you gotta do!

 Post appointment (and yes, they were in good moods when we got home, despite just getting a shot):

Stokes - smart boy reading a book in the big chair

Stokes and Ryan playing together

William: cheesing for the camera

Ryan in the exersaucer

Stokes playing with (and IN!) an empty diaper box

William is so funny

Silly faces!

He was CRACKING UP!

Laughing really hard and would close his eyes every time the flash went off.