Practice Makes Perfect

I usually give the kids some sort of utensil to use during mealtime. But most of the time it is just something to throw at the pugs or poke their neighbor. Depending on how much of a mess I can tolerate on a given day I've been letting them try to feed themselves while I hold the bowl. The other day it just clicked for Addy. Look at this little smartypants.

Beckett kind of can do it but he is more interested stirring things and collecting spoons.

All three will shake their head no when they don't want something but in addition, Eloise will spit or make "razzberries" and shake her head for emphasis. Drama, drama. Obviously she didn't want to try the spoon today.

Another shot of little miss smartypants- this time left-handed.

Beckett is practicing blowing spit balls- courtesy and encouraged by Daddy. These are actually Veggie Straws so Rich puts a grain of rice in the straw and shoots it out at the kids. They love it. That is a little too much fine motor skills for Beckett but if he keeps blowing his spit eventually dissolves the end and mushy Veggie Straws will come shooting out.

I have to admit, this must be my bad influence. My motto for eating is that food is just a vehicle for sauce and dipping is the most important part of the meal. So here we go... Veggie Straws dipped in strawberry yogurt.

Both Beckett and Addy got in on the action.

I'm not sure how we even got a smile of out of him this weekend because after two days of fussing we figured out that he was teething and getting a MOLAR in the back. Poor little dude but what pretty teeth.

Typical at the end of the meal. Eloise is eating anything in front of her, Addy is dipping her finger in the yogurt and sucking it off her finger and Beckett has totally given up on eating and is stacking boxes and playing. No wonder he is so skinny.

The Big Reveal

So maybe it was a little too obvious but....
WE ARE MOVING TO WISCONSIN!!!
In less than a month.
We sold our house.
We don't have a place to live yet.
Like I've said before, we are hardcore.

That's the short story. But here is the long story...

Our house in TX is not ideal for triplets because of a number of reasons so we really knew that once we were pregnant with multiples that a move was going to be imminent. But once the reality of multiples hit us over the last year we decided that we needed to make some major changes between the RSV restrictions, nanny costs, our pediatrician requested that I stop working at the hospital, Rich traveling for work- the list goes on. I'm the primary caregiver for our children and my primary support system is in Wisconsin so after much discussion we decided to move to Milwaukee, WI and I would quit working for a while, I mean working for pay, and I would stay home and focus my energy on raising our children the best way I knew how.

This was all decided in April and we put our house on the market hoping for a quick sale. Just in case anyone hasn't looked at the news in about a year, this is THE WORST time to be selling a home, especially a home that was purchased at the height of the housing bubble. Since April we have done over 50 showings of our house. I'm not going to get into the dirty gritty details of how difficult it was to have the house "show ready" for 4 months because I'm sure you can just imagine. Does this now make more sense about why I was always complaining about my white tile floors? I hand-scrubbed the floors 2-3 times a day, every day for 4 months.

Then we would have an hour or hour and a half window that we would have to be out of the house. So most of the time we would drive around with the kids and the pugs in the minivan in the unbearable heat. Depending on the time of the showing we would have to rearrange their schedule such as wake them up from naps to get into the car or delay lunch or eat early so we could be out of the house. There were so many times we would be driving around in wonder of awesome the kids were during this time There were also times that I would be by myself with the kids and pugs and it would not go so smooth and I'd have crying kids or the people would run late so we would drive around for an hour and then I would unpack everyone go inside and start lunch and then the clients would show up. I learned my lesson to stop cooking salmon on those days.

I lived in fear of Rich's phone ringing saying we had a showing request. Rich lived in fear of my weekly announcements of going to Whole Foods to buy more flowers for the house. The one benefit to having our house on the market for so long was that I had lovely flowers in several rooms. Just the other day I walked into the house and it smelled like lilies. How glorious is that? That was the only fun part about this process so far.

We made a decision that we were going to move even if we didn't sell our house because we will go back on RSV restriction in October and after that date we can't travel with the kids and wouldn't be able to show our house again until the spring. It was a risky decision but after going through what we did for 4 months I couldn't bear to take the house off the market and start over again in the spring.

The day they announced that existing home sales were down 27% was the day we got an offer on our house. That is a huge relief but we will most certainly be relieved when we finally close. Our next step is to find a place that is affordable, takes dogs, appropriate for the triplets, covered parking, short term lease and in an area that I can walk outside so I don't go nuts with the RSV restrictions over the winter. Why would that be hard to find? In a few weeks? If you haven't noticed, Rich and I don't always do things the easy way. Sometimes I think we are both adrenaline junkies. It is almost like a contest to see how complicated we can make our lives.

Bambi and my Dad have been knocking on doors, peeking in windows and basically scouring the city on a daily basis for us. We have a couple leads so we are keeping our fingers crossed and with us that is a lot of fingers.

So that would explain why there have been lapses in the blog lately. I was really busy scrubbing the floor, counters, showers, sinks and hiding laundry in closets.

Now after all of that nonsense, the good stuff.
Uncle Isaac was here visiting us for the last time in Dallas.
Can't wait to see what he looks like when he gets in his new supply of moustache wax.

It was only about 95 degrees rather than the normal triple digits so we took the triplets to play on swings for the first time.
Eloise loved it.

Addy thought it was tolerable but could think of things that are more exciting. Compared to accidentally rolling down a hill like she did later, this was a little tame for her.

Little dolly couldn't get enough.

I think this is why there are leg holes in both sides. Someone tell me if this was not what we were supposed to do with 2 kids...

It is rare that we have a picture with all 5 of us much less an action shot.

Beckett was not terribly fond of the swings. He preferred to hang with Uncle Isaac and talk about going to Lego camp and robot camp and computer camp and dinosaur camp.

A mother can dream. I guess they were talking about baseball.

They were getting a little hot. Check out those pink cheeks and Eloise's sweaty mullet.

Little daredevil Addy. Waving goodbye shortly before tumbling down the hill. She picked herself up and keep walking.
What a tough little thang. Gotta throw in some Texas slang before I go all "you betcha hey" on y'all.

Big News, And I Mean BIG!

We have some big news that we will be announcing in the next few days; we just need to tidy up some of the details but here are a few hints...

What is Beckett Doing?

Tai Chi?

Gymnastics?

Ballet?

Sumo?

All I know is that he is as agile as cat, flexible as a rubber band and can rock a onesie like nobody's business.

Belly Laughs

I'm sure there will be a day that the girls will not like me posting pictures of them running around without shirts but until they can vocalize their displeasure, I do as I please and I love to show off all of our hard work. I've been working so diligently to get these little munchkins to gain weight. It is ridiculous the amount, variety and quality of foods I give them but for now I feel like I have to until they catch up on the weight charts. For example, this was dinner on Thursday:
(red quinoa fish cakes, mac n'cheese made with goat cheese and pureed spinach, blueberries and watermelon followed by strawberry yogurt)

The thing is, much of this ends up on the floor and fed to the pugs so it can be very frustrating when they don't eat. Just today at lunch Rich was so mad he threatened to feed them only Gerber from now on. Maybe he'll change his mind when he sees these pictures; check out these beautiful bods...





We may need to do an little extra work with Mr. B. He's my picky eater.


And now that Eloise is walking, she may need some extra calories. Not only is she more active from with walking but she belly laughs like crazy after falling down like walking was the funniest joke she ever played on us.


I rarely can get a picture with all three facing the camera but in this case Rich barking like a dog chasing them on the couch did the trick. This was true belly laughing.


Drooling and laughing at all of the barking.


This is the scene several times a day. It starts with Addy bringing a book over. Addy always wants to sit on a lap, usually Eloise wants to sit on a lap but lately wants to practice standing. Occasionally Beckett will listen but he is usually busy collecting books and throwing them at the reader.

Believe or not, this is our downtime.

Bookworms

In the playroom the kids have several large standing toys in the corner (riding lion, Little People Farm and so forth) and then they have 3 other bins of entertainment. One bin of stuffed animals, one bin of books and one bin of other toys. Nine times out of ten the first choice of entertainment is books. It is not uncommon for all three to be sitting reading books at the same time.

Addy especially has become a little bookworm. Anytime we are sitting on the floor in the playroom, which is most of the time, she brings a book to you and sits in your lap wanting you to read. She has a repertoire of about 3 favorite books that she wants to read over and over and over and over. She also has favorite pages in these books that must be read several times.
She likes "Goodnight Gorilla", "I Love You Stinky Face", and "Doggies."
Eloise is still wild about "Wet Pet, Dry Pet, My Pet, Your Pet." In fact, I need to order a new copy because Eloise has pretty much eaten all of the yarn and fur in the book. Eloise is just doing some light reading until the new copy comes in.

Of course Addy's book is an essential one for any worthwhile party planner- Martha Stewart's "Entertaining" from 1982.

Addy loves when you scare her like popping out from behind a chair or the bed. She loves it even more when her brother is not pestering her. He was napping for this photo session. Thanks love.



You can see the height discrepancy between the girls even though Addy is on her toes with her head back. There is no way that Eloise would have been able to reach the books on the top shelf by herself. Kind of looks like Addy has full pants because her diaper cover is hanging so low...

At this point we have pretty much limited the books to board books because another other book gets torn apart or eaten. There are even corners missing from the board books because Eloise likes to eat paper and cardboard. They've gotten better and will not fuss too much before handing over contraband paper but not usually before I have to fish some out of a mouth.
For example, eating a puzzle piece that I had previously hidden in the guest room.


Oh yeah, when they are not reading they are climbing. On the couch, off the couch, shelves, today the changing table and when they even get the slightest opportunity, they want to climb stairs.

Equal Opportunity

As anyone with more than one child will tell you, anything that is being utilized by another child is hands down the most fabulous toy, book, lovie, baby wipe, diaper, hair brush or sippy cup and they must simply have it immediately or their life will be forever ruined.
Such was the case one day with a pink hair bow.
Addy wanted it on her head only so she could pull it out. I'm not sure why because every time she pulled it out she got a couple of strands of hair as well. She's a tough little cookie.


I love this facial expression on Eloise, plus she is poking herself in the ear which is even better.


That looks more like my little bitty Eloise.


Like the title of the post, equal opportunity. His choice, not mine.


Does she look like she is on the brink of being naughty or what?

Best comment from a stranger

Most of the comments from strangers in public are such things as:
-You guys must be busy. (most frequent by far)
-Where did you buy that thing? (referring to the stroller)
-You look surprisingly rested for having triplets. (I think this is a compliment but I'm not really sure.)

This weekend we got my favorite comment so far...

"You guys are hard core."

Yep, that's us. She doesn't know the half (or third) of it.

We Love Our Room

In any given day we spend a majority of the time in the playroom. For some reason today everyone wanted to play in the nursery. Everyone was totally wild. They love playing in the nursery because I rearrange the cribs and the room turns into a maze. They chase each other around the cribs, throw toys, move furniture, sort clothes, pull clothes out of the closet and climb shelves. It is great fun.

I found Addy standing in the maze trying to put a shoe on. I helped her then told her to get the other shoe.


She tried to put that one on as well. On the same foot. A day is not complete until Addy wears shoes.


Pretty routine for the shelves to be cleared off withing a matter of minutes. Normally Addy is the one who tries to climb the shelves, guess Beckett was taking notes.


Addy took a doll out of the closet leaving it on the floor stopping Beckett in his tracks as he was crawling by. He was scared of the hair.


Eloise peeking out from the depths of the crib maze. Daddy did her hair.


Beckett dancing his way through the crib maze. He'll walk holding onto inanimate objects. The minute I try to get him to walk holding my hands he sits down.


This girl has superbaby strength. The latest hobby is to pick up large objects and carry them around. Step-stools, wagons, Little People farm, books... Eloise and Beckett have not been targets, yet.


Anything look strange in this picture? Look for Rich's feet. He hides in the closet and then the triplets attack.


"Addy, where is your belly?"


A bath escapee...


Another escapee. Eloise got a little farther than Addy.