We Made It

15 hours. That's at least 3 hours longer than what a normal family would take to drive to the beach. I must say the kidlets handled it very well; probably better than me. Ainsley was an angel, Johnny was content watching the cars and trucks as we passed them (he is SUPER in to vehicles right now), and Lizzy only cried 2 hours of the trip. The other 13 hours were spent in sullenness about her confinement. Gracie benefited from my extreme generosity and was allowed her lovie the entire time, which leads me to my teeny story:

At one point I swore I smelled gym shoes. As an ex-PE teacher, I happen to be very familiar with this particular odor. We are old, old enemies. When I was pregnant and nauseous with Ainsley, I would gag every time I had to walk past the boys' locker room. Not to say that the girls' didn't smell, it's just that it wasn't as overwhelming. So when I announced "I smell FEET!" about 10 hours into the trip and then found nothing on a sniff test of the kids, I was flummoxed when I couldn't determine the source. Of course I had the fleeting thought of "oh man. I hope my feet don't smell like that - how horrible would that be?". Still, every few minutes the old gym-shoes would creep past my nose.

You can understand how grossed out I was when I finally discovered where the smell was coming from: Gracie's lovie. The thing she sucks on smells like old gym shoes. It is probably not wise to allow this to continue and I need to burn the thing before she contracts Legionnaires' disease or whatnot.

We only have one picture from today to prove we arrived:

Attempting Vacay

Apprehension. We leave tomorrow for the sand and the sun and are not looking forward to the drive. The last time we travelled this far we had tears/screaming/sobbing about 9 of the 11-ish hours. Granted, the 3 were only 9 months at the time and still in rear-facing seats, but it was awful. So awful that Ainsley would then flip out and when she loses it - the world ends. This was understandable since John and I occasionally longed for prescription meds to make us silly-happy and carefree - can't imagine how it was for a 3-year old to tolerate that business. Still, her hysterics did not help.

The hope is that once we get there everything will be fabulous and frantic in a good way. You can count on me letting you know. :)

Happy Thursday!

Who Really Needs A Swimmin' Pool?

...when you've got toilets to splash around in? Johnny has climbed into the toilet before. He and Lizzy are fascinated by it; I even discovered a full roll of toilet paper in one the other day. Well, after he climbed in a couple months ago, we have tried to be super-diligent on keeping the bathroom doors closed. Of course we make mistakes sometimes, which resulted in another dip by IV.

Evidence of my happy boy:


As gross as this is, my home toilet can't be nearly as disgusting as the average kiddy-pool. Right? I'll keep saying this to myself.

Oh - and Rachael, I understand if you don't want the outfit back. It has been thoroughly washed, though. So sorry.

End Of Another Era

Johnny had epic spit-ups from the time he was, oh, well under the 10 lb days until he turned 14 or 15 months. He seems to have a sensitive stomach, so I was not looking forward to the switch from formula to milk. The girls adjusted just fine but IV, no way. Formula spit-up is one thing, milk spit up is straight up nasty. The smell is horrendous, so we (okay, I) kept him on formula because I just couldn't handle it. When he turned 13 months, we started putting more and more milk in his cup to see what his threshold was. I'm proud to say that, as of three days ago, Johnny takes his milk straight up.


May I never have to mix up a batch of this stuff ever again.

My Big 18-Month-Olds

It's getting easier and easier. "Easy" is relative, I know, but every month I can take deeper breaths, feel a bit more freedom, have more of those small moments when I can stand still and watch the wee ones grow. They are officially 1 and 1/2 today and I love it.

KJ - This pic was taken for you. :)

My Kid Is Smarter Than...

In my biased opinion, Gracie is pretty sharp. Even when she does this:



The kid cracks me up. I just wish I had a video of when Johnny tried to wear his Easter Bucket - he would walk straight into walls. I should probably put the pails away...

Slowly Coming Around

Ainsley has been less than loving this past year with her siblings. I always hear from friends or read on lots of triplet blogs about how much their older children LOVE LOVE LOVE their wee ones. Not so at Taigh Laird. She has too much of my personality to fall head-over-heels with younger brothers and sisters (sorry, Trish - I love you now!). With that in mind, you can imagine how thrilled she was when the crumbgobblers took over our lives. We did a great job making sure she had plenty of one-on-one with us, but her tolerance for that first year of insanity was a goose egg.

The more they interact and are able to play, though, the more she can handle and it was evident this morning. Ainsley likes to play hide-and-seek and wanted to, and I hesitated. Lizzy was not being cooperative and it was 10 minutes before morning nap. I smelled meltdowns. I was beyond surprised when it was wonderful. Gracie and Lizzy thought the game was awesome and, while Johnny lost interest immediately, he was very content playing with his big sister's dollhouse (ugh). Gracie loved yelling the names of whoever was hiding, and Lizzy was fired up to hold hands and seek. The best part? Ainsley was AMAZING with them. She held Lizzy's hand to find me. She helped Gracie yell and seek. She was patient. I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and knew that, this time at least, it wasn't another train headed straight for me (quote from somewhere...).

There is hope. :)

Bedtime Routines, Or Lack Thereof

I was the straight-up, classic, first-time mom with Ainsley's bedtime routine. The bath, the lower lights, a couple books, no rushing or stimulation, etc. The night-time bath disappeared due to life issues (read: triplets). She still gets a good 1/2-hour out of us, though, what with 3 stories, a song, prayers, and minor chit-chat "Mom, how do pigs give us bacon?" - that one was tonight. While the routine is sometimes frustrating because it is way too long, I am the one who created this monster and have no one to blame but myself. I was the one who listened/read all the "what to expect the first year" stuff or spent too much time perusing the Baby Center website. I was and still am the stereotype, at least with the first-born.*

I was all prepared to give the triplets the same, relaxing routine Ainsley had/has. It did not happen. I was too tired. John was too tired. So what is the wee ones' routine? We are all downstairs with every light on. They are given the opportunity to finish whatever milk is left over in their cups. Diapers are changed, jams put on, they are carried upstairs, given a kiss and a cuddle and put to bed. Gracie does get one book because she sleeps in a different room, but the other two are grade-A gypped out of anything. Sorry, kiddos.

And what is the surprise with all this? They go to sleep more quickly than Ainsley did at this age. I should write a book about this so we can pay for their college tuition. Well, there isn't enough to fill a book. A pamphlet, maybe. I wonder what I could charge for that...



*I do enjoy the time I have with Ainsley every night and know I will miss it someday. I just wish I had been a little less neurotic.

So Silly (Or, That Gracie Part II)

Gracie is a ham and if the trend continues parent-teacher conferences will be interesting. She also rivals her older sister in intensity and focus though, so I'm hoping that trait wins out in school over the joy of entertaining her classmates.

An example:

I Love...

Sorry Kid. It's Not Cancun.

Ainsley's preschool was recently on Spring Break. This was her first experience with the loveliness that the week-long vacation holds. She had no idea what it meant (like when she first discovered Santa and thought she should be excited, but wasn't sure why), but the world-wise kids at her school told her this, which she relayed to me:

"ON SPRING BREAK YOU GET TO DO EVERYTHING FUN!!!!".

Thank you, other 4-year-olds, who filled her impressionable mind with images of the beach/skiing/or other amazing adventures. Thank you. Thank you.

So, promises were made along the lines of "Yeah! It's going to be so awesome!" when I hadn't really thought beyond "Oh man. No school that week = not good for household tranquility."

So the best I pulled out was:
1. A "Stop And Smell The Flowers" quest (going on a walk around the neighborhood to smell everyone's flowers) with a breather at our corner market to buy chocolate milk, chips, and swedish fish. I'm still amazed she didn't throw up.
2. The zoo (which actually was fun).

Most of the reason the zoo was fun was because SuperBabysitter went with us. I can't tell you how thankful I was that her break coincided with Ainsley's - I haven't attempted the zoo with all 4 by myself yet. That's going to take some moxie on my part.

Obligatory pics:

SuperBabysitter and Crew

Lizzy Lou

Gracie + Newest BFF

MRI - Hooray!

I posted earlier about Lizzy's MRI and we received great news! Her melon, while still large, does not demonstrate any abnormalities. Hopefully she'll grow into it...

The morning itself turned out better than expected. My biggest and only concern was how she would handle not eating for 12 hours and if we were going to have the meltdown of the year at the hospital. Thankfully she was so excited to be an only child for a couple hours and was also so enthralled at the newness of her surroundings that we didn't have a hint of tears.

The procedure itself was remarkably smooth. At least at our hospital, the infants are given a "coctail" of meds that essentially make the kid drunk. Not that we hope Lizzy would ever get inebriated, but at least we know she's a happy drinker...not sure if I should bother with thinking about that. Ah, well. Anywho, she was hysterical. Everything was HILARIOUS for her and she giggled so much she got the hiccups forever. She thought we were funny. The nurses were funny. The sink and mirror were funny. The ride in the gurney was SUPER-fun. The meds are given to them to minimize the trauma of being in a scary place and being separated from the parents. Also, because she was going under anesthesia, the placing of the i.v. was not awful or even painful for her. Easy peasie.

The only stress we had to deal with was when she came out of the anesthesia. We could hear her screaming all the way down the hall and it is because she was confused and still groggy about where she was (or at least that's what we were told). She was fired up. It took 20-30 minutes to calm her down, but she was definitely a trooper throughout the experience.

Thanks for any prayers that were said on her behalf. John and I covet them.

A Battle I Don't Fight...

Sometimes Ainsley likes to pick out here clothes. I quit caring a long, long time ago about what she put on, be it a princess dress (this one is her favorite), or what-not. She has a couple rules about what "works":
1. If wearing one color, head-to-toe, it matches, regardless of the shade. The first day of school she managed 4 different kinds of pink.
2. The same sort of patterns match (all stripes go together). Always looks nice.

I have 2 rules:
1. She puts it on herself, unless she needs me to zip or button the back.
2. It has to be weather appropriate.

"Weather appropriate" explains yesterday's ensemble.


Missing are the white sparkly ballet flats and the pale pink coat with flowers on it when we left for Target. Lots and lots of stares (I don't care) and a couple comments from ladies who told her how pretty she looked. Ainsley always smiled, blushed, and said "thank you". She was quite pleased with herself and you know what? If that's what it takes for a little girl to think she's pretty, so be it. There will unfortunately be plenty of years ahead when she has doubts.