Like Mother, Like Daughter

Though there has never really been a question about it, there certainly is not one now. Hunter is my daughter.

* She looks like a mini-me. Seriously. Such a strange feeling to see yourself in someone else. Someone you created! I think she's just about the funniest little thing ever.

* She is every bit as fiesty as I am, and has every bit the temper I have. (Clearly. You've all now seen the biting entry from a few days ago. :) You know what I'm talking about. )

* She's tiny and petite, just like me.

So the other day, as I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink, I left the babies to play in the playroom just down the hall. (Seemed like a perfectly fine idea at the time.) But then I started to hear some crying. (This does not usually alarm me. I often ignore it completely.) And in fact, I did ignore it for some time. But then I got THAT feeling. You know, the one that says "you might wanna go check on your kids..." So I did. And this is what I found.

(That's Colton's bum in case you're wondering)

Yep. She's going to be the death of me. She's so tiny, she fits through the flippin' sink hole! She proceeded to actually crawl all the way through and then stand up on the "counter". God love her. So if that's not funny enough, I went to show my mom these photos the day after and she immediately laughed and said she needed to find something. What she found was a photo of me when I was about 3. So again, here's Hunter......

And here's me.

Great minds think alike!

Biting BITES!!

I'm not going to lie. I'm hesitant to post these pictures because it looks SO bad. But I know that enough of you have witnessed Hunter's ferocity in person, so if anyone comes to take my kids away from me, there are many who could attest to the fact that I do not in fact hurt my children.

But this is real life people. You know how I always write about roses and rainbows and I never seem to complain about my kids? Well this should be a refreshing change of pace. The biting in my house is OUT OF CONTROL.

Colton is not a biter. Never bitten anyone in his life.

But Ethan and Hunter. There is this silent competition, sibling rivalry thing, at it's worst. I don't know where it comes from. All I know is that it is out of control. I have asked every parent I know if their kids were biters and most have said yes, and that I should bite my children back. Well here's the thing. I am just not comfortable biting my kids. I'm just not. And really people, when you see the photos below you will see that they are biting each other harder than I would ever DREAM of, and it hasn't stopped them.

The problem is that they have SO many more teeth now AND the biting has intensified dramatically from just biting where you could see two perfect rows of teeth marks to an actual bite and then SCRAPING of the teeth on the skin. And they are fast. You would think that I neglect them, but seriously, I am constantly playing with them and it happens so stinking fast.

I have tried every technique in the book to stop this problem....separating them, telling them mouths are for kisses not bites, soap in the mouth, firm voice, you name it, I've done it.

But, Little Miss Ed.ward Cu.llen is hell bent on biting the crap out of poor Ethan. (I say poor Ethan, though really he bites her back just as much.) But somehow, he is the victim of most of the Bunchkin Bullying. Seriously, just look at the intensity on her face. She is ferocious and scary.

If anyone has any other wisdom, PLEASE share it with me. And in the mean time, don't worry. I will never leave Hunter alone at a playdate.

**Now before you see these pictures, I know what you'll be thinking. "What a great mom. She's taking pictures while her kid gets bit." I know. But here's the thing, I really wanted others to see proof of how this happens.

Okay...take a deep breath. Now look at my poor youngest baby boy, Ethan. Yes my friends, those are ALL Hunter's teeth marks. Some old, which are now mostly bruises and others that are newer.

Look at her crazy biter face!!

This is usually how it starts. With a hair pull or face pinch...

(Both of which she obviously did)

And then, she goes in for the kill. The bite.

I think the boys are conspiring about how to make their sister stop biting them...

There! Now you all know why I can't stop obsessing about the biting in this house!!

The Great Fish Stick Caper

You know what one of the hardest parts of having triplets is for me? Go ahead. Make your guess. Excessive crying? Nope. Fighting and constant bickering, also known as biting? Nope. Doing everything times three? Nope. It's something that is probably so mundane for the rest of you, that you don't even have to think about it. Cooking for kids. Yup. Pretty much despise it.

Okay, it's easy in the sense that they just eat what I eat now. But that's just it. In my days B.K. (Before Kids) I pretty much contentedly survived on Lucky Charms cereal and Angel Hair pasta with Ragu. And I would eat those every night. And I liked it. Every night. My kids? Not so much.

So now I have to actually cook. Every night. (Granted, I use the word 'cook' loosely because sometimes that just means pushing buttons on a microwave, or smearing peanut butter on a slice of bread, or opening up a can of something....but whatever. ) Now I will say this- for the most part, my kids are good eaters. (Okay well, when I say my 'kids' I mean Colton and Hunter. Ethan....well..he falls more into the picky category.) So when I find something they all love, I literally dance with excitement and immediately go to the store and buy whatever it was, in bulk! Such was the case with fish sticks!

One time I bought them on a whim, actually thinking they really wouldn't eat them, but figured I'd try anyway. And they totally dug em! Yippee! Back to the store I went to buy MORE fish sticks! And that's what we had for dinner tonight. Fish sticks and scalloped potatoes!

But as I sat from afar and watched them eat, I noticed that Hunter and Ethan were really the only one who seemed to be enjoying them tonight. RATS! {But there are 85 more fish sticks in the freezer, I'm thinking to myself! Maybe if I try to entice them...} So I go over to the highchairs and play a rousing game a fish stick airplane! Oh Colton... NNnnnnRRRRRrrrrrr.... here comes the fish stick! Open wide!

Yes! He opened his mouth and took the fish stick! {Cue my victory dance!} And...then...he spit it back out. Mission failed. So again, I just walked away as I've learned that sometimes my presence is distracting and they'll eat if I just 'leave them be.' So I covertly watched them from around the corner and frankly all I could do was laugh.

It's nights like these especially that having triplets is so much fun. The way they interact with one another is just priceless. So as I watched them eat, not eat, steal, share, drop, hide their food, I grabbed the camera so that I could share this funniness with you all!

To say that I am amazed at how clever they are when it comes to this sort of thing and at such a young age, would be an understatement. Colton clearly did NOT want his fish sticks and he knew JUST what to do about it. Hunter clearly wanted more food and she knew just where to find it. Ethan knew exactly what to do with the rest of his food once he was full!

CRACKED. ME. UP.

So here is dinner-reenacted.

It began very subtly...Colton would take a fish stick from his plate and very smoothly reach over and 'drop' it into Ethan's high chair. Then back to his tray, to grab another fish stick, then once again, 'drop' it into Ethan's high chair...I lost count how many times he did this.

What I like best about this picture is Ethan and Hunter's expressions. "We didn't do anything wrong, mom."

But then, Colton caught my gaze. And he heard (and understood) what I meant when I gave him my sternest, "Colton, eat your food." So he momentarily stopped dropping food into Ethan's chair. But then he started doing this....

At which point, I {turned my back and laughed and then} said in my next most sternest voice,"Ethan, are you smuggling food for your brother?"

And so it was, after eating a lot of his own food, AND a fair amount of his brother's food, he decided he'd had quite enough. So he began to drop HIS remaining fish sticks overboard, for Piper, the dog.

Yes, Piper is gaining weight exponentially since these babies started eating real food. At LEAST she cleans up the floor for me...

And through all this, there's Hunter- Little Miss Sassafrass who went very incognito style in her attempt to steal food off Colton's tray while Colton was busy giving food to Ethan. Until he caught her. And let me tell you. He gave her the 'what the #$@ do you think you're doing' look? (As if he were SO attached to that food. My god, he'd already given most of it away anyway!) But he did NOT want her TAKING it without his permission.

So anyway. It's at this point that I can't take it any longer. I am seriously cracking up. So I walk over to them, put my hands on my hips, smile and say (in my 'teacher mommy' voice) "Excuse me. What is going on here?"

And the thing is, they TOTALLY get my humor. They all smile the biggest smiles ever and just like that, as if it will distract me from the crime scene, 6 little hands start waving wildly in the air, giving me the "ALL DONE" sign.

So one by one I excitedly cheer them on for using their sign language correctly and then go down the line and solicit a high five from each baby! Which I get!

I LOVE THESE KIDS!!

Three Cheers for Pierced Ears!

If you know me then you know how much I absolutely love having triplets. I really do. I am not trying to tick anyone off with my "oh how great my life is" attitude. But I think it is.

Now, I will admit that there are lots of days when I have groaned at the realization that I'm out of milk for my macaroni and cheese and just the thought of packing up three babies to go less than a 1/4 mile to the Circle k KILLS me!! So I forgo the mac and cheese all together and settle for something entirely less desirable. Then I have that fleeting moment where I think to myself how much easier it would be if I just had one kid. But like I said, it's fleeting. Gone before I can even think about the answer. Because it's usually at that moment that I hear 3 sets of giggles from behind the curtains, from my kids playing hide and seek together. And then, I no longer care that I had to make grilled cheese for lunch instead of mac and cheese. I love my triplets.

In that same light, I actually love taking them out in public. Except on days when I'm in a hurry and I just need to run in to Target and buy a birthday card and that's it. But no one's around to watch the babies so I have to fly solo and yes, I have to bring along my troop. Then and only then do I groan every time I have to answer the questions, "Are they triplets?", "Do they run in your family", "You must have your hands full", "Did you carry them?" And finally "Are they 2 boys and a girl?"

YES! YES! They are 2 boys and a girl! See how one is wearing purple and the other 2 are wearing blue spiderman shirts??? (Granted, there are days when Hunter will wear a green shirt for instance making it much more neutral territory and then, okay, then I don't get as annoyed by that question. )

So anyhoo, because of that, I've been pondering the idea of getting Hunter's ears pierced to make it very clear that she is a girl. I go back and forth because I have thoughts about her pulling them out, sleeping on them, losing one of them, eating one of them, etc. But then I saw a picture of a friend's daughter (Staci, I'm talking about Hayden) who had her ears pierced and she was ADORABLE! And frankly, that sealed the deal. If I can put a kid through 2 major surgeries surely I can handle two tiny holes in two tiny ears, right?

So, with Brian's family visiting this weekend, we decided that this afternoon would be the big day! We all headed out to the mall, (but not before going to my mom's to borrow her camera) and braced ourselves. We actually decided to stroll around the mall first, because we figured we might be asked to leave the mall once someone punched holes in my tiny baby girl's ears and suddenly we were in violation of the noise ordinance. So we strolled around until finally, we pulled up to "IC.ING" at Park Pl.ace Mall. Luckily there weren't too many people in the store at the moment.

Hunter clung tightly to me and even tighter to her "woobie" as if her sixth sense told her this trip was more than just looking at pretty earrings....

Brian decided that both of his girls should have diamonds so we opted for a small CZ for Hunter. He signed her life away and then....we prepared.
Uh oh...she knows something is up. Smart girl. I tried to tell her it was Aunt Kristen's idea. :)
Thanks to the words of wisdom from my FaceBook friends, I took this opportunity to open up a yummy red sucker for her to lick as a distraction.
And it's at this moment that I am asking the nice manager if it's ever happened that they were able to pierce only one ear because the screaming child would not allow the second one to happen...Her response? "Not very often." Awesome. I was hoping for a firm "Never."
Anyway, here we go. To be perfectly honest, she screamed louder when the manager cleaned her ears with the alcohol wipes! She hadn't even been pierced yet!
Now drawing dots to make sure the earrings go on symmetrically...
And here we go...I am instructed to hold her hands down and hold her head to my chest...Yikes. She is not happy with me at this point. But to her credit, she only cried for about 3 minutes afterward and then she was totally calm. It may have helped that I gave her Tylenol in the car before we did the piercing.

Punch #2!

And she's done! I think she's adorable!

Not sure what the heck just happened to her!

Luckily, she hasn't disowned me.

To celebrate, we got ice cream! Nana, Hunter and Kristen

Papa, Colton and Ethan

Dad and his boys.

Me and my girl

This is how Ethan requests more ice cream.

This is how Colton (correctly) requests more ice cream! If you can't tell, he's making the "more" sign.

Beautiful Girl. Mommy is so proud of you!

Back at home I can tell she's feeling okay. She's back to giving her brothers the "what for!" This is a classic Hunter face!

These are just some cute photos I took of Dad and the kiddos in the playroom. It struck me funny to see him in there because he rarely actually plays with us in there. So how could I not take a picture?

Colton's clever way of reaching the tall shelves! I'll just stand on Dad's legs!

Brian, his dad and the babies

And here is a shot of one side of the playroom I rearranged it to accommodate a play kitchen and I love the symmetry of the picture frames, shelves, curtains, window, etc. Symmetry = Happy Me.

And that's all! My 16 month old triplet daughter got her ears pierced today! What did I learn?

1. This was a pretty good age to do this.

2. Bring or make sure they have a lollipop to distract with.

3. Don't do it on a busy weekend if you can help it. :)

4. Ic.ing was a good place to go in Tucson

And there. Now I hope it is painfully clear that my triplets are 2 boys and a princess.