Where'd she learn that?

And just when I thought we were done with the throwing up, I was awoken at 2:30 in the morning by my little Ethan Bear throwing, throwing, throwing up. So. Tired. Of. Puke. But I'll tell you what, he's learning so much about puking. I really think he 'gets' that it's easier and cleaner to barf into a toilet than on the carpet, crib, etc. (Which is not to say he didn't throw up in those places, cuz he did) But he couldn't help his little self...once he's able, he heads for the toilet. Like a champ.

Though we've talked to the kids a million times about sticking together and sharing, I DIDN'T MEAN regarding illnesses. But like a true sister, not wanting her brother to be alone, she too barfed in her crib. Which brings to me to parental sharing time... **Future parents of triplets or twins.., take note. My best piece of advice? LAYER, LAYER, LAYER the crib bedding and mattress protectors. Seriously, mattress pad, sheet, mattress pad, sheet. (and if you're feeling so inclined, go ahead and throw on a third layer.) Trust me, in the middle of the night, if you're lucky enough to have just one get sick or pee or poo the bed, it is SO nice to be able to reach down, (without turning on all the lights and waking up the other kids) and pull off the top sheet and mattress pad and voila! You're already ready to go with another clean set! No need to fuss with trying to make up a crib in the dark, at ungodly hours of the morning. Yes, I learned from experience. Mattress protectors are your friend.

But again, I digress.

Thankfully, after a very unsettling night, everyone appeared okay for the day. A little diarrhea, but no puke. I won't be so naive as to say I think we're in the clear though, because that's what I said yesterday. We'll revisit this issue in the morning. :)

I want to talk about Miss Hunter-Hunter O, Peanut, Sassafrass, Monkey, Hunter 'Livia.

Girl. Is. Smart. And you know I don't just go around tooting my own horn because in the same breath that I tell you Hunter is smart, I'd have to tell you that the boys don't follow directions for crap.

The thing is this-I'm a kindergarten teacher so I see every kind of ability there is. I know what kids are and are not capable of at that age. And Hunter can do things that many beginning of the year kindergartners can't do. And she just turned 2. She learns by watching. And apparently, she is ALWAYS watching. She knows things I have no idea she even knew existed. She uses language in ways that really do clarify what she's trying to say.

"Mama, Ethan poop again?" Yes, dear. He did.

"Daddy coffee? Daddy coffee hot?" Yep. Sure is baby girl.

"Daddy workin? Daddy work truck?" (She knows that the white truck is Daddy's work truck and the black truck is his regular truck.)

"Messy cookie. Wash hands?"

"Nemo Eating? Nemo eating food.?"

"Pipa sit on shoe." (our dog sat on her shoe)

Just a few minor examples of her language use. (I know this alone, does not make her brilliant).

She can also count. To 13. Her one-to-correspondence isn't perfectly up to par yet, but she can sure count.

She knows how to spell her name. "H-U-N-T-E-R." She knows which letter is the H and she usually knows which one is the t.

She knows her shapes-Circle, square, heart, star, usually triangle, and always, her favorite-the moon.

Puzzles are a piece of cake.

She knows many colors now and her vocabulary is just incredible.

Furthermore, she has apparently learned SO much from me....

The pout. She is perfecting it like a true mama's girl. My sister laughs every time she does it....the way she purses her lips and turns her head to the side, while her eyes remain forward...she says it's just like me.

Tonight we went to Cold Stone Creamery. Love the ice cream, but love the patio more. There's a great corridor, hallway thingy outside where the kids can run, run, run, run, run. And they did. But when they'd get to the end and pause long long enough to make us think they might turn left and run out of our line of sight, we'd yell, "STOP!"

And then, little mother Hunter would run as fast her little legs and arm wings could take her, to the end of the corridor, where her naughty brothers awaited, and she'd bend over slightly at the waist, put one hand on her hip and point the other hand right at her brothers and give them a verbal 'what-for' which for sure included the words, "No", "Stop" and "Come back." And wouldn't you know it? They turned right around and came back. How bout that? She is a little mother hen-a bossy one, but a good one.

That's my girl.

And how appropriate then is this mother's day card Hunter 'picked out' for me.

Happy Saturday friends. And don't forget to vote! Once a day! We've got a friendly triplet/quadruplet competition going on! But you know what I say...the Best things in life are THREE! :) If you agree, give us a click! And here's hopin for a puke free night! Good night all!

Preemie Song

First off, thanks so much for your concern for my near comedic break down yesterday. All is well again. We still had one puker today, but I feel like we're on the up and up now (fingers crossed).

So recently one of my new blog friends Jeremy, added me to a Triplet Moms FB group, which has been fun to be a part of. From what I can gather, there are quite a few moms who are still pregnant with triplets many others with newborns, and many more who currently have babies in the NICU. (And of course, lots who have kids our age and older.)

It's been really fun to read other moms' inquisitive posts wondering how to do just about anything with three babies-feed them, hold them, get them to sleep, etc. All at once it feels like we were JUST in their shoes and in other ways it seems like those days were ages ago. In many ways I feel like its only now, 2 years later that I'm realizing just what a feat it was to have 3 babies. You can't really think about it when you're knee deep in diapers and formula because it's your life and if you don't gain momentum and keep it going, you'll be swallowed alive. So you just keep going. You just keep swimming.

But now, 2 years later, now that my little people are largely independent beings, I have time to think about it. Now I have time to remember the way it was. When I'm home watching 'A Baby Story' at nap time and I see couples trying to figure out life with one baby, I realize just how truly amazing our lives have been with three.

One of the moments I think about most often is the very first moment I saw all three of my babies together outside of my gigantic stomach. There in the NICU were my children-side by side by side. That was a do or die moment...the first time I felt that tug inside...the one that says "love em all the same Ami. They're counting on you." Heavy...that's what that moment was for me....

So it's been a day of remembering...Then in an odd twist of fate, a former student's mom sent this video to me today. I'm sure you've all heard it before....(I'm usually the last to know)...it's awfully cute...Particularly if you've ever had kids or nieces or nephews, or grandkids in a NICU. Listen closely to the words...

Goodnight friends...

Focus on the good...focus on the good...

Cuz people, it was one of THOSE days. Yep. You know the kind. The kind where you eventually just laugh because it can't possibly get any worse. Well, it couldn't, until you yell the 'F' word with serious gusto, in front of your 3 toddlers. But we'll get to that.

First, let's rewind. In the past 48 hours, my little girl has thrown up approximately 4 times. My boys have both thrown up approximately 3 times each. I threw up 3 times, (one time may or may not haven been outside a public establishment which shall remain unnamed, cuz I'd hate for any of you to stumble upon it and KNOW it was me who was responsible.) And if you know, don't rat me out. Or I'll throw up on you. :)

And the icing on the cake came today when Brian came home throwing up.

Freaking awesome.

The day began with me mustering just enough energy to sprinkle some knowledge on 21 kindergartners while my mom manned the throw up gates in toddler town. My school day ended with my good friend Nicole calling me frantically asking if I could leave school early to come see if I thought her daughter needed stitches in her head. I did. And she didn't. But we did manage to slap on a really cool butterfly bandage topped with a pretty cool Ernie bandaid. Oh, AND we moved a heavy damn desk up a flight of stairs. :)

Next stop? Home. The kids were already asleep when I got here. (Thank you, Mom.) So I was able to get to work on the thousands of 'end of year' stuff that needs to be worked on. In the meantime, I was plotting a trip to several stores in preparation for a baby shower at school for my sister. Brian agreed to be home to watch the kids so I could run out and do my errands. That plan went awry the minute he walked in the door throwing up.

Normally, this is not a big deal. I can certainly take three kids out by myself. The problem was that I would now have to wait until they woke up from their naps (4:30) instead of going early AND who knew if one of them was going to throw up in public. Before we could go, I knew I had to swap out strollers in the Suburban. The triple wide is not suitable for doorways, etc. and it has no storage, so I needed to swap it for the quad. Let me just put this simply. It's awkward, it's heavy and it's extremely hard to maneuver. ESPECIALLY without knocking your kid out who actually thinks he's helping you lift the stroller. Top that with the fact that I parked too far forward to even get the triple into the garage. Again, normally not a big deal to simply move the car back, but it's SO a big deal when 3 kids are roaming around the car like crazy chickens.

So, I realize I will need to put them IN the car and THEN pull it back to move the stroller in. Only then do I realize that I forgot to reinstall Colton's car seat which I'd removed the day before. If there's one thing I hate doing, it's installing carseats. I literally sweated myself to death getting the seat back in , the kids back in, and the stroller in. Oh and then lugging the quad into Burb. And finally, I pulled out and headed for Target. (The only place I could pretty much consolidate all my trips into. )

It's at this point that my mom calls to warn me that she is feeling sick, which I interpet to mean I may have to stay home from school tomorrow. Again normally not a big deal except for the testing that's happening in Kinder tomorrow, as well as the Baby Showers I'm co-throwing for Mary at school. Immediately my mind is trying to find the solution for this possible dilemma.

In the meantime, we pull into Target, I take out the quad stroller, I open the passenger door to get my purse, and then it happened. "AW F&#@! Are you F-ing kidding me??"

Yes. Yes. I dropped the ultimate F-bomb in front of my toddlers as I realized that my purse was not in fact, on my seat where it should be. No no, it was still in the flippin garage. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!

Mary saved the day and brought me my purse as she drove past my house.

We shopped. Kids screamed. Kids bit. Kids had to leave the premise with Aunt Mary. Twice.

8:00 bed time could not come soon enough. Particularly after 2 boxes of Capri Suns came flying out of the back of the Suburban ON to my foot.

And that was my day.

But in my usual optimistic fashion, I shall leave you with some good from the day. Here goes.

Sick kids mean snuggly kids. :)

The mailbox today delivered me 2 terrific presents...

My new license plate.

Oh yeah. I'm THAT mom.

And my 3 traveling toddler straps for KC!! Woohoo!

Okay friends, I can't do any more. I must go to bed now. I hope your day is a wonderful one!

4 out of 5

Yep. 4 out of 5 of us have fallen victim to the stomach bug in the past 36 hours.

How long till number 5 gets it?

(By the way, the one of who hasn't gotten it the one on the far left...Lucky Dad.)

And as such, all I can muster for tonight's blog is a couple of family photos.

That's it. I'm sorry. Something exciting tomorrow, I promise.

Fasten Your Seatbelts.

In just 2 short weeks, we will be attempting a feat that I had frankly not expected to have to deal with for at least another year. But, you all know how funny life can be, right? Twists and turns when you least expect it. Oh yeah, story of my life. (You know, like, thinking you're gonna have one baby and suddenly there are 3 flickers on that screen.) Yes, those kinds of twists and turns.

So here's the story. If you've followed our blog for any amount of time, you know that all 3 babies required Cranial Bands (helmets, as we affectionately call them) to correct some pretty serious plagiocephaly and torticollis. Learning that we were going to have to care for 3 infants in helmets scared the crap out of me. But, as with most things, when you go in with the right attitude, it turned out to be a piece of cake. And let me tell you, the differences in their skulls is nothing short of amazing. No really. A-MAZ-ING! But I digress.

While all three were still wearing their helmets, we were contacted by the PR people at Hanger Orthotics and asked if we would mind doing a story about the triplets and their helmets. We were totally excited and completely shocked when our story ended up on the front page of the Arizona Daily Star!

Fast forward 1 year and 5 months. I was contacted again by the same wonderful woman, and asked whether I'd be willing to allow the triplets to be included in book being written about Hanger Orthotics' 150th anniversary. It is to include interesting patients from over the years. Interesting huh? Yep. That sounds like us.

"Of course!" I say. "Just let me know what you need from me."

"Well," she says, "We'll need to do another interview and a photo shoot. We'd love it if you could all fly out to Kansas City to do your photo shoot."

[Insert my "pessimistic..."if only" chuckle here.]

As if she could read my mind and the tiny numbers in my checking account, she quickly interjects.

"We would of course cover all of your travel, food and hotel expenses."

DONE!

Folks, we're goin' to Kansas City!

In 2 weeks.

With 3 toddlers.

And 2 adults.

On an airplane.

Where kids can scream.

And people can't get away.

Where grownups are grumpy.

And mommies are stressed.

Where wine o'clock can't come fast enough.

I know these things.

I used to be a Flight Attendant.

(Shout out to all my American Airlines friends who are still flying and an early apology should we end up on any of your flights...) :)

The thing is, I LOVE TO FLY. I like turbulence. Fear does not exist within me.

Until now. :)

The moment I said yes, the questions started flooding my brain.

How many suitcases will we bring?

How will be carry them AND a 3 kids?

Will we need car seats once we land?

Can we rent them?

Should we bring them?

Should we put them on the plane or gate check them? (The car seats, that is. Not the kids.)

How will we get three carseats, 3 kids and 3 suitcases to the gate with only 2 adults?

How will we get all that on the plane?

How fast can Brian install 3 car seats on the plane?

How early should we get to the airport considering how much triplets can slow us down?

How long is the flight?

Can we drink on the flight? (KIDDING)

Can I pay the captain or the flight attendants to show Toy Story 3 inflight? Nemo?

How will we sit on the airplane?

Are we crazy?

Can we really do this?

My simple answer is this-

YES WE CAN.

"We are ninjas of organization and efficiency."

(to quote a magazine article about parents of multiples...)

We are (okay, I am) patient.

We are intelligent, realistic parents of triplets.

(Who will carry at least $100 in singles to pay off all the annoyed people who have to sit near us).

Wish us luck friends. If nothing else, a GREAT blog will surely come out of it!

More of my travel plans to come!

Thanks again for keeping us in the competition!

You can vote once a day until May 30th!

Relay for Life

It was different this year.

Like we always do, we celebrated the hundreds of people who've survived. Cancer, that is. The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. It's about birthdays and celebrating and fighting back. And we did all that. There are so many friends and family members who HAVE survived.

But this year, there was a gaping hole, a sadness that lingered among us. Watching the survivors take their celebratory lap, wearing their signature purple shirts with the word 'SURVIVOR' emblazoned across the back, all I could see was a gaping hole. An empty space. One spot that wasn't filled. The space where Kim should've been. Even the deepest breaths couldn't keep back the tears. And again I say, "It's just not fair."

Don't get me wrong. She was there. She was all over the place. Best part of walking that track was looking for Kim's luminarias and seeing her smiling back. And there were a lot of them. Keeps you going you know...walking, remembering, smiling. And that would've made Kim happy. In fact, I have no doubt she's up there cheering on those who survived, even though she didn't. That's just the kind of person she was.

So in answer to the question, "Why do you Relay?" This year, my answer was 'Kim.' In fact, our whole team relayed in her honor. Like our shirts? It's so fitting...

This year, Brian and the Bunchkins joined me. Which was very cool. They of course don't know why they're there. But someday they will. For now, we just let them be little. We just let them play and run and celebrate being kids.

Jen Lofgren and my sister, Mary (5 months pregnant) are my co-kindergarten teachers.

Me and the boys.

Part of our team

Hunter and Colton

This makes me smile. My husband and my babies. Let me tell you, they were sharing the Bunchkin Love all around that track...

My friend Charlotte, Me, her daughter Hannah and the Bunchkins

The pit. Not quite like their trampoline at home, but close enough. They jumped and rolled and bounced for about an hour here!

Mia, Maggie, & Dawn

Charlotte and Hannah

Tick...

Tock...

Tick....

*Don't worry. No little girls were harmed in the making of those photos.

And then there were the costumes...Ronald McDonald, whom the kids surprisingly did not fear.

(They are listening to Ronald McDonald play his guitar and sing)

Who can beat nighttime hula hooping?

And then there was "Sparky" the safety dog. Sparky has given me a renewed hope for Disneyland. To say I was shocked to my core that the boys ran right up to him and gave him a hug would be a huge understatement! Yahoo!

Hunter took a bit of warming up, but after seeing that the boys came out okay, she gave Sparky the safety dog a hug too!

And perhaps my favorite part of the night came later, when Brian and I took off together, with the triple stroller to walk the track. Shortly in, Hunter decided she wanted out. She wanted to walk with the big people. So...I let her out. Bare feet and all.

This girl doesn't know how to walk.

She ran like the dickens. She actually kept pace with Brian pushing the stroller , her arms flapping behind her, her little feet going a mile a minute.

She never gave up. Every so often, she'd stumble and trip, but would get right back up and keep going. Girl ran a half mile, in bare feet. No joke.
Before long, the boys had to join her. People, I have never seen anything cuter in my life. No joke. They ran. And ran, and ran and ran. They'd keep up with each other, they'd help each other up if they fell. They'd just keep going.

My heart was fuller than I can remember.

My own relay team...

That's little Hunter way up front, Ethan in the middle and Colton in the back.

And then, there's my little girl, hanging with the big girls. Making her feel so special.

Be still, my heart.

Aunt Maggie came to the rescue with Cheetos..THANK YOU MAGGIE!

Charlotte's husband, Dale took Colton for a walk.

And Mia and Hunter had some girl time.

It was a really good night.

There was time to celebrate, time to be sad, time to be hopeful and time to be thankful for all the blessings in my life.

And mostly, it was time to remember.

If only love could bring you back, Kim.

We miss you and are so proud of how your legacy has lived on.

Her husband Dave got to speak about Kim tonight, to a room full of survivors and their families. Talk about courage. His words will move you. To read his tribute, click here.

See you next year Kim.We'll always remember you...

Thanks for your votes!

We appreciate every single one!

Bunchkin Love

Dear Babies,

Mama is tired tonight, as I know you are too. You kept us very busy this weekend and I can't wait to share all of your adventures....running track, salon haircuts, visits from Nana and Papa, Walmart on a Saturday, and yes Hunter, throwing up. I'm sorry you have not felt good this afternoon. I wish you sweet dreams and a peaceful night's rest tonight. But we're right next door if you need me or daddy.

Thank you babies for being a constant reminder of all the good things in our world. Our love for you is unconditional. No matter how much you sometimes scream and fight with each other, you will always be our best inventions ever. :) People all over the world are voting for you in a contest that is really just for fun...out of the goodness of their hearts, so you must be doing something right. Bunchkin love...that's what you're sharing with the world. Keep it up kiddos.

Important lessons we learned this weekend...Life is short. Cherish the moments you have. Tell the ones you love that you love them. Be generous. Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't pull hair. Look out for your friends and siblings. Count your blessings. Don't drink the pee pee bathwater. Say you're sorry.

So goodnight my babies. I love you with all my heart. I enjoyed our weekend together, I always do. You make me smile. You make me proud.

Love you forever and longer,

Mama

If you're feeling the Bunchkin love, give em your vote! :)

Cuz the best things in life really are THREE!