Tears and tears and more tears...

This week has been a rough week... I'm happy my mother was still around to help us out as the boys, I think, are going through a phase... Maybe that's what they call one of those "wonder weeks".  This is the first time since we brought the boys home two months ago that I really feel like SUPER tired.  We went to bed at 8pm on Monday as I had a pretty rough night so I wanted to get as much (albeit interrupted) sleep as possible.  Monday night was another hard night with the boys... I must have been up almost every hour from their bedtime until 3am.  The day wasn't any much better... the boys are cramping bad this week and I just don't know how to help them.  I try everything, we even gave them warm water (sterilized of course) with a tiny bit of honey... well as much as the boys liked it, I guess that was another of my mistakes.  No more honey (I guess that's a no no until they're at least one) but the little bit of water seemed to help them go as they all had a poop within the next 12 hours.  Whether it was the water or just the fact that they really really needed to poop... I'm just glad it happened!  Yeah for poop!!  It took Jacob about 4 days and Zachary was also on day 4 by the time he pooped... poor little buddies.   When Jacob's system decided to let loose, it let LOOSE... all over me!!! It was the first time I got pooped on.  The worst was that he had a diaper on AND his pyjamas, it just leaked through! HA!!  I'm not sure if it's the iron we have to give them daily or just their system having a moment.  They had cramp issues all week.  Yesterday was much of the same... the boys had one of their worst afternoons.  Was I ever glad that Gabe was here to help!! It would have sucked having to deal with an afternoon like that all on my own.  I can picture myself just letting them all cry, plopping down on the floor and crying myself!  I'm sure it'll happen!  Wait for it in next week's blog as I'll be alone most of this week... for the first time!   Last night, after the afternoon's craziness, the boys decided they had had enough and wanted to sleep.  Zachary and Samuel slept for 6 hours!!!!!!!!  They lasted close to 7 hours between feeds!!! Not sure if this was a fluke or a sign of things to come!  I seriously checked on them 5 times to make sure they were still alive.  Jacob wasn't ready to let me sleep though... he still slept well but just not hours hehe!  So tonight we're trying a cluster feed as it seemed to work last night, we'll see how it goes... Always trying something new, hoping it's the right thing... but what IS the right thing?  Who knows?  

The nurse came back to the house to take some weights and measurements for the boys.  She does all sorts of tests with them too to make sure they are developing as they should.  Zachary and Samuel broke the 10lbs mark!  Zachary was 10lbs 5oz, Samuel was 10lbs 3oz and my little Jacob was 8lbs 6oz!  They're all about 21 inches long (yes, even Jacob... he may be little, but he's keeping up with the lenght).  They still have no reflex to fall forward on their arms... They would go head first without stopping themselves, so that's still a little scary.  Not that I plan on dropping them but my husband might... lol.  She said she's pretty pleased with how they're developing and so is mamma bear! 

Tuesday night, our friend Julie came to help.  She even brought supper!  That was almost as welcome as the help! haha... we are so lucky as most of our friends are people who don't need to be entertained and can just be there with us without any forced conversation.  Julie was extra amazing as she's a go getter and she practically forced me to tell her what she could do.  I still have a really hard time letting people help when they come over and I just say "no, it's ok, there's nothing to do really".  She made sure we sat down and enjoyed our supper, she did the dishes and just LOVED cuddling with the babies (who wouldn't though really?!?).  Here she is with Jacob and Samuel and loving it!  Thanks for your help Jules! 

My friend Alicia also came to visit this week.  She didn't really get to cuddle all the babies but she'll be around quite a bit so it's not the first or the last time she'll get the chance to cuddle.  She also brought me amazing news!  I'm not quite sure I'm allowed to say anything so I'll refrain, but I was quite happy!!  All these visits from my friends made me start missing work... not just the work part (yes, I like the work part of my job) but also the social aspect that comes with it.  I miss interacting with my students and most of all, I miss my friends.  Baby stuff all night and day can get quite exhausting!  That's why it's nice when friends come to visit as it takes a bit of the monotony out of my life.  Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with my babies, but they don't really talk to me right now... 

We had to send our dog to the vet on Wednesday.  Poor girl's nails were so long and the nerve had grown with the nail so anytime we tried to trim them, she'd bleed and cry.  The vet had to put her to sleep to cut them as short as we wanted them.  She was super sad and cuddly all night after we went to get her.  It's quite nice not hearing her nails following me up and down the hall everytime I go back and forth in the hall (because she doesn't leave my side even if she couldn't care less about the babies).  

On Thursday, I had made another hair appointment to try and fix my hair... well fix the colour anyway.  I had decided I thought I looked like a little boy with my short brown hair so I asked if she could make it blond.  Anyways, I'm happy with the new result and I'm starting to like it more everyday.  So I had left my mother alone with the boys when I left, knowing that she would only be alone for 1 hour before Gabe came home and they were all sleeping when I left.  (I also missed the awesome turn around from the girl's gold medal win! Sad face.... ).  I guess the boys started going wild almost as soon as I left.  My mom was quite happy when Gabe got home... This is the scene that I walked into... haha... (I laugh now... but I will cry when it happens to me... maybe I will laugh, but then I'll know I've gone crazy!)

The boys went for their first real official outing out of the house this week.  After mom and I took a walk on Wednesday, we decided to go surprise my sister and the family.  My nieces LOVE taking care of the boys soooo much.  They even came back yesterday to spend time with the boys.  It'll be nice when they're old enough to babysit! haha!  

Here are some pics of the week:

Jacob's milk face

This walk was a little less cold... haha... We even opened the flaps to let them have some fresh air! 

My mom loving some snowy times before heading back to sunny Florida! 

Zachary in his crib

This is the state of our house most of the time... lived in I guess...lol

I tried to set them up to cheer on Canada for the game but Jacob had checked out early and I was quickly losing the battle with the other two.  Next time they'll be ready! 

As always my friends... Live, Laugh & Love... 

xox

Bad calls

So for those of you who are mothers and sometimes ask yourself: "why oh why did I do this?", I get it... Oh, I sooooo get it....  I made one of my worst decisions as a mother so far since this motherhood thing began and it almost hurt one of my babies... Since I decided to get healthy again, I made the decision to go walking as often as I could so when my friend Jessie asked me to go for a walk with her, I said yes right away (not only because I wanted to go for a walk, but I missed Jessie).  My sister and I had decided earlier that day that we weren't going to go due to the cold weather.  Well I should have stuck to that decision no matter how much I missed my friend...  We met her on the trail and walked to the end and then we had to make the decision to either walk the loop or turn around.  I figured the loop would be fine because I thought it was just the other half of the trail.  Boy was I wrong... not only was the other side of the loop longer but three quarters of it wasn't in trees, it was wide open.  It was soooooo cold... my little Jacob started crying halfway into the second half of the loop and when I looked at him, he looked almost blue.  I stupidly took him out of his car seat as I was scared shitless and I tried to warm him up a bit... I put him back in and I tried to wrap him up best I could, I even gave him my scarf.  There was nothing we could do, we were in a loop... it's not like we could turn around!!  So we just had to keep going... my sister's hands were starting to freeze, my little Jacob wouldn't stop crying and I was half racing down the trail.  I must have been on an adrenaline rush because I hardly felt any cold.  When we got to the car, my sister felt ill, her hands hurt so badly that she couldn't even help me put the car seats in the car...  If you knew my set-up, putting the car seats back in the car isn't just as simple as click and fold and store... it's click out click in x 3, take off wheels off base, fold base and stuff it in the van.  I couldn't do it fast enough, but I was still running on some kind of momma bear high trying to get my child to warmth.  We got home and I texted Gabe to come help get the babies in the house as soon as possible.  He took Jacob out of the car seat and I just grabbed him and hugged him to me with three blankets on top of me and this is when the adrenaline left MY body and I started to crash...  Remember, I had walked in -20 odd degrees for about 30 minutes without a scarf covering me and with a coat that wouldn't close.  I started feeling like I was going to throw up and I started shaking like crazy.  Gabe settled the other two babies in their cribs all nice and warm (Zachary and Samuel had kept warm somehow) and I went to take a bath.  It took a while for my body temperature to come back to normal but Jacob recovered much quicker, thank God!  My sister reassured me saying that it wasn't the first nor the last stupid thing I would do when it came to the babies... Poor Jessie kept apologizing as if it was her fault, NOT AT ALL!! I could have said no, I could have turned around but my stubborn brain decided, as always, to go full steam ahead.  There won't be any more walks unless the weather is no less than -10 degrees (windchill included).  I'll get healthy inside!!  At least I made a new acquaintance, a friend of Jessie's who I think is quite nice!  Maybe I'll have made a new friend out of this crazy experience!

My second bad call of the week (another thing I probably couldn't have known would turn out badly until it was too late) was to chop off my hair.  Now unless you're my immediate family, my friend Josée or my friend Alicia, you didn't know this... I don't like it, but it has nothing to do with my hairdresser, she's great (SUPERCUTS - NATASHA, go see her!!!) but my hair didn't want to cooperate with what I had in mind.  The moment she chopped off a large portion of my hair, she said that my hair was super curly, too thick and I had about 3 cowlicks that wouldn't cooperate so she just kept cutting and cutting to try to get rid of the curls... that was a bad call.  I ended up with a way shorter haircut than I had anticipated.  Like I said to Alicia though, it was quite liberating and it's just hair, it'll grow back... for now I just have to do the best I can with a bad situation.  

No, not a dead dog... all my hair... 

Result... it'll be ok right? 

My friends and husband warned me that I would regret it... I don't regret cutting it, AT ALL, I regret how my hair responded to what I wanted! haha...  My family tells me they like it... it's certainly easy maintenance.  I'll make it work, I always do!  

A really CLOSE CALL is awarded to my husband. It was bound to happen to one of us and the fact that we have 3 babies the odds of this happening are even more increased. Gabe was feeding two babies (one on his lap and the other one on the couch) trying to let me get some sleep. He was readjusting his position on the couch when Zachary (baby on his lap) rolled and flung off Gabe's lap head first towards the hardwood floor. Gabe managed to catch him at the very last minute with his head about 8 inches off the ground. Zachary was momentarily shaken up but nothing his bottle of formula couldn't fix. So to sum it up, no babies were injured in this story.

Zachary, yet again, gave us quite a night on Monday night... He must've cried for almost three hours straight!  We finally tried to feed him again (he normally eats every 4 hours and it had only been 2!), he ate almost another full bottle.  He must've been going through a bit of a growth spurt.  Gabe had to ask his boss if he could go in to work later the next morning as we knew the night would most likely be rough and I probably would need his help.  Thankfully, Gabe, as I've said time and time again, has an amazing boss who is soooo understanding!  Zach's our fussiest baby for sure though, giving us at least one freak out a day but when he sleeps, he sleeps!  I often have to wake him up to feed him with his brothers.  It was Jacob's turn today... he has many cramps and he just can't make them pass... hasn't pooped in 3 days poor little guy!  

My mother's back this week, she got back on Thursday and it's really nice having her back but having had her gone made me realize that I can make it on my own.  Yes, of course, I had help from my mother in law and my sister again this week during the day so I'm not sure how I will handle the days alone, but I did 2 weeks of night almost by myself so I can do this for another 3-4 months right?  Hopefully they'll sleep longer than 3 hours by then :)  Because she's my mother, I sometimes feel like I take advantage of her generosity and "I can't stop doing stuff" nature of hers (I feel like a lot of our mothers are like this right?).  She sneaks the monitor away from my room in the morning and lets me sleep until more than one baby fusses.  She always has done most of the daily tasks by the time I get up so all I have to do is cuddle, feed and take care of the babes.  I think Gabe also enjoys having her back because when she's here, we actually make supper! haha... He knows that when I'm alone, there's no way that I'll have time to make him supper.  I didn't make him supper pre-triplets, I sure am not going to start post!  Maybe once the babies start eating real food?  One day we may be a normal family eating normal food for supper! haha... I hope she knows how much I appreciate all she does.  She keeps telling me to stop thanking her, but how can I when she's a superstar?  Love you Maman!  I hope I'm half the mother to my kids that you've been to me...  I'm also so thankful for my sister who spent another three days with me and the kids, helping out, even freezing her butt off to help me out.  Love you sis! 

Going for walks, I ran into many people asking me, yet again, all sorts of questions... I've decided to compose a list of answers to questions people may want to ask.  I know, they're curious, as am I, and I would probably want to know some of these things if I saw a triplet mom as well but I'm not sure I would ask her directly...  I'm thinking of making business cards with this on it:

Yes they are triplets

All boys
Nope, not identical
No, but who has triplets that run in the family??

Yes, some twins in the family
2 months early

1 month in the NICU
Aren't all babies natural? Besides, you're a stranger, I'd rather not discuss my struggles with having a child with you
I'm also glad it's me and not you
I hope I don't jump off a bridge!
My hands ARE full, you should see my heart
No, you can't touch them
No, you can't take a picture

Yes, I am in love x 3

Jacob has finally learned to suck properly!  I no longer have to completely undress him before a feed!  That saves some time!  I've also tried a new strategy for feeding all three at once... I give each baby a little bit and I feed two at a time and I keep alternating between two babies depending who's crying the hardest! haha... most of the time, one of the babies is satisfied enough to wait a little and as soon as the one who's waiting starts fussing, I switch... it's been working so far... does it save me time?  Not sure, but it makes it easier on me! 

We went out for Gabe's birthday/Valentine's Day to The Keg.  IT WAS INCREDIBLE... I would have drunk a bottle of wine but stuck with a small 6oz. (Not nearly enough but I did have to be a mother when I got back home).  My mom, my sister and her family stayed at the house to babysit, yet again, being there for my sanity.  We had a nice few hours out without having to worry about the kids.  Our waitress was super good so that made the evening that much better.  She asked why we were out and when I said it was a combination of birthday, Valentine's and first time out since the kids, she asked how many kids we had.  I said three and she asked how old they were.  I answered 3 months and nothing after... she just stared at me until she started counting on her fingers and said "YOU HAVE TRIPLETS?!?" haha... thankfully, she was more interested in talking about herself rather than asking all sorts of questions (my business cards weren't ready after all!).  

Here's a few pics of the week:

Tiny toolbelt that Gabe can't wait to buy for the kids! 

From my Secret Sister from my Triplet Mommas Group on Facebook! 

My sister and I playing baby wrestling... Sam, on the bottom, was not pleased! 

I love these new PJs that finally fit them!! 

Sittin up on the couch... moments before he toppled over! 

All dressed up for The Keg

Yummy glass of wine!! 

Birthday Boy with the free Billy Miner's Pie (we didn't even want dessert but she brought it so we ate it).
It was AMAZEBALLS!!!!
We got home to a chocolate brownie cake my mom had bought Gabe for his birthday and then his mom showed up with his favourite cherry cheesecake dessert later.... haha... can you say dessert overload?!?

Multi-tasking... feeding Jacob while blowing out his candle.  Notice the candle?  It was the only candle I had in the house! haha

Samuel hanging out in his new favourite vibrating chair

Zachary catching some Z's between freak outs

My mother dancing with Jacob trying to calm him down a little... he liked it! 

Zachary cried the whole time... 

See? He's still crying!! 

Some pics of the photoshoot:

This picture captures our boys' personalities to a T.  Samuel (on the left) is my happy go lucky baby, Jacob (in the center) is my clown and Zachary (on the right) is my always serious little man. 

  Remember to live, laugh and love my friends... 

xox

Sleepless nights

First full week without my mother and I lived through it!!!  The nights are tough as I'm super tired and that makes me uncoordinated and a little less patient with the boys.  Gabe keeps insisting that I wake him up if I'm having a hard time but how am I to wake him up when I'm all the way down the hall dealing with three babies?!? haha...  I figure it's easier just to get through it than go wake him up anyway.  I'm trying to find my groove and I'll get there eventually... maybe I'll get there by the time they sleep through the night haha!  It's the most difficult when they decide to throw off the schedule (yes, I said they... I blame the babies who don't even know they have hands yet).  The first night, the boys barely ate in the middle of the night, Sam decided he only wanted to eat 2oz but of course he woke up one hour ahead of time for the next feeding.  Normally, under perfect conditions, I can feed all three within an hour.  Perfect conditions with babies?!? That happened maybe one time this week... I'd say the worse scenario is when you've fed one and put him to bed thinking all is good and he'll go right back to sleep, you come feed another baby and the one you just put down starts crying tirelessly... What do you do?  Feed the crying baby who is hungry or put him down and go settle the sad crying baby in the bedroom... and then a third decides he's hungry too!!  So as you can see, I don't get much sleep and there is so much to do in the daytime that I can't always nap when they nap... Thankfully I got help everyday this week!  My mother in law came to help on Monday, my friend Charline came on Tuesday and my sister, bless her heart, gave up her Florida vacation to help me instead so she was here the rest of the week.  I do have to say, however, that I have pretty good babies...  They're not colicky (not yet anyways... knock on wood!) and are pretty darn cute!  Zachary is my toughest baby... he spits up a lot (to the point where I got worried and had to do quite a bit of research... conclusion is that it's normal...) and lately he has had a lot of gas pains and cries a lot without being consolable.  Just like tonight, we put him down at 7:30p.m. in his crib and is just down (at 8:30p.m.) starting to calm down after about 15 trips between Gabe and I to go see him and console him... poor little buddy.  It's tough when you just don't know what the heck is going on!!  They've been fed, changed, burped, cuddled... what else can we do little guy??  I went out to the mall on Saturday to look for hiking boots.  I ran into my friend Erika and I bragged about how lucky we were to have suck good babies... I may have sent jinks vibes all the way home as the moment I stepped through the door when I got home, all I saw was chaos... all three babies were crying inconsolably and Gabe looked like he was about to cry himself...  

Oh no... there he goes again... one more trip, here I go... 

ok... he's quiet... please sleep little guy, we all know you're tired!!  

So I decided this week that I wanted to get out for some walks.  It's good for the brain, the body and the dog!  So Wednesday, Cindy (my sister) and I decided it was nice enough outside to go.  It took a while to get them all ready to go;  put long sleeve shirts on them, put on their tuque, put them in their car seats, make sure they're all snuggled in right... Calm one... c'mon buddy, take your soother, we'll be in the van soon!!  Get ourselves ready to go... diaper bag?!?  It's not like I'll change their dirty diaper in the middle of the trail!!  Bring it anyways, I might have to do an impromptu changing in the back of the van.  Get the dog ready, which is hard because she's so excited that I'm actually paying attention to her.  Did I start the van??  Put the dog outside to wait for us, bring the car seats out to the van (it's warm, hurray for remembering to start it!!), put babies in one at a time.  Off we go!!!  I'm so glad we decided to go to an actual trail as we were surrounded by nature and what's better than breathing tree air??  We had a really good walk!  It was slippery and we laughed quite a bit as pushing an 80lbs stroller up a slippery hill is not the easiest task.  80lbs is crazy you say??  11lbs per car seat (so 33lbs) + about 27lbs of babies + about 20 lbs for the base... It was even funnier going down a hill... we both had to hold on to the handle while half purposefully sliding down the hill, letting the stroller take us down!  So this leisurely walk turned into quite a workout!!  Pushing that stroller is quite something... so we took turns.  We went twice this week and Gabe and I went again today (I let him push it the whole time...hehe... I just took care of the dog).  

Good old Mapleton Park Trail

The boys are starting to show up real smiles...  (well Samuel and Jacob... Zachary is our more serious fella).  We shared a moment of laughter on Tuesday night when Jacob was sleeping after eating.  We were talking about him and he just gave us this huge smile as if to say... I know you're talking about me and I agree, I am pretty cute thanks!  Zachary is a big time squirmer...  We lay him down on his stomach in the middle of his crib and when we go see him for the next feeding, his head is touching the bars of the crib.. poor little guy!  Jacob found his thumb on his own... now if only Zachary could do that!! We wouldn't have to play paci police...

Speaking of Zachary... he's still not sleeping... I'll have to go cuddle him for a bit... Gabe is going! 

It wasn't even Zachary this time!  C'mon Samuel... you're my good little sleeper guy!!! On a positive note, Zachary is sleeping... for now... 

The nurse from public health came back this week and boy have our babies grown!!  Zachary was 9 1/2 lbs, Samuel was 9lbs 6oz and Jacob was 7lbs 13oz!!  We've had to graduate our two biggest boys to size one diapers and into 0-3 month clothes!!  My friend Véronique came to visit with her baby Sébastien this week and it blew me away how big he was... he's just shy of 7 months old.  I kept looking at him thinking... wow!! My boys will one day be that big?!?  It's crazy to think that they are no longer my little premature 3lb babies... they are growing into little boys!!!  It wasli really neat to see what they would be like in 6 months.  He was giving us big smiles, kicking his legs in glee, loving the toys I'd put in front of him, cooing and squealing... so precious!  AND he finished his 8oz of milk in like 5 mins!! We're lucky if the boys eat their 5.5 ounces in 45 mins!! 

Cutie pie Sébastien! 

Sébastien and Véronique holding Jacob

 I'm getting the rest of the picture from the photo shoot tomorrow so I should have them up on the next blog!  I'm really excited to see them... I'm also going to get my necklace and charms from Stella & Dot and I'm going for a haircut... I might go super short, I guess you'll see next week!  Gabe and I might also try to go out for his birthday (the 15th)/Valentine's Day. My mom said she could take care of things while we went out but with the way the boys have been lately, I wouldn't like to leave anyone alone with them.

until then, here are some pics of the week:

Saturday morning triplet conference

Milk drunk 

This is how I try to feed all three...

Beautiful flowers given to me by my husband.  He said it was because he thinks I'm a super mom.
Cute right?  Gotta love Lillies!! 

Until next week, live well, laugh often and love as much as you can...  I'm about to go show some love to my boys!!  Wish me luck... AND SLEEP!!!