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