Tripletville Adventures : Second guessing

The other night some of my girlfriends and I were discussing the funny things that come with being a mother. There was a blog post which began with "You might be a mother if..." and there were comments like "you've become a pro at butt sniffing and you won't hesitate to do it anytime or anywhere" or "you don't ever leave your house without a stain of some sort whether it be snot, puke, food, or yes, even poop you didn't notice got on you.". There are many funny sides to being a mother but there are also sides that are sometimes difficult to deal with. I started to write this last week when Zachary was sick with a fever and just not himself and I knew that there was nothing major wrong with him but there's always this constant little voice in my head (like the devil mother version of myself on my shoulder whispering in my ear) telling me things like "What if his fever spikes in the night and you don't know it?", "What if he has a double ear infection and he's in constant pain?", "What if he's got five teeth trying to pierce at the same time and the pain is unbearable?" and then the other side of me (the little angel mother version of myself) says "He's piercing a tooth, he's got a slight fever, he'll be fine." When I saw he had a fever of 102 and it didn't seem to let up, the evil side of me won over and I took the little buddy to the ER... Why the ER for a fever you ask? Well it was Sunday night and I didn't think any clinics were open. We ended up being there for 3 hours to be told to keep giving him Tylenol and Advil and he had an ear that was a bit red so she'd treat him for an ear infection too. When my pediatrician's office called me the next day, Sam, the wonderful receptionist was surprised that I answered having anticipated leaving me a message. Because we are semi-besties (I called so many times during my mat leave that she knew my number by heart), we chatted for a bit and she scolded me for going to the ER. She told me to trust myself as their mother and know the difference between an emergency and knowing a clinic would do just fine (even the next day, as long as I could have kept him comfortable with my Advil/Tylenol regiment). She made me promise to never go to the ER for a fever (of less than 104 of course) again. She knows me and she knows that I know my boys and she told me to stop second guessing myself. That, of course, was not the only time I've second guessed myself and it won't be the last. I'm constantly hearing that voice in my head saying "You're a bad mom, you couldn't even find a way to stay home with them, you're letting strangers spend more time with them than you". "You're a bad mom, you let them cry at night just so you can get some sleep", "What an awful mom you are, you're sitting here writing your blog while you let your Mother in Law take care of your sons, you have such limited time with them to start with". And on and on it goes... I don't think that voice will ever leave me, and I want all you mothers reading this who have this little devil mom on your shoulders that you're doing a great job. We do the best we know how. Most of us are doing this for the first time and we need to learn from our mistakes. We can't expect our parents to tell us everything and we need to remember that they are OUR children. We are the ones who know them best and we need to shut that voice up and tell her to go back to the hole she came from. Who does she think she is telling us how to raise our kids?? Give her the boot! Easier said than done right? Of course there are times we're going to say it's fine and maybe it won't be but we need to make mistakes and you know what? Our kids NEED to see us make mistakes and they need to know it's ok to make mistakes as it's the best way to learn. 90% of the time, we are right in our first feeling so we need to trust that more often. So trust yourself mommas, we've got a long way to go and we need to start trusting our motherly instincts!

The boys? They're amazing! They LOVE being outside! We went to a Cabane à Sucre (sugar camp) today and they just loved being outside for that long. Zachary was the only who liked the maple sugar, the other two boys probably found it too sweet. I was afraid they weren't getting enough protein (devil mother whispering once again) so I tried to give them some breakfast sausage or one piece of bacon in the morning and they wouldn't even touch it. Most likely finding it too salty. I feel like all they'll eat is potatoes, bread, peanut butter, blueberries and beans. Their new favorite dish is beans and rice... weird I know but they gobble it up like I do my wine! And if you know me, you know I love my wine. They're peeing and pooping and growing so they're fine (shut up little evil woman). They're walking, learning new things every day it seems. Their vocabulary increases daily and it's a mixture of French and English words (as we expected). Their sign language is getting increasingly better, they're signing "more", "milk", "baby", "eat', and "finished". They're so smart. When Zachary isn't sick (which isn't often since they've been going to daycare), he's so happy and funny. He loves being chased around. Jacob is a little clown, dancing away at all sorts of songs (his current favorite is "If you're happy and you know it", he'll stomp his feet (off beat of course) but it's so adorable! Samuel is just a sly little guy and so SENSITIVE! We can't tell him no without him crying. Even if we're trying to tell him to stop hitting his brother on the head with a random toy. They are currently playing in the hallway, all three on all fours, chasing each other and laughing like banshees. It's too adorable! I'd post a video but our light burnt out in the hall and it's too dark to film.

We were privileged with two RAK's this week (random act of kindness). The first happened when our home phone rang with a weird number we didn't recognize. It was doubly weird because that phone NEVER rings, we only ever use our cell phones unless we're calling call centers and they're normally the only ones who call on that phone as well. This time, it was a local number. They called once and we ignored it thinking it was a wrong number. When it rang again about an hour later, I figured I'd answer it to tell them it was a wrong number. The first thing the lady asked was if I was the triplet mom... well she didn't have the wrong number after all... she then asked me what the boys weighed (weird but ok...) and once I told her they were between 18-20 lbs, she told me I was almost talking to Santa Clause! She had seen our NICU interview last year and said she had been thinking about us since. Her daughter had twin boys who were born four months before the boys and she wanted to give us all their clothes. She also said that there would be other stuff that would come along with that. I was wary of all this as you can imagine so I asked her how she found our phone number. She proceeded to tell me that she called around the parish and the parish church first (to which I told her that she wouldn't have found anything in the church archives as we didn't baptize them), and then she said that she asked her daughter and she found us online. Anyways, she told me she was going to see her daughter in Montreal in May and would bring us back some goodies. After the phone call, I was still a bit weirded out by the whole thing because we are trained to distrust people wanting to do good so I checked online quickly to see if I could find our phone number and what do you know, it took me about a minute. I searched Google for Moncton triplets and our Radio-Canada interview was the second link. It had both mine, Gabe's and the babies' names on it. I then went to Canada 411 and searched for Gabe's name and sure enough it had our number AND our address (as would have been in the regular old school paper phone books). She also knew where we lived which scared me at first but knowing that Canada 411 has everything right on there, I was soothed and chose to believe that this stranger is just what she appeared to be; a nice woman wanting to do something nice for us. I'll let you all know what comes out of that.

The second RAK that happened to us what today when we stopped at this random little diner on the way home from the sugar camp. It was called "Le Restaurant du Village" (the village's restaurant) so you can imagine how random it was and how the regulars looked at us like we were aliens. Anyways, this little old dude fell in love with the babies and gave the waitress a loonie for each of them! I know it's not much and as Gabe said back in his day a loonie would have bought chips, a chocolate bar and maybe some candy but in this day and age, the boys would have to pool their money together to get a chip and a chocolate bar and even then they might have to ask mommy and daddy for money to cover the tax but the monetary value is not what this was about. This little old man was kind enough to think of my boys and give them a loonie.... C'mon, how cute is that???

That's all for now folks... I hope you all had a great Easter. We only allowed the boys a little bit of chocolate but they LOVED it!