Tripletville Adventures : When I thought I knew better...

As we were driving to Cap-Pélé today to go watch my nieces play ringuette, it occurred to me that something was happening that I swore I would never do when I became a mother: we were listening to annoying children's songs!!! I always said that my boys would grow up listening to bands I liked and would be singing along to Bruno Mars or Finger Eleven or even Taylor Swift but not Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! I wanted them to be my little trio band rocking out and then we'd get on Ellen (haha). Instead we listened to the likes of Three Little Kittens Lost their Mittens and Mr. Tulman and Twinkle Twinkle. So instead of little rockers, I have three little boys who like annoying baby music. It's kind of ok because they're darn cute while they're singing along. I would much rather hear them sing Bruno Mars from their cribs, but listening to them rock out to Tinkle Tinkle Liddle Sta... How wow wow Der wah wah wah is good enough for me. I was going to be the perfect cool parent and then I became a parent... This got me thinking about what else I swore that I wouldn't do that I now do:

#1 - Already talked about... no baby music in the van

#2 - No TV until they're two. HA! That is all...

#3 - No English music or TV at home... While we listen to CJSE in the kitchen and have a few TV shows in French that we like, there are so many others in English to choose from! I still want to go back to that rule though, well at least for the TV. We're going to start PVR-ing the shows we (they) like and watching those. I know that it won't always be the case but we are very adamant that our life at home is 90% French. We still have a few favorite books in English and we'll listen to English songs but for the most part I'd like to keep that part of our lives up.

#4 - Rear facing until they're at least two. We broke that rule this week. They're 23 months so I can say that we almost got there.

#5 - Feed them crap. As much as I tried to stick to that rule for a long time, there are still a few times a week that the boys will eat whatever I know they'll stick in their mouths. I do the healthy smoothie with spinach, I do the healthy oatmeal pancakes with real maple syrup or honey, I even do the give the fruit/veggie at every meal because eventually they'll eat it trick. It doesn't always work and they sometimes end up eating eggos, and peanut butter and ketchup have become a staple in my house.

#6 - Use food for bribe. Before the boys I told myself that there must be other ways to bribe your children to be good. Like properly disciplining them for example. Again I must say HA! Food is the only thing that works when one of the boys is losing his mind down aisle six in Superstore. The very thought of a snack will stop any of my two year old from wanting to jump out of the cart to their demise. I still try to stick to my guns because I can already see that if I gave in to Zachary every time he wanted a snack, he'd be a very pudgy two year old.

#7 - (This one come from Gab). Let them have tantrums... Our children would be disciplined therefore there would be no tantrums... HA...HA...HA... I think that was the biggest lie we told ourselves. OF COURSE our children will have tantrums! No matter how much sign language we teach them, there are still a) things they can't communicate or b) things they want but can't have. Since the boys have been forward facing in the van, all they want to do is be in the front seats and play with all the fun buttons go vroom vroom. Well we've resorted to ordering a pet barrier to keep them from coming up front.

There are still a few things I'm sticking to my guns about like limiting electronic devices as much as possible and they rarely have fast food but I've quickly realized that there are things that are out of our control and if our adventures can be free of some tantrums because I give in once in awhile then that's what it'll be.

Examples of things I'm still hoping that I will be able to stick to my guns on: no pop until they're 10 and they'll be out of the house by the time they're twenty... and so many other things I'm sure I'll drop the ball on but hey, I'm just a mom doing the best she can.

Sunday confessional anyone? What is it that you do that you promised you'd never do?

Our week...

Sunday night Jacob kept us up almost all night. He may have slept in his crib five hours maximum out of his usual 12. For those of you who prefer percentages, that's 40% of his night. The rest of the time was split between our bed and rocking with me in the living room. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep. I think this started my own sick week. I had a parent teacher night on Wednesday and I could hardly speak to the parents. By Thursday morning I sounded like a man and hardly got through my day. Before I had kids, I almost NEVER got sick but now my immune system is crap. On Monday morning we had our first front facing drive since Florida. Aside from wanting to be in the driver's seat, the boys were mostly excited. Sam was a little less so but it may have been from the kick in the face he got from Zachary 5 minutes prior to the drive. On Tuesday Gabe took the boys to their pediatrician's appointment. Jacob and Zachary are in the 21 lbs range and Samuel is just over 23 lbs. The car seats say that 22 lbs is the minimum for front facing but our pediatrician (who is amazing and also a high risk neonatologist so I trust him implicitly) said that the weights are guidelines so the company can cover their asses and he's perfectly ok with the boys turning around. I'm still scared that something is going to happen and I'm going to blame myself but that's the life of a mom I guess. The worryness will never go away. I had my monthly book club get together on Tuesday night. As always, it was an amazing night. I love those girls so much! It was such a long week! I was contemplating taking a day off to let my body heal but as a teacher, taking a sick day is almost more work than sucking it up and going to work. I actually took a nap at the same time the boys did today instead of doing the million other things I could do. I'm hoping this cold goes away soon... Anywho... here are some minimal pics: