Tripletville Adventures : Lowdown of night time adventures and other tidbits…

This is a long one so settle in..

Sunday to Monday night....SUCCESS-ish.... The boys may have taken 2 hours to fall asleep but they slept all night in their big boys beds!

Monday morning while getting ready for daycare the boys found Gab’s Bluetooth speaker and kept asking to play music so he got my phone and randomly selected a song which turned out to be the Avett Bros which instantly put them in a great mood. They danced around and listened to the music and got ready for daycare. Was it the song selection of the fact they got to play with the speaker? We like to think it was the Avett Bros (Laundry Room was the song for those wondering)

Monday night when we put the boys to bed there was barely any playing. It was mostly crying and pleading so after a couple failed attempts to please them we let them cry for a bit and I had to go to my optometrist appointment. Mémère and Pépère Arsenault wanted to stay and watch the boys (or as I like to call it… the SHOW) in the baby monitor so Gab put it on the big screen TV. They cried for the first 20 minutes or so and then after changing a poop and checking a couple pretend poops he put them back to bed were they played for about 20 minutes or so then miraculously two laid down in the bed and Sam laid down on the floor. So an hour after having put them to bed they were all laying down fairly quiet and fell asleep about 15 minutes later. Then Gab obviously moved Sam in to a bed were he woke up a bit but fell asleep shortly after.

Tuesday night Jacob took his first shower and loved it! He kept running back and forth under the shower until he got the nerve to stay under the spray for a little longer than 10 seconds. Zachary wasn’t sure but then again, my little scardy cat isn’t sure of much lol. Sam HATED it. Of course, he was loving watching Jacob loving it as long as he was outside of the tub. He kept putting his hand under the spray and then running away as soon as the spray hit him. Tuesday bedtime.. Zach and Sam were asleep in about and hour and 10 minutes or so. Jacob cried a bit longer. They seem to want to lay down a lot quicker but there was always someone crying or asking for something or playing and keeping the others awake.

Wednesday we put them to bed around 6:40 and I left to go spend some good quality time with my book club ladies NOT discussing the awesome book we ALL read. (Well I actually read it and it was actually good lol). So this story comes mostly from my hubby… Sam and Zachary played....Jacob cried. Then around 7 I went in to put them all to bed and read some bedtime stories then said goodnight. They all stayed in their bed but Jacob cried and cried. Jacob hates going to bed now. Even before the new beds. Even with the door open. He cries and cries. That's his new routine. It’s been like that for months now. He cried for about 45 minutes then he got up and went to the door so Gab figures he would go and that might soothe him. So he went and tucked him in, read a book, sang a song and said goodnight but the crying started up again L Another 15 minutes of crying and Jacob decided to push Sam which got him crying too so Gab went back in to console them. Tucked them in...read a story and said good night...and off goes Jacob again. So far it's been an hour of crying. 15 minutes later with all the crying Jacob bit Sam so Gab went in...again. When things almost settled down, someone jammed Zachary’s fingers between two beds. Went back in, consoled all of them, put them to bed said good night. It is now 8:15 and they're all crying. At around 8:30 Jacob started pinching Zachary to make him cry so he would go to their room. He has now realized that the only way we’ll go in is if either Samuel or Zachary cries… Clever cookie. From the living room Gab told Jacob to stop pinching his brother. That just made him pinch more and harder to the point that Zachary was crying so hard he couldn't catch his breath and for the first time in the 2.5 years since they've been born that Gab just lost it. (No fears. No one was hurt or spanked.) He yelled SO loud at Jacob. It wasn't even a conscious act it was simply a reaction because he was sooooooo frustrated at him for being such a little brat not listening and bothering his brothers unprovoked. JACOB STOP PINCHING ZACHARY!!!!! He couldn't even explain how loud he yelled. They all froze and stopped crying for like 10 seconds out of fear I suppose. That's when he texted me to ask me to please come home. While waiting for me, he went to the bedroom with the boys to sit with them and comfort them and stop their crying. Poor Zachary was doing the thing where you cry so much you gasp for air and saying Jacob hurt his back. (You should see Zachary’s body… full of pinching bruises… it tears my heart up) Sam didn't really know what all the fuss was about but he wanted in on the cuddles. Jacob…well he got what he had been asking for the past hour and a half I guess even though Gab had hugged him and reassured him several times throughout the night. When I came home Gab was just sitting in the lazy boy with his eyes closed just defeated. I felt so bad for even leaving in the first place. Poor guy had just had enough. I remember when the boys were babies and would cry endlessly even if I knew there was nothing I could do to get them to stop because I only had two arms and there were three of them. I’d sometimes have to leave them in the living room to cry and I’d escape to the kitchen, sit on the floor and cry my eyes out. Those were the times I felt so helpless… So I took over... with a fresh frame of mind. After a couple tries, Jacob and Zachary crying a couple more times, Jacob stealing stuff from Zachary and me sitting with them for a little they were all finally quiet and hopefully ready to sleep (45 minutes later). So we took a step back in bed time… It took 2 hours and 40 mins that night.

Wake up call at 4:15… L Jacob stole Zachary’s blanket. We got settle them hoping to get the rest of our hour of sleep. Nope…4:25....and 4:35… We think Jacob even said “CRY” to Zachary as in he wants to make him cry. This dude is turning into a brother bully! We can’t have that!! My heart hurts so much for Zach!! Not really thinking clearly, just wanting some sleep (even 20 minutes is better than none) we decided to put a playpen in the room and put Jacob in it because he WOULDN'T stop bugging Zachary. At around 4:50 Jacob took off his pyjamas as a form of protest then took off his diaper which was full of poop… womp womp… So there he is, in a playpen, full of poop all over him and all around him. Gab went to get naked poopy Jacob and I got up to help clean up all the mess. All this before 5 a.m… the rest of the morning was as rough as you can imagine it was!

Thursday night we went to my sister’s for supper to celebrate her birthday. The boys always LOVE going there because they can look at the dogs and pretend they’re not afraid. My sister has a mud room with a cat door on the door to get in. They put the dogs in there when we come over because their black lab Mia can get quite excited when we come over (I think she just loves me). The boys have a blast rubbing her nose through the cat door. Poor Mia just wants to come out and love on them! We let her out at the end when she had calmed down and they were able to enjoy her much more! My sister turned 39 and she just looks amazing. This last year has been quite the rollercoaster and she is finally on the upswing. It’s time to get some happiness back into her life and put this nightmare behind us all. My father took his life when he was 39 and my sister and I used to think he was so old but looking at her now… She’s just beginning a new life… she is still so young and so was he. When I think about that now, as a 35 year old woman, it breaks my heart even more at times. But I’m trying to think of the positive that even though life took one 39 year old away from me, my sister decided to fight for her life and won. This 39 year old is here to stay. Love you sis… Papa serait tellement fier de toi… xox

Thursday night for bedtime, we decided to try something a little different. We decided one of us would sit in the room with them and hold Jacob's hand since that usually helps him. Even when we’re in the car taking a long ride and he’s unhappy, all I have to do is hold his hand and he’s happy as a clam. Gab thinks this is a setback because he fears it will set a precedence but team Arsenault-LeBlanc needed a win because it's been a long week! So Gab stayed with them after we put them to bed. For the most part Jacob didn't move but the other two wanted to sit on Gab. They were finally all in bed when Sam started kicking Zachary and almost set everything off. Finally get those two in bed and not kicking when Jacob decides he's going to sleep on the floor. Argh ...the other two fall asleep and he convinces Jacob, who is still reluctant, to go in his bed. Gab held his hand and with in a couple minutes he was out. Total time in the bedroom with the boys was about an hour. And their bedroom door is closed which is a small victory since our room and bathroom is right across from their room so we have been tip toeing around at night and in the morning when we get up. We think it's an early night for us and we were right! WIN!!! In the end the boys slept through the entire night in their bedroom with the door closed up until 5:30 in the morning. Cutest thing? Sometimes in the middle of the night, Sam crawled from his bed into Jacob’s bed to sleep… C’MON!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday bed time… more crying… Had a really hard time getting them to settle down even with Gab in the room. He went in because my AMAZING friend Alicia came to help me tag for the upcoming consignment sale. I have been a big slacker at it and I needed someone to kick me in the butt to get started on it. So thank you Alicia. She got to witness the show… At one point Zachary courageously army crawled under the beds (that barely fit his tiny body) to get a monkey that Jacob so badly wanted while Gab was contemplating how he could get it without moving the beds. After what I assume was 45 minutes they finally settled down while Gab held Jacob's hand. Took them a while to fall asleep. When Gab got up and opened the door it woke Jacob and he didn't want him to leave but I told him he had to go to the washroom. ...and just never went back. (Can you say establishing trust issues here much?). He crawled over his sleeping brothers to get a bunny and squirmed a little but went back to bed. Gab was in there for about an hour. 1:40AM comes around and they wake up crying (Last call at the bar?). In to the room Gab goes and holds Jacob’s hand. He told him he had to go use the washroom and left. (Here we go with the trust issues again!!) They actually slept until 6 a.m! LOVE sleeping in!!! LOL

Saturday we went to spend the morning at my mom’s house. The boys love going there. When I told Zachary we were going to see Mamie and Pappy, he started yelling YEAH and clapping his hands. That really warmed my heart! We spent 80% of the time playing outside on Winston’s random builds. All about tractors when we go there!

That afternoon, we attacked naps differently. We decide to split them up from the start. Zachary in their room, Jacob in ours and Sam in the spare bedroom. Gab leaves the house to get lunch for us. The boys are yelling at each other from room to room being all cute and stuff. Jacob yelling Sam’s name, Sam saying WHAT?, Zachary at the door yelling Jacob’s name… a whole bunch of cuteness overload!! About 20 minutes into it, Zachary is quiet, Sam is quiet and of course, Jacob is crying. I’m letting him cry it out because I know he will fall asleep eventually. Boy was I wrong! Gab comes home and needs to pee and says he’ll check in on Jacob... Well the little bugger had taken off his diaper and peed in the playpen! Why didn’t I learn?!? While Gab changes him, I go put a sleeping in front of his door Zachary in his bed. I then take Jacob and lay him down beside Zachary. I know I’m taking a chance here but I have a playpen full of pee! I stay for about 10 minutes, holding his hand of course, and he falls asleep. You know when you see in the movies the parents who do army rolls and ninja moves to get out of their children’s bedroom? Well that was me on Saturday afternoon… The boys slept for about an hour and a half!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We haven’t had a nap that great in months!!! I was actually able to go outside and sit on my lounger and read a real book!! So separating them is key.

They woke up and they were in such a good mood! WHO KNEW THAT SLEEP WAS GOOD FOR YOU?!?!?!?

Gab and I went to go do groceries while my in-laws took the boys to the mall. It’s always nice to be able to get away on our own to do that so we’re really grateful that we have family around that can always help us out. Saturday night, I decided to take one for the team since Gab had done the previous two hand hold nights. I only last 40 minutes. I couldn’t take them being so bratty and not going to bed no matter how much hand holding, book reading, song singing I did… Of course, 5 minutes later, Zachary is crying. Someone (we can only guess who) hurt him. We try to let them work it out for a bit. We watch as Sam gets up to go hug Zachary (AWE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) 10 minutes later, Gab went in because Jacob was up to his bully self. He was stealing his blankets and toys and just being a brat. He consoled Zachary, told Jacob he wasn’t being nice and made him apologize. Sam felt at this point that he also needed to apologize to Zachary so he got out of bed to do just that. Zachary and Jacob then got in their beds but Samuel decided he wanted to help Daddy so he sat in his lap and repeated everything he said/did, even tried to hold Jacob’s hand… (cute right?). Cute but he was refusing to go back to bed as he wanted to oversee everything. We think he thinks he’s the leader of the trio and the other two just aren’t buying it. Eventually Sam let Gab put him in bed. Gab stayed in for the following 20 minutes. I felt really bad at this point because I felt like I let the team down…

This has been really tough on us since the one thing we could always rely on no matter how rough our day was was how easy the boys were at bedtime. We had worked really hard to sleep train them, we were consistent and we had good little boys. Bed time was our reset time. We could always count on that...not anymore. This early morning, at around 3:30, Zachary started crying. Most likely because Jacob did something as when we looked on the monitor, we saw Jacob on the ground beside him. I went in for a bit and soothed them back to sleep. Then Zachary fell out of his bed and of course cried. So Gab went in, tucked him in and believed everything was fine but then he started crying again. He just wanted us in the room until he fell asleep. I went back in after about 5 minutes . Stayed a couple minutes then put the baby gate up and left the door open. They went back to sleep...until about 4 something when they started to cry. Gab went in...held Jacobs hand for a bit and left. Sleep again...until 6 something when we brought Jacob in to our bed and let the other two sleep a bit more.

What a Sunday morning! Started with NNICU Graduate Picnic put on by Moncton Preemie Power. Gab ran around with all the children while I was helping setting stuff up. A friend of mine, and fellow NNICU graduate mom (x 2) is a photographer and she set up a mini studio and donated her time, and talent, to take before and after pics of all the babies that were there. It was crazy nice of her and I can’t wait to see the results! It was great to see everyone there. This event just gets getting better and better! We left early as we wanted to go play in the natural park before bringing the boys home for a nap as we had a birthday party this afternoon. Well we went to the park and the boys had such a good time (even chased a squirrel for about 10 minutes) that we overstayed our pre-planned time frame. We decided to skip nap… (Eeesh!!!) We went to Tim’s to have lunch and then came home to get the gift. Within 2 minutes of leaving Tim’s, our three boys were out cold. We went to Lucas’s birthday party at a bowling alley (their first time!). The boys had a great time playing with balloons and even got to try throwing a few balls down the lanes. Sam got so excited every time a ball would come up from the hole! We came home and went straight to the backyard where the boys played outside for another hour. WE LOVE THIS WEATHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight was a record for Gab. Yes, he was the lucky one to go back in because I wanted to get this done in a timely manner and I knew I had a lot to write so… blah blah blah… yeah, he’s just better at it… I’ll do it tomorrow and try really hard not to give up. We would absolutely LOVE to just leave them in there and let them figure it out but we know that Jacob will just keep injuring his brothers and that’s not acceptable so we hope that the time we have to be in there will get to be less and less. It only took about 50 minutes tonight so SCORE! We have also started putting a onesie on Jacob AND putting a zippered pyjama on backwards so that he can’t get out. It has been working so far!

So yeah, another long week for the books… Thanks for following along and for your support. We have no friends who can say they’ve tried to transition three toddler boys to toddler beds at the same time so we’ve appreciated the way people responded. With little to no advice on what they would try to do unless we asked. So thanks so much for your support as we go through this difficult time in our triplet adventures.

This blog took me 2 hours to write so there won't be many picture comments, you can gather what you wish from them lol. Good night all! Until next adventures!

xx MC

We went to Goji's for a fundraiser... but went there two hours to early... it'll teach me to listen to my students!

Tuesday night we had a supper date at St-Hubert with my mother. The whole thing cost me $10 and that's only because I felt bad for not ordering anything so I ordered a soup and gave a good tip! St-Hubert does this the last Tuesday of every month, kid crafts, free meal, face painter... theme! Super cool