Tripletville Adventures : Why my husband is the best in the world and why I love him so much.

Hi there, It's Gabe speaking this week. My wife has tasked me once again with writing the blog this week because she thinks I am such a talented writer!...or because she has the task of putting the boys to bed tonight and she will be to tired to start the blog after the boys have gone down. I like to think it's the first reason.

So speaking of the boys bedtime and bed routine have have finally found a method that works for its. It's called realizing that we are at their mercy and they get to decide when they want to go to bed and not us. So i may be exaggerating a little bit when i say that but we have come to accept something. We have accepted that we are in their bedroom for about an hour before they will finally start to go to sleep and let us leave the bedroom. No I know some of you may be judging us on this one and I know we have probably judged some people in the past who have done similar things but at this point and time this is what works for us having 3 toddlers about to turn 3 years old in toddler beds and all in the same bedroom. Once our boys fall asleep they are out for the night until the following morning so they get a good nights rest. Around 7 pm we all to in to the bedroom to read a couple of stories with the boys and as I'm sure most parents will understand there is always the request for one more story...then just one more...and just one more. We go through this x3. And often Zachary doesn't like the story that Jacob picked. Or Sam has already come up to us with 3 books that he picked and his brothers don't think that's fair so they also want to pick some books. When we finally agree on a couple of books and start reading things go great....until they fight over who sits were to view the book reading and end up sitting on top of each other or in front of each other. It does get frustrating but overall the book reading portion is 10-15 minutes. Then we get them to go in to their beds and one of us (we alternate nights) will stay with the boys. This mostly started because Jacob was SUPER attached to me and didn't want me to leave his bed side and unfortunately it has grown in to a routine but on the bright side he now lets me take a night off every other night and lets mommy hang out with them. We usually have to stay until Jacob has fallen asleep which is almost always around 8pm like clock work (give or take 5 minutes). Zachary and Sam are ok if we leave when they are awake.

We have tried plenty of other methods and end up with similar results. The boys falling asleep around 8pm. We saw no improvements with the other methods in the past and either. Its not like the were going to sleep at smaller intervals. It was always around 8 pm. On top of that there was usually a lot of crying and tantrums going on during that time as well as a lot of stress on us. We tried walking them back to bed repeatedly for multiple nights. We tried positive reinforcement with love every time they went to bed on their on and ignoring them when they got out of bed. We tried everything else we could think of and that people suggested for us but they all had the same result so that's why we decided to read some stories and sit with them in the bedroom until Jacob falls asleep. Not the best way to do it and who knows we might be setting ourselves up for a much larger problem but for the time being it's what works best for us. No crying or tantrums (for the most part) and some relaxing time for mommy or daddy and we're out by 8.

I still think we are really lucky because we may have a tough time putting the boys to bed but once they are down and out they are great sleepers. They always get a solid nights sleep and on the odd occasion someone wakes up in the middle of the night (usually cause Zachary fell out of bed) we go put them back to bed and they go back to sleep.

We have noticed that when it comes to their sleep issues Jacob is the instigator. He is the one when we first switched to toddler beds that would cry for us to come see him in the room while the other two were chilling in bed. He also realized that his pleas would no longer get the reaction he wanted from us so he decided to start biting his brothers so they would cry. Making us go to the room to check on the injured sibling. He's the reason we have to now be in the bedroom so much to. He's the reason they are all spread on at nap time. Zachary and Sam go down fairly easy for the most part sometimes even asking to go to bed. Jacob sleeps on the couch with one of us until he falls asleep. But by doing so he sleeps a go 1.5-2 hours and so do the other boys. He also recently starting not caring about waiting for the sunshine to appear on his grow clock. If we wakes up early and we bring him in our room or the living room he sometimes goes back to wake up his brothers. And finally 99% of the times he now wakes up crying or whining. Now for those of you reading this it may seem like we have given in to his demands and he knows it and can get what he wants so that's why he continues to do it. Because it works. And it is possible we are guilty of that and have created or own little monster but i don't think that's the case because each of the issues i listed above we tried to break the habit for weeks at a time. Perhaps he just needs a little more love and attention and that's why we decided to do what works for us and make some little modifications in some of those instances.

Now I don't want to paint Jacob as an evil little child. (that's only when it comes to bed time. ha). He is for the most part a happy go lucky little kid. He loves hamming it up for people. Love to make you laugh and loves being the center of attention. He is also very caring especially towards his brothers.

Monday he went to the speech pathologist with MC to review a couple of things and he is doing well. The speech pathologist did notice his voice was a little raspy and suggest we make sure he doesn't yell when he speaks. Jacob doesn't yell when he speaks. He just yells a lot in general and cries a lot and we think that his the cause of his raspy voice.

Saturday morning our friend Nesha and her friend Tara came to visit the boys. And the boys true colors came out once again. Once they go over their initial shyness Jacob became a little ham. Always doing exaggerated movements and projecting his voice in a theatrical manor when he was playing to make sure that the girls heard and and checking out the corner of his eye to see if they were laughing . Sam was being a HUGE flirt with Nesha and Tara. Looking at them why shy eyes and a coy little smile. Bringing them pretend coffee and food. He even brought over his little John Deere tractor over to Tara and explained to her that the batteries don't work anymore so she would take pity on him and tried to get her to play with his tractor and farm animals. Side note : it totally worked. And Zachary for the most part he was interacting with the girls and in a good mood.

Sunday morning we went for our 4th annual photo shoot which is the boys 3rd appearance in person. This year was tough but funny because Zachary was a grump and refused to smile for 95% of the photos. It just came to the point we all had to laugh about it. Lots of the photos turned out great though but we'll also include some of the outtakes.

So here's are some (lots) of photos :

This was the morning we ALMOST drove off with out buckling Jacob in his seat. I put the van in reverse to leave the driveway and Zachary yelled out : Maman!!Jacob est pas assis! (Jacob isn't sitting)