Tripletville Adventures : Day in the life

So this week Gabe and I thought it might be interesting to give you a snapshot of a day in our lives at the moment, both from my perspective and his... Brace yourselves, this is a long one... but worth the read, as always :) (I think anyway).

Mommy's perspective...

This is what a typical Monday to Friday schedule looks like...

5:30 am - Wake up & set up to feed the babies with Gabe's help. He helps as much as he can while getting ready to go to work.
After feeding and burping and changing, I put the babies at various places around me to their contentment (on a boppy, in a swing, down on their floor mat, etc.)
Fill up dishwasher with bottles to sterilize, start dishwasher, put a load of laundry in.
Check on the babies and if they've fallen asleep, transfer them to their cribs and hope they fall back asleep...
If they are sleeping, I try to nap (I haven't been able to yet so why do I even try?!?)
I try to shower while they are quiet in their cribs, this happens maybe every two days (or three, or four... maybe I should start logging my shower days on the calendar so I don't become a stinking mess... Come to think of it, when DID I shower last?!?) haha
At around 8, I wash, rinse and boil the nipples as the dishwasher was leaving black residue in them.
I then boil water to sterilize water for the bottles if I need to.
By then at least one baby is ready to leave his crib (if he hasn't been out already).
I bring him to the bathroom where I change his diaper, wash his face, put some lotion on and get him dressed for the day (I like to dress them as I feel it helps them know that it's daytime. Also, they have really cute outfits). Sunday is let's stay in our PJs all day kind of day.
I then go put said baby in a swing, on the floor for tummy time or in a bouncy chair, depending on his preference. I repeat until all three boys are up. I try to spend a little bit of time with each alone every day.
By then, it's most likely time for the 10 am feeding so I do that. It's normally a crying fest by the time I set it all up and plug em up as it takes some time to heat the bottles up to room temperature.
I put on music and try to sing/dance with them.
I put the clothes in the dryer
Then I rotate them around the living room until they seem to want to sleep again. They never nap long at this time but seem to be in pretty good spirits. We spend time either visiting with company or playing around or getting in and out of sleep.
I empty the dishwasher, got get the clothes to fold.
Then the 2pm feeding; I like it as it's the last feeding alone before Gab comes home....
After this feeding is when the fun begins as it is the start of their fussy time. Before, it was just Zachary but now, more and more, the three get in on the fun. It's a constant rotation from my arms to soothe to the swing to the boppy to my arms etc. It's a constant put one down, pick one up for about an hour until Gabe comes home and then he can help.
I started giving Zachary some probiotics hoping it will help and honestly, I think it is because when Gabe came home on Friday, all three were actually quiet. He couldn't believe it! He looked at me and said "really??".
He's been pretty good the last few days so I'm hoping that's the key! Zach I meant, not Gabe...
Ok...back to the schedule.
The boys seem to be hungry earlier after their 2pm feeding so we feed them at around 5:30pm, we give a bath to whoever's turn it is and we normally put them to bed around 6:30pm.
(Ùzfvfd,d,s,md<,c <------- sorry, this was Zachary's contribution to the blog... I was holding him and he was typing with his feet kicks...)
They normally fall asleep within 10 minutes of us putting them to bed. We sometimes read them a story or Gabe will play them a tune if they seem receptive. That's the good thing about my boys... after crying their eyes out for almost 2 hours straight, they go to sleep pretty easily!! Jacob can cry (louder than my other 2 babies put together) for about 5 minutes and then BAM, he's asleep! Samuel will just hang out in his crib without crying until he falls asleep (sometimes he needs his soother) and Zach is different every night. (YEAH BOYS!!)
At around 7, we try to eat. Gabe starts prepping the milk for the next 24 hours while I assemble the nipples, covers and bottles.
Relax time after that (phew...) until the babies wake up for their 10pm feeding. I sometimes try to nap at this point or we just watch TV to numb our brains for a while. This is also the time when one of us has a chance to run out for an errand or two.
We feed at 10pm, we dim the lights and we try to not talk to them (which is sometimes hard when they're giving you a huge smile).
We put them to bed and they fall asleep really easily at this point and we go to bed.
I wake up when the first one starts to fuss anywhere between 2am and 3am, wake up Gabe, go prepare the bottles and we dream feed them.
Between the dream feed and their wake up time, I get up about 2 - 3 times to go soothe them or flip them over on their tummies. Gabe can sleep through anything so he nevers wake up :(. I also don't wake him up because well... what's the point since I'm already up?!? It irritates me the most when he wakes up and says "Wow!! They had a good night didn't they??". I know it's not his fault, but it's still irritating dammit!!! lol
So I get a broken three hours of sleep and then we start all over again...

Daddy's perspective

He's a little more detail oriented than mommy is...

5:38 am Alarm goes off, get up to get ready.
5:39 Make toast for breakfast and start the day.
5:43 Put one contact lens in, Jacob starts crying so I go in the room to turn him around to try get him to sleep a little longer to give mommy a little more sleeping time.
5:44 Start to put in second contact lens and have to stop because Zachary starts to cry so I go in to the babies room to give him his soother to hold him off a little longer.
5:45 Get the second contact lens in my eye. Time to hit the shower and get ready.....no...wait...Jacob is crying again. Time to flip him over and give him his soother.
5:47 The boys are quiet, time to run the hot water for my shower (takes a minute to get the hot water going)...almost ready to jump in then...nope...not gonna happen. Jacob is crying again.
5:49 Get Jacob from the crib and go chill in the living room with him for a bit to quiet him down. Turn on the water for the bottles (5 minutes to boil so it will be ready when mommy and the babies want to feed)
5:51 Change Jacob's diaper. He's just relaxing all quiet with daddy. Wait...what's that? Oh...Zachary is crying again. Put Jacob on the couch (in a safe position of course) and go get Zachary.
5:55 Change Zachary while Jacob cries (meh! what can you do?) Once the diaper is changed,it's time to put the bottles in hot water (4 minutes) and wake up mommy to feed the boys!
5:57 Wake up mommy! Put Zachary and Jacob on the couch with mommy, get some bibs and facecloths for the boys and get the bottles.
5:59 Off to the shower!!!...no...slight detour, Samuel woke up and is crying in the crib. (did you forget about Sam? He was still sleeping.) Get Sam from the crib, bring him in the living room and set him up in Mommy's feeding operation.
6:01 Hit the showers!!!!
6:07 Change into my work clothes
6:08 Put the dog outside, prepare some food and water for work.
6:10 Change Sam's diaper while he takes a break from eating (since he woke up late to the party he didn't get a diaper change before the food)
6:12 Bark at the door??!?!...oh, right, we put the dog out to pee. Take the dog back in.
6:13 Help mommy before I leave by burping Zachary. Hand him back to mommy.
6:14 Put on my left boot
6:15 Help burp Jacob
6:18 Put on my right boot.
6:25 Go to the kitchen to get a different nipple for Zachary because he is not enjoying the current one he is using.
6:30 Head out the door for work
For those who don't know I'm a delivery driver so I drive around all day. I do some local deliveries in the morning, then around 9:30 I leave town and do some out of town deliveries stopping in Dorchester, Springhill and Truro then back to Moncton and I get back around 3:30 for a trip of 400-450 km. A couple more in town deliveries and come 4pm back home!
4:10 walk in the door greated by my lovely wife...and 66.6% of the babies crying. Crying to which my wife has probably been trying to keep under control since about 3pm so it's time for me to tag in and help out mommy. Time to take off the work clothes and switch to my daddy uniform, which consists of gym shorts and a tshirt.
4:15 to 5:30 consists of holding and rocking babies in various positions, sitting, standing, walking, soother, no soother, on their back, on a play mat, sitting them upright on the couch, trading babies between mommy and daddy with intermittent and varying degrees of success achieved of soothing them. Sometimes for a minute or two. Sometimes for ten minutes. The thing is with three babies sometimes it's Zachary or Jacob and Samuel. Or Samuel....or Jacob...Or Zachary and Sam, but then Sam stops and Jacob starts and by then Zachary stops....and Sam goes on for a long time but other times like tonight, they're all quiet, calm and sleeping. And sometimes 2 of them are calm and quiet and one is fussy. Every day is different.
5:30 Prep the bottles and feed the babies.
6:15 Done feeding the babies time for diaper changes and a bath and some quality baby interaction time.
6:45 Put the babies to bed. They go down pretty easy and if someone fusses or cries, we give him 5 minutes and they usually soothe themselves. And now the babies sleep!
7:15 Prepare the babies formula bottles for the next 24 hours. This takes me about 25 minutes which consists of mixing up aproximately 500ml of water with 500ml of formula and repeating this process two more times for a total of about 3 Liters of formula. Pouring it in to 15 baby bottles and then putting it all in to the mini fridge. Rinse out the empty cartons and put some stuff in the dishwasher.
7:45 SUPPER TIME!
8:00 Babies still sleeping so it's free time. Time to relax or run an errand or two, or maybe a couple more chores.
10:15 Time to feed the babies! Someone usually wakes up with little warning and mad because he is hungry. The nice thing is even though they all sleep in the same room the one crying usually doesn't wake up the others. This feeding is usually a bit more chill and relax. The Babies are half asleep.
10:50 Put the babies to bed...and the parents to bed!!
2:00a.m. MC wakes me up to help with the dream feed. This is when we feed the babies a couple of ounces in their crib without waking them up. It's also a dream feed for me too cause I'm half asleep myself. ha.
2:15 Back to bed!
5:38 .....Alarm goes off...repeat.

Phew!! I'm tired just writing it!

The boys are growing up... it's soooooo great to see. Zachary has finally started giving us some smiles and actually looking at us!! Samuel loves his floor mat and he can stay there for an hour sometimes just kicking and looking around. Samuel loves to tell us his baby stories with big smiles on his face. Jacob is almost always in a good mood unless he's hungry then it's game over!

We had lots of visitors this week! My forever friend Lizette and her pregnant wife Dawn came to visit with their little girl. Véronique came back with Sébastien and we had a really good afternoon. Véronique was changing Zachary and asked me if he ever pooped through his diaper and I told her that it wasn't something that normally happened. She started undressing him and saw poop EVERYWHERE!! haha... I guess he went through his diaper after all... It was almost up to his neck!!! I told her to give up trying to clean him with wipes and I brought him to the bathroom sink to clean him up. Not an hour later when Gabe came home, Jacob did the same thing!! It was his bath night, so he went straight to his bath. My sister and my nieces came on Friday to give me a hand and my pregnant friends Josée and Christine came to see the boys on Friday as well. This weekend, we had Zachary's godparents Serge and Marie-Christine come to visit. On Sunday, Gabe's parents came to spend the afternoon with us and give us a hand with two feedings and take a nice walk. Their weekly Sunday visits/help is the only way I can write this blog!! We also had a visit from Gabe's friend Mike and his pregnant wife Monique. Man there were a lot of pregnant women around this week!!

On Thursday, my friend Véronique invited me to go meet her and a few other mommies at the Kay Arena's indoor track to walk as it was still a little cold outside. I fed the boys at 9:30 and they were being unusually fussy so I thought there was no way I would be meeting her at 10:30 to go for a walk. I was about to text her to tell her that it wasn't going to happen when I gave myself a little talking to. I told myself that I needed a life too and that babies cry. I put them in their car seat and within 5 minutes, they were quiet. I made it to the arena! There were many people there with lots of questions but it was super nice getting out and for once, I didn't mind answering the questions as they were, for the most part, pretty reasonable and I like talking about my boys!! I met some really nice people and it did me some good to get out. It was the first time I loaded up all the boys by myself and it really wasn't that bad!!! This makes me feel good as I know I can do it alone!! More outside visits!!! I'm hoping to bring the boys to my nieces' last ringuette game next Sunday, we'll see!! Now that cold/flu season is at it's tail end, I feel better about taking the boys out in public.

Thursday also marked 21 years since my father passed away... It's always a difficult day, but I found this one to be more troubling as I know how much my dad would have loved his boys. He would have spoiled them to death!! It's unbelievably sad to think of him never meeting them and vice versa but as my mother said, everything happens for a reason and were he still alive, my life may have been different and my boys may not even be here. Everything happens for a reason and everything is as it is meant to be...

I started another little side project (when do I have time really?!? haha... evenings when I can't sleep...). I'm creating my own onesie and t-shirt and etc. designs. I started it to create for the boys but then I thought why wouldn't I put it out there to the world? It's mostly for parents of multiples but I'm sure other singleton parents could find use out of it. I could even create other things if someone were to ask me. You can find my store and my meagre design beginnings here: www.zazzle.com/jasaza (named using the first two letters of each of the boys' names).

Here are pics of the week... please forgive the blurriness as my phone is not the best at taking pics!

Jacob looking drunk

Smile and a wave from Jacob

Sébastien hanging out in the corner :)

Samuel trying to show us that he can hold his bottle all by himself!!

Smiles from Sam

Little blurry but still cute!

Loving their floor mat!

Zachary loving his cuddle time with Matante Cindy

The smile we've been waiting for from our Zachary!

And another one!

After our Sunday walk

Daddy's first time using a Snuggli!

Family pic! We decided to buy this Snap N Go stroller to make it easier to go to public places. It might prevent too many stares as well!!! We both hold a baby and push another. It's less showy than our big triple stroller!

Zachary passed out after his walk.

Sam looking for his thumb

Jacob had a growth spurt this week and he's looking more and more like a little man! Look at those fatty cheeks!!!

I turned my pregnancy blog into a book! I hope to continue doing this... it's pretty cool!! We got one for both grandmothers and one for ourselves so the babies can read it. It's also a fail safe in case this blog disappears!