Tripletville Adventures : Why we said yes to daycare...

So this should be short and sweet as it's late and I'm tired... I guess I've said this before though and my post always ends up being super long but I'm going to try really hard because I'm sure you've been sitting by your phone/tablet/laptop anxiously waiting for this post to go up..HA!

The reason I'm so late is this:

Cute isn't she? Josée, one of my BFFs just gave birth to her like 24.5 hours before this picture was taken. Her name is Dia and she is one of my new favorite people. We cuddled for a whole hour while she was waiting for her next feed. It has been a while since I've held a small baby like that on me. It's funny but she was over 7 lbs when she was born so she was twice the size of any one of my babies and I found her soooo light! I guess I forget how tiny my babies were... I can't imagine them being HALF the weight of that tiny little beautiful girl I had in my arms... CRAZY!!

So about a month ago Gabe and I started talking about the possibility of childcare for our boys. We both agreed that for his mental health, the sake of our marriage and for the boys' social life, it was probably best that we try to get them into a daycare. Now, we knew that daycare would probably eat up all of Gabe's income but again, for his mental health, we decided that we needed to try to figure it out. We sat down and looked at our budget and even though it will be tight, we think we will be able to manage. I started calling around the bilingual daycares in the area and sure enough, none of them could accommodate THREE babies and most didn't even take children under two. Since the boys are only going to be 14 months when I go back to school, all those daycares were out of the question. A friend of mine had mentioned the Moncton Boys and Girls Club, we weren't too sure because it was a completely Anglophone program and that scared me as the boys would be just learning their language at the time they would begin. Then at the Moncton Multiple Sale, we got a flyer from that exact daycare (Little Treasures) on our windshield. I decided to call the director since they took children starting at the age of 15 months and see if they at least had bilingual staff. We talked for a while and I decided to go for a visit. During our conversation, I told her of my reservations about my children being in an all English program. Now, you have to understand that I WANT my children to be bilingual, I just want their mother tongue to be French and living in Moncton, they are SURROUNDED by everything English so it's always hard to learn French once all you live is English... Anyways, the director then told me that her child went to the daycare (already an indication that the daycare must be running well if the director's son is there!) and she said that at home, they speak ONLY French and he's thriving. Now I know that kids are sponges and I shouldn't worry to much because we will be only French at home too so hopefully they will be able to absorb both languages and not get too confused! Anyways, after much discussion, we decided to enroll them (we can always change our minds) and if we think it's not working out, wait until they're two and find a bilingual daycare who will take them (or try to anyway). I know I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill but my kids being French (and then English) is primordial to Gabe and I so I think I have every right to have some reservations. I think what scares me the most is that I've seen some parents who have a French parent and an English parent and for some reason, they don't know French! That makes me so sad... Although I have to say that my friends Sarah and Chris are raising their child to be bilingual and I think they're doing a really good job so I think we can do it. Our current daycare is going to cost us about 2100$ (which, believe it or not, isn't bad...haha). I had called a daycare in Dieppe and the owner told me that (even with a discount), it would end up costing us about 2500$/month to have our three boys go there. He did send me a link to try to see if we could get subsidized (help from the government to help pay for daycare). I will call, but I can almost guarantee that we won't qualify. Here's how I'm pretty sure... WE ARE A MIDDLE CLASS FAMILY!! It's annoying because the "high" class families can afford daycare so they don't need help, the "low income" families get subsidized (thankfully) but the middle class get nothing and in the end pretty much end up becoming a low income family. The only reason we are able to afford daycare is because we rent out our basement. If we didn't have that income, I don't even know how we would manage... My student loan alone is over 500$/month! Anyways, I don't want to bore you all with my pitiful current hate of our government. Can you believe that ALL Quebec families only have to pay 7$/day per child for daycare?!? Anyways, rant over...

My boys are such good boys... 7 months yesterday already!! It's so crazy! They're loving everything I'm giving to them as far as solids go. Zachary is not my best eater but he's getting better. Jacob has followed Zachary in the art of mastering the sucking of the straw while Samuel lags behind in third with no victory in sight... he just seems to want to chew on it... While Zachary is a good straw sucker, he's falling behind in the rolling around department. Jacob is rolling all over the place (I actually have to baby proof their play space this week as he gets into everything), Samuel is rolling from back to tummy but still hasn't figured out how to get back to his back (remember it was the opposite with Jacob? So weird). So now he sleeps on his tummy and can't turn back and Zachary only rolls from his tummy to his back (only when I physically put him on his tummy myself...). Jacob has finally started sleeping through the night again (YEAH!!! DID I JUST JINX IT?!?) and has passed the baton to Samuel who now wakes up at 5 am blah blah blahing... This morning I decided to let him talk to see if he would fall back asleep and the little bugger talked for 40 MINUTES!!! I got up with him and finally got him to sleep on me (he won, he was happy) but I didn't sleep! Yet another reason for why I needed this post to be short... so I'm going to end it here and the picture should tell you a bit more...

Doesn't it look like Jacob is taking a selfie of him and Zach?

So I got this teething necklace in the mail from Etsy and it's great as the boys were always clutching at my chain. Now they are not only able to hold on to my necklace but they can also use it as a teething toy. Jacob loves it.

Baby wrestling!!

Notice how Gabe is just sitting there not doing anything and I'm obviously taking the picture so I'm not doing anything... Are we re-enforcing this behaviour or what? haha

I went out on Thursday night at "Le Bayou" in Shediac to see some friends (one of them was down on a holiday from out west) and to listen to Steve sing :) Good times

This was taken at my friend Louise's bachelorette on Saturday (this is not Louise, this is another MC (Marie-Christine who is Zachary's godmother)...why didn't I take a pic with the Bride to be?!?)
See, moms of triplets go out too!! Granted I only stayed until about 9 o'clock at both events but I still got out!!

This is where the boys end up most often in the mornings... we like to hang out before we go for our bottle in the living room. I had to stop getting them too early though because wake up time was getting earlier and earlier...