What I've learned this year...

What a year y'all!  I can't even believe that a year ago, I had one week old triplets, I was crying pretty much every day because they were so little and there was nothing I could do to help them except for hold them skin to skin against me as much as I could and hoped they kept growing.  Boy did they ever keep growing!  Today, I have three rambunctious little men.  I have a Jacob who is walking more and more each day (5-7 steps at a time now), and Samuel and Zachary are getting around the room by holding on to every piece of furniture they can find.  They were warriors in the NICU and they continue to amaze me every day.  The only evidence that they were ever born premature is Samuel's stupid lungs which I'll complain about more later...

I wanted to share 20 of the many things I've learned this year...  

1. Being a mom is intense.  
2. It's hard, it's really freakin' hard.  
3. Being a mom is amazing.  It's rewarding and the love you feel is sometimes overwhelming.  Having your child reach for you is one of the best feelings I've ever felt. 
4. Seeing them smile makes my heart so happy and seeing them cry often breaks my heart.
5. I had to be tough at times and let them cry when I knew that it would benefit them in the end.  It has.
6. Sleep training is the bomb diggity.  99% of the time, I put my boys down at night and I don't hear a peep. 
7. I'm not super mom, raising my babies took a team.  Sure, I'm alone at times but if it wasn't for husband, my family and friends who often gave me a break, I wouldn't have made it. 
8. My husband, who is a great man, is an even GREATER dad.  My children are lucky.  I'm luckier to have his constant support with the boys.
9. The hand outs, gifts, food and support I've gotten from my friends and even complete strangers were something I'll never take for granted.  We were so blessed!   Thank you.
10. My Facebook triplet mommies were a godsend. 
11. I'm ok with watching my children fall, it has helped them learn to get up. 
12. I've been a better mom than a wife. Maybe this year I can work on that.
13. Triplets are a freak show everywhere I go.  No eye contact is the way to go. 
14. Some people are unbelievably rude, invasive and ignorant.
15. Some people are very very kind.
16. Focusing on me has been very difficult.
17. It's ok if all three don't develop at the same rate, they'll get there...
18. Google is the enemy. (when searching for things that might be wrong with my kids)
19. Most parenting books are written by people who aren't even parents or were parents 50 years ago and so the words in them aren't gold.  You figure out what works for you and go with it.  
20. I've made mistakes, and I'll make many others but I did my best and I think my boys are pretty damn good kids so far.  

To those of you who have been following me from the beginning, I want to thank you for following me through this crazy journey.  I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep writing it but I'm not ready to quit yet.  

This week was my first official week "alone" as my mother left for Florida on Tuesday early morning.  I wasn't alone on Monday but I spent most of my day in the hospital with Sam.  I have to say that entertaining a one year old in a isolated hospital room for 30 hours is much harder than entertaining three at home for a week!  We noticed early Sunday morning that he couldn't breathe very well, very much the same as what had happened this summer.  We knew what signs to look for and he was showing signs of very laboured breathing so we decided it would be best to go get his checked out.  We had given him some puffers the night before as his breathing had started to worry us a bit but the puffers didn't seem to help.  They admitted him and started giving him misted medication every hour for about 5 hours and then every two hours.  They let him go every four hours overnight to try to give us time to sleep. We didn't get much as Sam and I shared a hospital bed.  I tried to put him in the hospital crib and I'm all for letting the boys cry it out but not there, not when he's sick and sounding so terrified so he slept with me.   Every time he woke up though, he'd see me, smile and want to play.  It's a good thing he's cute!  He was switched to puffers the next morning as the mist had seemed to have helped.  Good thing too because poor little buddy cried the whole 10 + minutes every time we gave him the mist and fell asleep crying only to be woken up 30 minutes later to start the whole thing over again.  He hates the puffers too but at least that only lasts 10 seconds per puff!  So we're home, he's better, still on puffers every three hours until we see his pediatrician on Wednesday.  He'll probably be on them morning and night for the duration of the cold season.  I was told that he most likely has asthma and even though he's a big boy now, he still has preemie lungs and they're not as tough as full term baby lungs.  Thankfully, the other two haven't been affected yet (Zachary had a touch of it this summer but it didn't get to his lungs this time) but you never know...  I saw this picture this morning and I thought it might show you all how things work... 

Anywho, all in all, it was a good week.  The boys had their one year shots on Tuesday so Pépère came with me.  They were pretty clingy and whiny on Wednesday but aside from that, they were pretty good.  The storm kind of sucked because it made it so that I was pretty much house ridden for the rest of the week.  We made it work though.  They have so many new toys from their party so they had fun discovering them all.  

I had a night out with my book club ladies (whom I love to the moon and back!!) this week and yet another night out with my multiple moms group (which include two of my best friends which is super cool...xx), it was nice to get out! 

Good times at Mexi's!  And yes, that's my empty wine glass.... yum! 

We had such an amazing time at their birthday party last weekend that I wanted to share just a few more pics:

My not so well made giant cupcakes... but they did the job! 

The mini cupcakes we had to match the giant ones, these were most easily eatable! 

My Matante Rita is in LOVE with Samuel.  The moment she walked in she took him and didn't let go for almost an hour. 

My Matante Marie with Zachary

My beautiful niece Gabrielle

My amazing grand-mother who surprised me by making a 4 hour trip to attend the boys' birthday!

What's on my fingers??

The boys getting a bath in the bathroom sinks.  The after smash cake is the one part I forgot about... I only had two pyjamas in their diaper bag (Jacob likes to empty it so I must have forgot to put one back) but thankfully my friend Sarah had clothes in her bag although they were size 18 months haha... I forgot about towels, etc... but we figured it out! 

They loved it! 

Loving the balloons

My other beautiful niece Alexie

 

With Mononcle Joel

Just sitting in a bowl

 And other pictures of the week:

Just "helping" me with laundry again

After a nice walk in the snow

Just brushing our teeth

Tried on our snow suits this week! Didn't get outside though

The boys were picking on Zachary while he could barely move in his snow suit. 

Playing with Papa

They LOVE playing with their chair

This is how my bedroom ceiling looks right now... My floor is also covered with some type of cardboard which sucks to walk on.  All my stuff is all over my house in boxes so I don't even know where most of it is... On the bright side our leaky roof is covered by the insurance so they fixed our roof already, as you can see, they're working on fixing the leak in our bedroom and will paint my walls whatever colour I want! 

Have a good week everyone!  

This is a mug my friend Lynn (who is also Gab's awesome boss) saw, thought of me and bought it for me.  Sweet right?  Merci Lynn!!