Deep thoughts and Babies at Play

Sorry for two entries in one day and so many days of no entries but I work on these over a few days and during many stolen moments so sometimes I end up posting them all on the same day.

A weird, or at least new-to-me weird, thing is happening with me right now...I am finally starting to come out of the newborn fog and feel a bit better physically and so I am feeling like I "should" go back to work or do more around the house so that I am being a "productive citizen of the world". Like if I just do laundry and dishes, then I feel like I should have made dinner and swept and vacuumed too. I know that this seems crazy because I have triplets that are keeping me quite "productive" but I have worked full time for years, since I was a teenager really, and so even though I am doing the hardest and most important work of my life taking care of my babies, I am feeling like I am not doing "real" work or not contributing or something. I am so tired at the end of each day and so relieved when Mike walks in the door and I am a team again, but I get these waves of panic telling me that I am not doing enough. Maybe its because I am not making an income for the first time in a long time or maybe its because I don't "go to work" I just wake up and go...for 18-20 hours per day...but this feeling of non-productivity is really a bit of a mind screw and it is putting me in a bit of a funk. I definitely know why stay at home moms get a work complex because I am struggling to figure out and become comfortable with this new identity as a stay at home mom. Even with the babies in tow, people ask me what I do and I say "I'm a nurse...but not right now...cuz well triplets...but I'll go back in a while" like what I'm doing now doesn't count as "what I do". I am sure that other moms have gone through this but it is new for me and it is going to take some time to sort through enough so that I am comfortable. I have planned to and really want to stay home for the first year so I can watch my boys grow and see all of their "firsts" because these are probably my only babies, but I am finding that it will be hard for more reasons than I thought...hmm...deep thoughts...

Anyway, now back to the babies...lately the babies are getting a bit more challenging for me to handle alone because they are starting to need quite a bit more attention during the day. They get bored very easily and they really want someone to play with them or hold them. I can lay them down on their play mats and make their toys sing and light up for them, but that is just not as good to them as me being on the floor with them moving their arms and legs and talking to them. For the past few days they have been letting me know that they will not be ignored and that play time means play time with mommy. This complicates my housework schedule a bit. Also, they are not sleeping as much between feedings and so one or more of them is awake and needing something pretty much all of the time now...I am feeling a bit like a chicken with my head cut off trying to run around and do housework while popping pacifiers back into the mouth of the sleeping babies and trying to entertain the wakeful babies. It is exciting to see them developing and wanting attention and interaction but at the same time frustrating because I feel like I am not able to interact with each baby in the way that they might want or need. I may have to change our schedule to an awake time/nap time based schedule soon...but I don't really know how to do that yet, laugh, and I just got really good at the three hour schedule. Even though they are getting more high maintenance (and I thought that wasn't possible, heh, shows what I knew), the babies are really fun to watch when they play. They are really starting to "talk" and make goo noises and they are turning into quite the little flirts with their smiles and facial expressions. Here is a play video...it doesn't do their extreme cuteness justice but it gives the idea...plus I didn't want the majority of the videos of them to be of them crying all the time, they really are quite adorable!

Babies at Play

a picture of "Babies at Play"
(for those of you who cannot see the videos)

Memorial Day Weekend Fun!

We had a very busy Memorial Day weekend. We celebrated the Birthday of Mike's sister Meggyn, now Aunt Meggyn, on Saturday. It was so nice to see so many of our Cousins, Aunts, Uncles and friends on the Huber side of the family. It has been a very exciting and reproductive year for the Huber family and two of our Cousins had babies in March, so we had 5 new additions in 2 months! Definitely something to brag about. All of the new babies were at the party, so we met Charlotte and Isabella-our new cousins- and they are BEAUTIFUL girls and growing so fast. It is so exciting that we all had babies so close together and I am looking forward to seeing all of our babies grow up together. Our holiday gatherings will be very exciting for a few years with all of the toddlers running around!

On Sunday we went to see the Richardson family and celebrate Aunt Hannah's graduation from High School. We are so proud of her and happy for her. I can still remember what a relief it was to finally be done with high school and I can definitely see that relief and the anticipation of college in Hannah. She is going to be going to University of Michigan this fall so she will not be too far away from us, which I am selfishly very happy about! Uncle Kurt was in town from Seattle for a couple of days for the celebration and it was wonderful to see him even if it was brief. Aunt (or soon to be) Kelly couldn't come this time but she was here in family because her Mom and Dad, Judy and Steve, came to the party and celebrated with us and met the boys-so it was nice to see her through them :) And happily Kurt and Kelly's wedding is coming up very soon, so we will see them all in the near future (yay, woo hoo). The party was a success (good job Grandma Carol and Grandpa Kurt). It was a beautiful day with good food and good company and many of the Roberts/Richardson family members and friends were there and were able to meet the babies for the first time. The Roberts/Richardson clans have a few new additions too and the boys (and Mike and I) met their new cousin Lila who was born in April and the boys met their Aunt Georgia and Uncle Kevin who brought us news of our newest cousin Cecelia who was born just this past Thursday (Congratulations Emmalia and Devin)! So many babies, so little time...

It was really great to finally be able to take the boys to a gathering now that RSV/flu season is over and they are so much bigger and healthier. I am so happy that the boys are here and doing well and for the past months we have been stuck at home and I have wanted them to meet their extended family so badly. I am so glad that they have and I was very proud to show them off! The boys behaved incredibly well at both parties and tolerated being passed around and held and fed by so many people much better than I expected. They handled it with much less stress than their mother, laugh. I on the other hand had chest pain and heart palpitations the entire weekend...I am an anxious person really...but everything was fine, great really, and the babies are definitely no worse for the adventures. Thank god they haven't created bubbles, I think there is a chance my babies would be in them, laugh. They'll be 10 years old saying "Gees mom, I can walk by myself now, really...mom, my friends are watching, gosh"...hopefully I will learn to let go a bit more a time goes by, right now it is still a conscious effort to make myself sit down and let other people feed and hold the babies without running around and fixing blankets, making adjustments, dabbing mouths and giving tips. I am just so used to doing everything by myself that sometimes having help doesn't feel all that helpful because I am so distracted by my worries that the babies will get their needs met. If I wasn't still breast feeding, I may have been drinking happily this weekend to take the edge off...the water just didn't have the same effect...

It always takes a couple of days to get the babies back on schedule after they get off schedule. We had a couple of very cranky days Monday and Tuesday, but things were getting back to normal last night and the boys are pretty much back on schedule today. Oh well...baby crying, got to go...

Babies in their Triple Decker stroller with Daddy,
Aunt Donna with Isabella, and Cousin Sara with Charlotte

Great-Grandpa Huber with all of his great-grand children

Bedtime for Bonzo(s)

So I decided to post a video of a somewhat typical bedtime...this was a few nights ago but still worth sharing for all those people who think "how does she do it". All I can say is "umm sometimes I don't..at least not very gracefully", lol...but it gets done. Thankfully with the new schedule things are getting better and some nights they go right to sleep but some nights are like this...



...and I guess that nights like this are just one of the many perks of having triplets. If we didn't laugh (hysterically) we would cry...right? On a side note, they did eventually settle down and go to sleep but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to breaking a sweat.
These crying sessions when all three get going at once are my definite not favorite part of being a mom of multiples. Sometimes I am a deer in the headlights when they really get going and I just stand there and look around myself and think...oh my god how are there three...who do I grab first...do they need to eat..do they need to be changed...are they okay...etc...I am just dumbfounded by the sheer noise volume and the overwhelming job of caring for three needy babies when I am only one person with two arms (now I am not saying that I want one or three arms so all the wish fairies out there can just stand down). I usually snap out of it fairly quickly and the babies are no worse for the wear as I run around pooping pacifiers in mouths, warming up bottles and cradling the babies who won't take pacifiers for an answer to all their baby woes.
There are times that I look down at myself and I am covered in baby puke, my hair is still not brushed, I haven't showered since I'm not sure when, I haven't pumped in 5 or 6 hours, I haven't eaten or had anything to drink yet today and I really have to pee and the dishes and laundry still need to be done but I still take the time to crawl on the floor and give my babies their playtime and hold them in my arms and feed them their bottles and sing them to sleep. It is at these times that I feel the most successful as a mom of multiples and I am the most proud. I may not be the best housewife and right now I might not take the best care of myself, but I am a good mommy to these three boys and we are figuring this whole parenting thing out together.

We had our next evaluation from the Early On people today. All of the boys have a few issues and some developmental delays so we will be starting physical therapy in the next few weeks to help them catch up and to avoid needing more aggressive treatment later. Also, I think we might change pediatricians to a new one who can address more of the issues that come along with prematurity. To me the boys seem like they are healthy and making great strides, but to the people at Early On there were some definite things we have to work on that I would have never noticed. There are so many issues that can be solved with early intervention that I think we really need a pediatrician who is a bit more aggressive instead of the one we have who is pretty "watch and wait". So the search is on.

We took the boys' 3 month pictures the other day. They are so cute and they were very cooperative, we even got some smiles! I am so proud :)

The Trio

Michael

Konrad

Zachary

Happiest baby on the block...kind of...

So in addition to our Baby wise exploits, we h ave also read and watched "The Happiest Baby on the Block" which advocated swaddling and various baby calming techniques. I have to say that this does actually help quite a bit and that it does help to calm the babies faster when they are crying. On the other hand, when you have three babies crying and one mommy running around "calming", there is perhaps a slight delay in the whole happiest baby thing...maybe we have the almost happiest babies on the block..when its their turn...

The schedule has actually been helping and the boys are much more pleasant in the evening during their usual "witching hour" although we sometimes have bad nights still. They are managing to sleep two 4 hour blocks at night now and they usually go right back to sleep after they eat, so that is a bit better. If we get them off schedule, which we have been doing when we go visiting on the weekends, then we have a disaster on our hands and we have very cranky babies. Cranky babies aside, we got a much needed break when our friends Angie and Aaron came to spend the night as a Mother's Day present and gave Mike and I a good night sleep. It was wonderful!

Other exciting Huber events, the boys had their final premature eye exam and they "passed" in that their eyes are all almost caught up to where they would have been if they were born on time. This means that we should start seeing some more smiles and eye contact because they can actually see us now. Also, we had the people form the Early On program come and check out the boys to see if they are eligible for some physical therapy and some speech or occupational therapy to help them catch up with other babies their age and also to teach us some things we can do at home with them to keep them developing on track. We will have some more evaluation appointments coming up soon and so we will have a better idea of what the plan is then.

Little Mike is kind of irritated with us these days because we have had to start propping him on his left side so that he turns his head to the left. Right now his head is very flat on the back right side and at our last appointment the doctor called him a "helmet candidate" (that nickname hopefully won't stick) and warned us that if we can't even out his head with propping he will need to wear a helmet for a few months to round out his head. The other two babies are being turned each nap and night time so that their heads round out too, but Mike's is the most pronounced. He was not cooperating with the turning and he was squirming out of everything that I tried, so I had to take drastic propping measures. Needless to say he is pissed every time I lay him down and he can't turn his head to the right to get comfortable. Of course, I would be mad too if you made me sleep on a point instead of the nice flat spot I was used to but I can't even imagine how mad he will be if he has to wear a hot, sweaty helmet in the summer time so this is better I think.

Last but not least, our babies are on camera! Grandpa Tom rigged a camera system so that we can see the boys on our television to check in on them if they make a weird sound so that we don't keep waking them up with our squeaky wood floors when we peak in on them. It is pretty cool to be able to spy on them... a little paranoid and at times border line over doing it but still cool, laugh.

Swaddled babies

Angie and Aaron to the rescue!
Baby TVPoor propped Mikey

always good to sing to your babies...

and here's an example of what I sing, laugh...

triplets (sung to the tune of frara jaca)

by leah huber

so much barfing, so much barfing

then there's poo

then there's poo

don't know how I do it, don't know how I do it

how bout you, how bout you

stinky diapers, stinky diapers

bottles too

bottles too

all of them are crying, all of them are crying

i am too, i am too

now we're walking, now we're walking

please don't cry, please don't cry

all the people staring; pointing, asking questions

not much fun, yes lets run

yes they're triplets, please don't touch them

yes they're mine, yes all mine

yes I've got my hands full, yes twins run in my family

I'm glad they're mine too, I'm glad they're mine too

...and then there is the ever popular "we work hard for the burpies"...

we work hard for the burpies (sung to the Donna Summers tune of  "I work hard for my money")

by leah huber

we work hard for the burpies (pat pat,  pat pat)

so hard for our burpies (thump thump thump thump)

we work hard for the burpies, but they sometimes will not burp

we work hard for my burpies (pat pat,  pat pat)

so hard for our burpies (thump thump thump thump)

we work hard for the burpies, but these babies just won't burp

its after midnight, the babies are fed

but the burpies, they wont come

and we wish we were in bed under the covers asle-ee-ep

if they don't burp, then they'll prob'ly puke 

and we'll have to clean it up

and though we love them, we just don't want to change them ag-aa-in

we work hard for the burpies (pat pat,  pat pat)

so hard for our burpies (thump thump, thump thump)

we work hard for the burpies, but these babies just won't burp

Baby Stupid...

I must admit that with all of the crying and squirming and refluxing, I got a little lazy during the day with the babies' schedules. If they wanted to sleep I let them sleep, if they wanted to eat, I fed them, if they wanted to be held I strapped them on and did the dishes while carrying them in a sling. I was just SO tired of hearing screaming babies that I just let them do whatever they wanted and as a result I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off...really like three chickens with three heads cut off. Now some people will tell you that this was not lazy, it was natural and that they were cue based feeding and sleeping and getting all of their needs met on a natural schedule. I actually agree with this to an extent, but it got so bad and unscheduled that even with two people home (me and a helper or Mike) we were ALWAYS holding or feeding someone. And I mean always. Many hours of the day we had crying babies and I started to feel like I could not meet anyones needs let alone everyones needs. And then there was my needs (I have needs?) which were SO not being met that I was crying every evening before bed because I knew that I was going to have to wake up in 4-5 hours and do it all over again by myself for 19-20 hours the next day.

So, I desperately turned to the world of self help/parenting books and now we are trying to "sleep train" the boys using the Baby Wise system. Needless to say there are times during this process where I feel Baby Stupid. Basically, every baby gets woken up at the same time every day, which- in our case- is 6:30am. They get changed, fed and then I force them to stay awake for 30-45 mins and"play" (and let me tell you - it is a bit of a challenge for one person to keep three babies awake and stimulated when they want to sleep). Then after playtime I swaddle the heck out of them and put them in their bed awake so that the can learn to sleep...or something. Either way they have their pacifiers and they are swaddled and they sleep. When someone wakes up and I can't get them to quiet down with a pacifier, I wake everyone up again and we do the whole thing over.

How does one person feed three babies all at the same time you might wonder? Well I'm afraid that we have strayed far from au naturale and very far from breastfeeding...since I don't really want to prop bottle because I am afraid of choking babies, I have started using Podee feeders - which are basically a nipple at the end of flexible tubing attached to the bottle. I feed one baby in my arms and start out the other two with the Podees and then I finish those two off when I am done with the first baby. Then I rotate which baby gets arm fed first for the next feeding.

Each wake, change, feed, play, sleep cycle is 2.5-3 hours. In the evening, at 7:30 or 8pm, we have the final cycle and then we put the babies down for the night. At 10:30 or 11pm, we "dream feed" the babies by feeding them in the dark, without talking and without really waking them up if possible. Then once they are burped, they go right back down to sleep until they wake up by themselves. We usually feed them all again between 1:30 and 2:30am because so far someone always wakes up at around that time. In theory (I said in theory mind you) they should start sleeping 6-8 hours in a row once their bodies get used to this schedule.

I am still not entirely sold on the whole schedule thing, and if I had one baby I am pretty sure that I would have been an au naturale mommy with breastfeeding and babywearing and co-sleeping galore...but I had three babies....So, like the many other things that I had hoped and imagined having a baby would be like that I have had to just deal with and get over - such as working up until 40 weeks, a drug free pregnancy and labor, a natural birth, seeing my baby right as it is born and immediately after, having my husband cut the cord, holding my baby and putting it to breast, having my baby in the hospital room with me, leaving the hospital and going home with my baby, and so much more- I will just have to get over myself and follow a schedule and feed my babies all ot once however I can manage it. And, so far, I have to admit that the boys are actually crying less in the evening and at times I even get a small break to run around doing dishes or laundry. We have yet to see the imaginary, yearned for 6 hours of sleep, but here's hoping...

Mike having his turn with the Podee

Zachary having his turn with the Podee

Enforcing playtime

woot and oops

Well we went to the doctor with all the boys yesterday, an adventure as always, and the pediatrician agreed that all of the boys are still exhibiting signs of severe reflux. So we actually got some Zantac (woot) prescribed for all of the boys. Fingers crossed that it will help. They are all growing so fast! Zachary gained the most weight (no surprise there, he is our super eater) and he weighs 10lb 14oz up from 8lb 13oz; Michael gained less but still weighs 10lb 6oz up from 8lb 15oz last visit; Konrad gained quite a bit but he is still our little one, he weighs 9lb 3oz up from 7lb 8oz. Zachary's hernia is still there but we are going to watch and wait to see if it closes on his own. We have to give him tylenol for it every once in a while but the doctors think that it should close on its own sometime in the next year (we hope soon). Konrad smiled at Mike this morning making him a very happy daddy and Grandma Carol swears that all three cooed and smiled at her earlier this week. It is so exciting to see them starting to get a bit more interactive with us.

We switched to glass bottles this week which is a huge investment and a change for the babies as far as nipples and bottle shape. Our bottles and most other plastic bottles and cups got voluntarily (ans soon madatorily) recalled and pulled from the store shelves in Canada because they have a chemical called bpa in them which is an estrogen that can cause developmental and chemical issues in babies and children. Needless to say I was pissed and worried and so I went and bought all new glass bottles with non-bpa plastic lids. Why do companies do stuff like that? How can they get away with using a chemical that has known side effects or even suspected side effects in their products, especially when their product is a BABY BOTTLE for pete's sake? It just really grinds me. To top it all off, we just found out that the first ingredient in the baby formula we were using to supplement my breast milk is corn syrup, yup corn syrup. I read the ingredients on the regular enfamil formula and it was exactly what you'd expect-milk, but when we switched to the colic formula, gentlease, I didn't even think to look at the label. Again, how can they get away with making corn syrup the FIRST and most prevalent ingredient in a baby formula, those f#@*ers. Needless to say I had to switch formulas now too and I am trying my damnedest to increase my milk supply (my poor boobs) so that we don't have to supplement at all anymore.
SO thats enough of our manufacturer woes, and I figure that I will look on the bright side...even if my beautiful premature fragile children have been getting nasty chemicals and corn syrup from their mother for 4 weeks, at least they still appear to be growing and developing just fine...oops...