birthday fun and other such things

We had the boys first birthday party which was really a "due date" party on April 5th. We had a great turn out and they received a ridiculous amount of gifts. They have been greatly enjoying them over the past couple of weeks. They especially love their bouncy balls, a race car that drives itself, a fake remote control and a mirror book. They are happily fighting over the right to play with them as we speak. Their other current obsession is a hand me down dragon from Ava and Spencer that has holes in his side and plays music if you put the ball in the holes. Zach is extremely good at putting the balls in the hole so that the dragon plays music. They have a giraffe that eats them too, but none of the boys can get it in his mouth, they just put the balls on the ramp and watch them swirl down to the base. They have become rather possessive of their favorite toys lately. Konrad loves the light up ducks and a few certain balls, Mikey loves remotes and the drum, Zachary is very possessive of the small balls and the dragon. They have started fighting over toys something fierce and there is almost always some sort of rucus going on in the living room over some insult or another. They are all equally the toy theif lately, Zachary and Konrad easily learned from Mikey's thieving ways and none of them blink twice at the idea of swooping in and stealing his brother's toy. We have a lot of the "no" word in this household right now. They crawl so very fast and all three will stand independantly but not quite walk. They can all clap and Zach and Mike will sing and dance to music. Konrad will wag his finger at us and say "no no no" and Mikey will say it as well although not so articulately. Konrad is really starting to say a lot of words. He says Mommy, Daddy, ball, banana, no, bottle, yummy and a few others. The also nods his head yes or no in accurate response to questions and he chatters in his baby talk in response to conversations, its really very funny. Zachary has come out of his shell in an incredible way lately. He is making great eye contact, talking baby talk, and really interacting with his brothers and adults much better...maybe he was just in a funk for a while. Zachary is also the only one of my sons who is a climber. He can pull himself up onto furniture and before I know it he is dangerously standing 3 feet above the ground...oops. He is so incredibly strong in his upper body strength in a way that his brothers cannot even remotely match...luckily he is a gentle little man. All of the boys are teething. Mikey is getting one or two, Konrad is getting four and Zachary just finished getting four more teeth in two weeks. Despite all this, they are relatively pleasant and over all healthy. We are still on the bottles because they absolutely do not get how to use a sippy cup...I keep trying them every two weeks or so but no luck...hopefully they will figure it out eventually or we could just go right to regular cups when they are 3, lol.

In the "pen" at the birthday party with the Grandmas, Aunt Georgia and cousin Cecilia

Waiting patiently to be picked up for lunch!

Smiling, smart Babies

As I am scrambling to get in a quick blog entry while the boys are occupied in the living room for a second, I can hear Konrad in the living room saying "moo, moo" to the animals video that I have playing for them. So far every animal that even remotely looks like a cow says moo in Konrad's world. And he is always so proud of himself. We say "Konrad what does the cow say", and he says "Moo" and then claps for himself. Although anytime you ask him what anything says, he says moo so we are working on that, lol. All of the boys clap for themselves and each other whenever one of them does something that we would normally clap and say "yay" to, so we have a lot of clapping going around over here. Their baby language is advancing so fast, they sit in their high chairs or their cribs or in the living room and they make noises back and forth and nod their heads and laugh and then they say something else and it happens all over again...they remind me of birds...or something...because if one is apart from the others and he calls out, the others will shout back the same noises in response...and then they all get excited and smiley like "we found him!", it's really very intriguing to watch as they progress. So far Konrad is the only one who even tries to translate for adults. He will pause in talking to his brothers, look right at us and say whole sentences of baby garble and nod his head and smile like he knows we understood just what he said and then he looks back at his brothers and goes back to playing. Its amazing, I just wish I knew what the heck he was saying, lol.

Zachary finally pulled himself up to a stand a few days ago, Konrad and Mike are standing and cruising along the fence or along their crib walls, but not quite ready to let go. Zach actually has the best balance of the three so he may be the first to walk, wouldn't that be impressive. Mikey is so hesitant, he will let go of the gate or the couch but then he stands for a second and slowly lets himself sit down without trying to walk, I think he knows that he might fall. Konrad gets so excited when he realizes that he is standing on his own that he starts bouncing and dancing and he usually face plants before he can take a step. Zachary is so happy to be standing, but he has absolutely no concept of consequences. He will just let go and start running head long and then of course he falls right over on his face...hopefully he figures out the part where he needs some balance to walk or else I am going to get a CPS file against me for all of his bumps and bruises, lol.

We had a couple of weeks of passing around croup, then the GI flu and then teething, but for a brief moment, we are in the clear and they are actually smiling, happy babies. For a while there I thought I just had whiney, annoying children, oops, turns out when they are healthy they are actually quite pleasant. Konrad is sleeping in his crib and they are so funny to watch at night and during naps. They just talk and play and laugh in there until they fall asleep. Lately we have had to give Zachary 3-4 pacifiers in his crib at night because he has been pushing his pacifiers through the bars so that Mikey can grab them and then pass them back...the problem with this game is that Mikey might pass them back a few times, but in the end he gathers all of the pacifiers in his side of the crib and then plays with them in front of a crying Zachary...not nice. Zachary steals Mikey's blanket in response and then they are both crying. Smart babies, sad mommy who has to go in there and redistribute all of the items and put the babies back to bed. So we moved Zach to the crib across the room and put Konrad in Zach's old crib. Konrad is too smart to pass his stuff through the bars to Mikey and so far Mikey thinks this is very funny and he spents hours reaching through the bars to try to get Konrad's pacifier and/or his blanket away from him...when he succeeds, Konrad is furious and Mikey laughs and laughs...luckily he does not succeed to often. Zachary is still passing his pacifiers through the crib bars, the problem being that there is no one to take them so they all end up on the floor and he still ends up crying...I haven't come up with a plan to solve this one yet...We really are kind of a zoo right now.

Lastly, I have to eplain the bottom picture. It used to be that when it was time to eat I would go up to the wall and motion the boys over and they would all race to the wall and we picked up whoever got there first...but that was almost always Mikey because he is really fast. The other boys started to stop and cry instead of crawl over to the wall when Mikey started crawling because they knew that Mikey would get there first and so he would get picked up first. If they did come to the wall they were always crying to be picked up first in hopes that I might choose them over their brothers. All that crying and whining right before meals got a little old...So now, we make them all come over to the wall and line up and whoever is quiet and can motion "all done" in sign language to show me that they aren't crying or whining gets picked up first. Most of the time, it works!

Mikey is thinking something sassy

Konrad is just happy to have his picture taken

Zachary is proud to be standing up

All lined up waiting to be picked up for breakfast time

Happy Birthday Daddy and Mommy!

We have had a busy couple weekends here in the Huber household...thank God for Nanny Debbie...she is the woman who watches our boys during the week and lately during the weekends too! Mommy and Daddy have really been living the life!  Last weekend we went out for dinner, laser tag and bowling for Mike's birthday and then this weekend she watched the boys so that Mike and I could go for breakfast on Saturday and then I went to work for a bit and Mike and Konrad went to the doctor for Konrad and quickly stopped by at cousin Charlotte's birthday party and then he dropped Konrad back off at home and Mike and I went to Holly's baptism...then today we went to breakfast WITH the boys and Mike's parents which was only their second restaurant adventure ever and then we had some birthday dinner with my parents...and of course the most important birthday present of all...Konrad is still sick, hoarse and wilty from the Lila cold he caught last weekend and came down with on Thursday and today Zachary started with a runny nose and chesty cough and a temperature of 103 and Mikey had a runny nose and a temperature of 101.5...woot!  Now admittedly Mikey and Zachary were probably coming down with it yesterday but their very busy mommy didn't notice until today which was the first time that I have actually spent more than a couple hours with both of them in at least a week...It's good to be a mommy of triplets :)  Poor sicky icky babies...its a Huber theme these days I'm afraid...perhaps we need to go back into the bubble, but I am pretty sure that the bubble got us here now in the first place...hmmm philosophy of baby illnesses...anyway, here are some party pics to lighten the post a bit, lol...

Daddy's cake

Daddy, Greg, Jeff & Erik a few drinks into bowling...

Happy Birthday Daddy! (at the restaurant)

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Mommy's birthday breakfast

Konrad was VERY excited to get some food...we don't get out much...

That sure is a lot of candles...

Daddy got Mommy some roses, awww

Grandma Carol and the boys!

Long work days and 5 am wake ups are not condusive to frequent blogging...a much overdue update

I am going to try REALLY hard to get back to the once a week updates...but for now:

Mikey has 7 teeth, the newest came in a few days ago, he is very close to taking his first step and is testing out one handed transfers. He is a chatter box with his brothers in their weird little language and he loves nothing more than to stick his tongue out and blow some raspberries when he is feeling sassy, which is most of the time. He is learning to clap and he loves dancing to music and laughing at his brothers. He is a VERY fast crawler and he takes great pleasure in his victories. He spends nap times and evenings lapping his crib, screaming at his brothers and trying to steal their blankies and pacifiers through the bars and eventually settling down for a sleep.

Konrad is working hard on his 5th and 6th teeth as we speak, but he is very cute with the four he has. His close behind Mikey in the race to take a first step and working very hard to catch up in speed of crawling as well. He still falls over if he crawls too fast, which is sad but funny and very frustrating for Konrad. He is the best and most variable talker and he is having conversations with us all of the time...we just don't know what he is saying yet. He clearly signs and says more and bottle and he says mama, dada, he claps and waves. He is a very entertaining dancer and he has a little head motion where he moves his head side to side to the music that is too cute when music plays...sometimes he moves his head so fast that he almost falls over, lol. He is learning to sleep in his crib right now and it is no fun for anyone, but very necessary for the sanity of his parents and the safety of his head :)

Zachary has 6 teeth, four of which came in a few days ago within 24 hours of eachother...he was not happy. He is learning how to pull himself up although he hasn't quite figured it out yet and he likes to stand when we help him. He knows that he wants to, he just doesn't quuite have the strength and coordination yet. He is adorable and easy going as ever and he is constantly laughing at his brothers and his own inside Zach jokes. He has finally gotten the crawling thing down, but he is slow and it frustrates him when Mikey gets places faster or crawls right over him like he is standing still when he is going too slow. He is very tolerant of his brothers and he will allow them to take just about anything besides his pacifier. He loves puppets and books and he still is an extreme Daddy's boy. He is starting to make more attempts at talking...we will see.

The boys have an evaluation with the pediatric developmental clinic at Henry Ford next week. Their pediatrician feels that they need some PT and speech therapy. So we will start the process once again and see where it goes. At this moment in time, they are healthy...I think, lol.

"What did you find, Konrad?"

Zachary happy as ever!

Sassy Mikey!

Baby pile...no matter how much room they have they always pile together!

Update on the boys...(finally)

The boys had their 1 year old well baby visit with their new pediatrician and also their 1 year old pictures! They are doing great and changing so fast lately. They are learning new things every day it seems and they are looking more and more like little boys not babies.

Michael's 1 year photo

Mikey weighed in at 22.5 pounds and 29 inches tall, he is pretty much in the 20th percentile for everything and he is the tallest of the boys. He is sitting by himself, pulling himself up on his knees and to a stand, and crawling like a mad man. He is eating finger foods with his hands and pinchers, and now that he knows how, he is holding his own bottle and wants to do it himself most of the time. He is very picky about his foods and he will only eat certain puffs or fruits...he looks at his tray like I plopped a turd on there when I try to give him cheerios instead of puffs. He is still a bit of a toy thief still and spends most of play time watching Zach and Konrad to see who has the best toy and then he tries to take it...they are giving him a run for his money. He loves to dance and lately he has been sitting with his legs out the slats of his crib swinging his legs like he's on a dock in the summer...very cute. He is a bit behind in his language, we rarely hear him say any consonants at all, but he gets his point across with shouts and other noises...he is not very articulate but he is VERY vocal, lol.

Konrad's 1 year photo

Konrad is the smallest and shortest of our little guys. He weighed in at 20.8 pounds and he is 28 inches tall. He is in the 5-10th percentile for most things. He is sitting, crawling, pulling himself up to his knees and he just figured out how to pull himself up to a stand. He is a good eater and he likes most foods. He is the least picky eater although he has a bit of a puking problem if something doesn't agree with him. He won't hold his bottle, although we know he can because he has done it. He is the most ahead of the boys in language and fine motor skills. Konrad can clap his hands, wave good bye, he is quite chatty and says "Mama, Dada, Baba" for the appropriate people or for his bottle. He also makes a lot of talking attempts and is very vocal with his baby language. We know he is saying something, we just don't know what yet. He is happy, hyper, and very interactive and he is definitely starting to hold his own with his brothers, although he is definitely the most sensitive and impatient baby and he doesn't like to be pestered by his brothers unless it is on his terms.

Zachary's 1 year photo

Zachary weighed in at 24.8 pounds and he is 28.5 inches long. He is in the 70th percentile for head and weight and in the 15th percentile for height. He is sitting by himself, although he is very careful about his transitions still, and crawling very well. He is a very good eater and he prefers to feed himself except before bed when he likes us to hold his bottle. He takes hand fulls of finger foods to his mouth at a time to scare his mother...he kind of looks like a little squirrel when he eats, lol. He is the most behind in fine and gross motor skills and he is just starting to figure out the whole pincher grasp thing, and so far he has no interest in kneeling or standing up. He does walk when you hold his hands, but not as well as his brothers. He holds his own bottle and says "Dada" but other than that he hasn't really started talking like Konrad has. He laughs and smiles ALL the time, and he is the most pleasant and happy of our babies. He is extremely easy going and for the most part let his brothers crawl all over him...literally. He is a lover not a fighter, he is so gentle and he is quite independent unless he is tired and then he wants some attention.

The Huber Boys are 1 year old!

Baby Prison, lol

Since the boys are pulling themselves up so much lately, we decided that its probably time to phase out the walkers and encourage them to walk on their own...so we pulled out and put up the super playyards, aka baby prison, in the living room. They like it okay so far, but I like it quite a bit because I can control what goes in a little better as far as dirt. Now they have a space of their own (nearly our entire living room, lol) and people aren't walking across the same floors that they pay on. they crawl so fast now that they were starting to "escape" the living room area when I left the room even for a second. They were following people right out of the living room and into the kitchen and halls and although I clean the floors frequently, I was starting to get scared that they would find something that they should not have and put it in their mouth before we could stop them. Now we can control their environment a bit more and they can't escape into the hallways or kitchen unless we want them to. Our boys are growing up...

Baby Prison

Kindred spirits...

Lately I have been getting alot more negative comment regarding being a mom of multiples. People accusingly ask me if I did IVF so they can shove me in the same category as the crazy lady from California and they are so disappointed when they find out that I did not. I can always tell that they want to ask more questions like "well then are they natural or did you do something to make this happen to you?". They want to know "Is this your fault or God's fault" and "Are you a victim of circumstance and I should pity you or are you a victim of selfishness and greed and I should tell you that it serves you right". I know this because some people are not so subtle, some people come right out at you and say these things. I have literally had people say "Did you bring this on yourself or should I feel sorry for you?"  I suppose that in some ways I did ask for this...I did want children. I wanted them badly, almost desperately and I always said that I wanted to have three before I was thirty...well I checked off that box, lol.  But some days I ask myself whether or not I am a good mom...somedays when I am tired and overwhelmed and I have spent the day fending them off instead of nurturing them and loving them as a good mom should I wonder..."Did I do the right thing?" and "Am I doing right by them?" Although I couldn't decide which one to trade in if I had a gun to my head...I am overwhelmingly guilty to admit that some days I have moments when I wish I was "normal" and that I only had one child at a time so that I could show them love more and give them the attention and affection that I wish I could.  Most days I am all business just to make it through the day and now that I have even less time with them in a day it feels even worse because I get home and hit the ground running...make dinner, make bottles, get babies ready for bed, put them down and then Mike gets home and I am mad and exhausted from my long day and from my even longer 1-2 hours with the babies....this is not how I pictured my life...but the Polly Anna in me asks "Is it ever?" and I get up every morning and make it work...we all do.

Someone on triplet connection forwarded along this blog entry. I agree with much of what she says...and I probably need to take her advice and get on the medicated band wagon...but even more than that, it reminds that I am not alone on this island at a time when I am really struggling to figure it all out...we all are...

WHAT YOU WISH FOR
By M. SINDY FELIN

Eleven and a half months ago I gave birth to triplets. That’s THREE babies. All at once! Not impressed? No doubt then you are among the hordes marveling at what is turning out with each passing day to be a curiouser and curiouser shipwreck in the person of one Nadya Suleman of Whittier, Calif. Suleman disgorged octuplets (seven plus one stowaway) a week ago.

I’ve been asked often in that week whether having triplets gives me any insight into what Nadya Suleman is about to face. It absolutely does not. Perhaps if these were her first children I might have something to say about sleep deprivation (it’s unimaginable), coordinating volunteers (a lot more people will offer to help than will actually follow through) or exclusive breastfeeding (don’t have your heart set on it). But with six children, including a set of twins at home, Suleman should have more of an idea of what is in store for her than I did when I found out I was carrying triplets.

So I don’t have any words of wisdom for Suleman other than, “Please, stop!” I do, however, have some advice for those who have recently found themselves pregnant with triplets or more. Many of these women find their way to the message boards of tripletconnection.com, where they post desperate questions about the chances of their babies being born without disabilities and their chances of finishing the pregnancy without becoming debilitated themselves.

I understand their worries; I had the same ones. But after nearly a year of being the mother of triplets I can see that theirs are not the right questions. What these new parents should ask — and what I should have paid more attention to — was what happens after the children are born.

To start, there is the financial strain. On the message boards parents share strategies on how to get free formula and diapers, how to find formula on the cheap on eBay and how to qualify for WIC, the government program that helps with the cost of formula and cereal for infants. I used to joke that I spent so much money trying to get pregnant that I wouldn’t be able to afford diapers by the time I finally did have a baby. It wasn’t so funny a few months into my triplets’ lives when I found myself exactly in that position.

Then there is the emotional strain that at times comes from a wicked level of postpartum depression coupled with weeks on end of getting virtually no sleep. I formed a close online bond with a group of about a dozen women pregnant with triplets and due around the time I was. When my babies were 4-months-old, I gloated to a friend that I was the only one of the group not on antidepressants. Sure, I spent quite a bit of each day shaking and sobbing alongside my newborns, but I wasn’t on meds! Not two weeks after that conversation, I stormed into my doctor’s office and demanded she give me something — anything, to make my day-to-day life bearable. A few weeks later, I had her double the dose of my Zoloft.

Finally, there is the strain on marriages and families. Couples counseling and divorce are often the topics of conversation on the message boards. My own relationship with my partner, shaky for some time before we became parents, did not survive the stress of raising three babies. I find myself now among a growing number of women who are single parents of triplets. Even the octuplet grandma out in Whittier has thrown a public temper tantrum and declared she will not be around when her daughter and the octuplets are released from the hospital.

And humming along in the background during all this chaos is the constant awareness that “I asked for this.” Triplets rarely just “happen.” You pay in money and emotion trying to conceive. Then you suddenly go from barren to oh-so-fruitful, and any regret or second thoughts feel hypocritical.

So you give up the idea of attachment parenting, breastfeeding until kindergarten, Mommy and Me classes, making new mommy friends at the park. And you forget all those daydreams about what finally holding our little ones in our arms would be like — the woozy, tearful love, the hours spent cradling a single, precious child. And you take on three times the postpartum depression and three times the screaming. A baby eventually sleeps at night but one or two are always awake. ALWAYS.

You do all this on your own, if you can, because reaching out for help is tinged with embarrassment that after years of yearning you can’t seem to handle it.

But here is the last thing these parents-to-be need to know. Each night there is a brief period of time where everyone is sleeping and you realize you did it — everyone is alive, dry, and fed. People like to say “I couldn’t do what you do,” and you nod heroically but in reality you know that yes, they could. When faced with the seemingly impossible, we women have a way of rising to the occasion. Because even with the seemingly insurmountable difficulties I face raising triplets on my own, I would rather be fighting this beautiful battle than return to the days I thought I would never carry even one child of my own.