Babies' First Friend

It's been some time since we had the chance to update things. The babies' cousin David had stayed with us through the beginning of the month, and we were sad to see him go.





As I'm sure you can imagine things have been busy here. The babies turned seven months yesterday. Over the weekend I sorted their clothes out so we moved all the stuff in the dresser to storage boxes and the storage stuff for 6-9 month olds to the dresser. I felt so sad putting away the little doggie sweater vest that I so wanted to fit them and used to just hang off them and now it fits them like most of my clothes. :-) Too tight. I'm sure this is just the beginning of all the mourning of milestones past.



I've had the luxury of having Chuck here one day during the weekend for the past two weeks. The Bears have done so well, that he figured no one was coming into the store during game day and why waste the time since as a part time employee there is no draw. You make what you make more or less and he figured it would be a waste of time. It was great to be able to all be there together. We had the opportunity for the babies to go and meet their new friend, Finnegan Danger Curry for the first time. He's a real cutie, and our babies look like giants next to him. We can't wait for them all to grow up together and get to be great friends.

On the home front, Ryan's hair has continued to grow and he has taken to doing Chewbacca imitations. He chortles like him regularly, and he loves it if you chortle back. Ryan loves to jump in his jumperoo and will do so for hours then fall asleep in it and occasionally jump in his sleep. He loves it if you just talk to him from across the room while he's in there and will now smile if you make kissey sounds from across the room. He is now the biggest baby (where he was born the runt) and weighing in at what I recall to be 17 pounds 11 ounces. I think it's all leg muscle from his constant jumping... that and the fact this little guy was the only one in the household to never get the stomach flu, so he just kept growing.

Perrin is about ready to crawl. He is poised to do so and will rock back and forth. I think once he figures it out he will be off like a lightening bolt. The other day, we were getting ready to go to the doctors and I walked out of the room to get the diaper bag. Chuck walks in the room and can't find Perrin. He'd rolled and rolled and rolled all the way to the front door. I guess he was just ready to go.

As I was downloading some recent videos of the babies today and played them on the computer, they totally captured Perrin's attention. He was mesmerized with this baby that looked and sounded just like him. He is a bright, strong, physically capable baby, it's so cool to see after all he's been through.


Sarah remains the charmer and the thrill seeker. She loves to be tossed into the air like a little cheerleader. She loves to be hung upside down and swung. She loves to be spun around in circles and then sat upright to get all dizzy. Lately she's taken to expressing her joy with squeals. Chuck calls her dolphin girl, and she responds to it. She is also very strong. If you hold her on her thighs, she will keep her balance for minutes at a time and then finally topple over like you've cut her at her trunk or something.

The babies are all attempting to work their podees which is hilarious. They pull it out of their mouths and try to stick it back in. Perrin seems to be the best at this so far, also he has had the most practice. But, in their attempts to fix the bottle's position, they continually bonk themselves in their head. Sometimes they get the nipple turned the wrong way and try to suck on the back of the nipplepiece. If they aren't too hungry they have lots of patience for this, and if not they let you know.

In terms of big stuff going on in our lives, we have figured out that due to the debt we are in, largely in part of this addition gone wrong, and because we are now mostly a one income family, we can no longer afford to live here... so we have begun the hunt for a more modest home, ideally closer to my work. I am currently driving 45 minutes one way. It's quite something to get the house ready, look for a new place, watch three kids, work a regular job plus an extra job of medical transcriptionisting and Chuck working on the weekends. Sometimes I feel like yelling to Chuck, "Jane, stop this crazy thing." (in reference to the Jetsons where George gets stuck on the treadmill). I'm hoping that cutting back and living a little more simply will allow us to live just that, a simpler life.

I'm leaving you with a couple of fun videos, and once again the transfer to youtube has left the appearance of a poorly dubbed martial arts film, but you get the point....

Dolphin Girl.

Typical View from the Rocking Chair.

Scary Wind.

Perrin's Whoop.

'Mater and Chewy.

A Few Subtle Changes

This is just a quick post to show off a few changes that I made to the blog which aren't immediately noticeable. I updated the nicknames of the babies to reflect what we are currently calling each of them. The only name that really seems to stick with Sarah at this moment is Baby Girl. It's not a conscious effort on our part, but it's the one that does seem to be sticking and she responds well to it.

If you haven't talked to us about it or seen us interact with the kids, Perrin has completely become Fudd! I came up with that name because he looks like Elmer Fudd. All he needs is a toy gun and giant brown hunters hat and he'd be a spitting image of him.

Ryan is really still The Beast. He is always making grunts, growls, and snarls to express himself. It's really adorable and lately he has taken on the new sound effects of Chewbacca from Star Wars. He gives out these little yawps straight from his throat. Considering how large, hairy, and stubborn he is it's really funny. From time to time we also just refer to him as Ry-Ry.

The last change I made concerns all of the videos Meva has been posting on YouTube. These little videos have been very popular with many people and I've heard people like to go back and watch them from time to time. So to that end I have provided a direct link to Meva's account on YouTube for you to check out at anytime you'd like. This link should appear at the beginning of every post if I've done this correctly. Although we will still be providing direct links to new videos when they've been posted, you now have the option of always accessing all the videos at any time.

Lastly, what's a post without some more pictures of the kids? Here are some individual shots of the kids in their early morning Christmas outfits(before the peeing and puking forced the changes). I have to admit we've taken some creative license with these photos; they were taken just a few days ago and not on Christmas. Meva and I were so busy with entertaining guests and trying to put on a fun Christmas evening that we never got any pictures of the kids in these outfits, so we redid them when we had time!

Of all the outfits my favorite was Perrin's little tuxedo. I think it's the bowtie, but he looks completely ridiculous and cute at the same time. I wish we would have had a second one to put on Ryan too, but he looks fine in his little teddy bear vest. As usual, click on the photo to see a bigger shot!

Just past Christmas

Well, it's now mid January, and I'd like to take a moment to back here and re-visit Christmas. We had a pretty wild one.

Chuck's sister Teri flew into town on Christmas eve from Arizona. She'd not seen her family in a while, and not yet met the babies. Chuck picked her up near midnight and drove her to his other sister's house and hour and a half north of us. Chuck's other sister had promised to host Christmas dinner for his family, but then a series of unfortunate events meant they were unable to swing it. Since the babies were preemies meant we needed to do Christmas at our place. As many of our loved ones are smokers, and until the babies are stronger, they need to stay in a smoke free environment. So, we had plans for the Cicerellos to join us (if you don't recall, we consider the Cicerellos to be family even though there is no blood connection.) Anyway, when things with Chuck's sister fell through, we didn't have the space to host dinner for everyone... so we offered to get dinner for them and ship it up with Chuck when he dropped off his sister who flew in. So, on the day of Christmas eve we were straightening up our place, wrapping presents, preparing part of the Christmas dinner for us and Chuck's family, packing dinner for Chuck's family, setting up our place to host, being chauffers, and caring for 3 six month olds. Whew!!

Chuck and I have had a tradition where we sit and read The Night Before Christmas to each other on Christmas eve. We had looked forward to doing that with our children on their first Christmas. Unfortuantely we were unable to do that until about 3am Christmas morning, which thankfully the babies were already nestled snug in their beds. So, Chuck and I snuck into the nursery with a flashlight, sat in the middle of the floor and whispered the book. The babies would coo and snore every now and then, they were so cute.

Christmas itself came all to early, but it was a lovely day. The babies had many very cute Christmas outfits. Really, they were swimming in so many of them through the various donations we've received through freecycle and gifts - turns out it worked out okay, because every time they wet their pants, they switched into a different Christmas outfit.

We had a lovely dinner and afterwards opened presents, where the babies were royally spoiled. Much of this spoiling then went into finally getting an account to start saving for college, which is a real concern for us. I'm not sure how we are going to be able to swing this, so it's nice to even begin taking the baby steps to get there.

The following week, the babies got to meet Grampa Lou (Lou Cicerello) for the first time. Lou was unable to join us for Christmas with the rest of the gang due to obligations at home, so it was especially nice to have him come up. Here's some pics of the babies with their other Grandpa. Sorry Joey, it's another old man to look at.




New Years weekend, the babies and myself went to Ohio. Chuck stayed behind since he had to work, biting his nails the whole time, but also enjoying a much deserved break. During this trip the babies got to meet their Great Grandma Dixie for the first time. This particular meeting made the trip entirely worth it. Here's a pic of them all together. I love how Sarah, when propped, will stand for an incredibly long time. If she just had her balance down better, she'd stand all day. These days are coming soon.
Click here for a video of the 3 generation interaction.

Vomit Everywhere

I think Meva unintentionally downplayed the events of the last few days here. With my nephew David staying with us, we have a total of six people in the house and as of this writing Ryan is the only one not to have come down with any symptoms.

The most telling symptoms are vomit and diarrhea. Basically the kids are doing the vomiting and the adults get the diarrhea. With Perrin it lasted about three days and at it's worse I went through 4 shirts that he totally soaked. This is so much more violent and worse than when he had the acid reflux at about 3 months. Sarah started her vomiting today, and she did it in style, spraying the front room from her swing....she got puke 4 feet from the swing!! It must be the father in me, but I was kinda proud at the distance she was able to get....atta Girl!!

So with the kids being sick they've all been pretty crabby at times. Luckily there has been someone around to hold them or lay with them in bed so they feel safer and more secure. In fact on Tuesday night they were so cranky we ended up with all three of them in our bed and they chased Meva out by crowding her with their auras! So I ended up sleeping with all three of the kids spread out in a little blanketed enclosure. It was actually pretty cool.

It's been just over a year since we learned that we were having triplets and as we've chronicled here it's been an exhausting and exciting ride. Despite everything we've been through there are still times when the entire novelty of the situation comes back to me and snaps me out of the regular rhythm of raising them. Tonight I was holding Ryan and getting him settled down for bed when I was just overwhelmed with how special it is to have three little babies all at once! They each have their own distinct personalities and quirks and I love them all, even when I am drenched in vomit! It's a bit beyond me to convey this feeling, but it's just too incredible not to share.

And speaking of sharing, here are a few photos my sister took of the kids when she was visiting for the holidays. It's becoming much harder for Meva and I to capture them smiling since they recognize the camera and know that something is going to happen, They're pretty quick to catch on to that at such an early age. Anyways, here are some great pictures and smiles from all the kids.

Hooray!! Everyone's sick.

We've been unusually busy lately. We've had the good fortune to have our 13 year old nephew, David, staying with us for nearly a month. It's been nice to get re-aquainted with him. He hates to hear it but he reminds me very much of Chuck. He's been so great with the babies, and I know they especially will miss him when he goes back to Arizona.

Today Sarah gave David the gift of projectile vomitting, after which she shot him a grin like she'd just swallowed the Cheshire Cat. David was pretty grossed out, but really took it all in stride. He did better than most adults handling being absolutely drenched in it. For me, not so much seeing David covered in vommit but just seeing Sarah throwing up that much made my day. You see, Perrin was the first to get sick, and of course when Perrin is vomitting, that can be a sign that his shunt isn't working and he needs repeat brain surgery. The vomitting has been about the only symptom for him, then Chuck got sick, then Sarah, and tonight I felt the call of the bathroom myself. It seems weird to be grateful for the stomach flu, but I'll take that over brain surgery for my kid any day.

We've had an eventful Christmas and New Year's and I will tell you more about that another day. It's currently 1:13 am, and I have just finished up my second job of medical transcribing. I'm grateful to have this opportunity to work at home so I can still be near my babies and yet still be able to try to make ends meet. But, it is yet another time sponge, so there you have the wee hour entry and promises of Christmas Tales another time.

In the meantime, I will leave you with some fun videos that our resident video producer, David, arranged. Unfortunately, some of them when they get transferred to Youtube have some sort of delay between the sound and the image, so it ends up looking like some bad Kung Fu movie... but you'll get the point. So click on below for....

Ryan the Defender Against Evil

Sarah and the Shark

Gus and Ryan

Ryan in the Jumparoo