SLEEP!

What's sleep? I suppose I am very very super fortunate to just now be having to ask that question of myself!

After all, I managed to somehow get enough to survive triplet-infant-hood and the every four hour feedings that could take up to an hour from start to finish in themselves, if I wasn't careful and was flying solo!

We somehow muddled through the ex-neighbors being more than noisy with their home-made mini bikes revving up and down the street at all hours of the night, and the nutty ones that sometimes forgot and played their music loud enough to shake objects off of shelves!

I had even almost gotten used to two of the babies waking up for midnight tea-time that consisted of teddy grahams and milk, then snuggles and back to bed.

Then it happened. Well, it had already been happening, technically. Two of the babies had managed to cut all of their molars (even Kai who had managed to cut only half of one tooth, the other half giving him fits for what seemed like forever!)

Kian, on the other hand, to date, still has NONE. Not one molar in his little boy mouth, poor dear. But they are coming, don't fret any longer!

Nope, he will not be molar-less forever. All the signs are there. He can no longer sleep through anything and his room is all nice and quiet now, after our recent move.

Somehow, he is the baby who is waking up in tears for the last few days. Not only is he waking up, but he is sharing his pain with his siblings, who really did try to muddle through his sadness by ignoring him.

I suppose it is hard to ignore your brother when he is busy tossing every stuffed animal and blanket that he has in his bed towards the other unsuspecting sibling.

If unloading his stuffed animal friends in your general direction doesn't phase them, his very loudly screaming, "HEY DUDE" or "HEY DOODLE DOODLE DUDE" seems to do the trick.

In fact, he scared his sister so badly one night, that she just stood in the middle of her bed screeching like a banshee scorned, as loudly as her little lungs would allow.

It was so bad, that I couldn't even calm her down. I had to stand there and watch her scream and it was soo sad that it made me want to cry (the crying, not the fact that it happened to be 3 o'clock in the morning!)

I had all three babies awake and upset for one reason or another in their upstairs nursery in the middle of the night, and none showed signs of calming down or going back to sleep!

I was in a bind and didn't know quite what to do. If I took them all downstairs, which I could do in shifts, taking two and once, then going back for the other, I could let them play it out.

But earlier that night, I had ended up pretty much stuck downstairs with Kian zoning on my shoulder like he used to when he was first born (basically dead-weight) and Vivienne wanting to go back to her bed NOW (she couldn't get comfy.)

In that situation, I could please one baby, but by doing so, upset the other and run the chance of waking up the third.

I didn't want a repeat of that, so I was a bad Mummy, and left them all three in their beds, brought them their milk in bed (something I NEVER ever have done nor do I plan on doing again,) and then gave each of them a round of Motrin to sooth the various teething pain.

Every time I tried leaving the room, Vivie started her screeching, and the boys started volleying toys at each other.

Kai actually threw his teddy at her and hit her in the face square on, in what appeared to be a "Shut up" message of sorts.

I finally ended up making sure everyone had their toys and milk and binkie if they wanted it, and left the room.

I stopped at the upstairs thermostat and turned it til the heat came on so that they would have some nice whooshing white noise to listen to if they stopped screaming long enough!

That bought me a tiny bit of quiet time. Of course, I still couldn't go to sleep knowing that they were awake up there, so I lay in my bed listening to them play 'til they finally got quiet, which was about 5-ish.

I figured that they would be exhausted the next day. They were up at the usual crack of dawn, but were fussy all through-out the day.

We figured that they would sleep well that night after pulling the all-nighter the night before and shorting themselves on much in the way of a nap during the day.

Boy were we wrong! I put them to bed at the usual hour, and they went fairly gracefully. The problem was, they just never would go to sleep.

Kaiden was the first out of bed, with a particularly foul and stinky diaper which really was warranted.

Then Vivienne had to have her turn and was even able to justify her trip downstairs with a dirty diaper of her own.

The trouble came when everyone was back upstairs in their beddy-bye's. They chattered, jumped up and down like their beds were some sort of trampolines, threw all of their toys about at each other and the rug in the center of the room, and just would not sleep.

I brought them downstairs about 10 o'clock that night, thinking that maybe they would like an early tea. I made sure everyone had cookies and milk, and a good run about the living room.

The next thing I knew, it was after midnight, and my tiny trio were STILL going full speed. Well, full speed for little insomniac babies who really hadn't even napped much in the past few days.

They had started rolling around on the floor, thumb sucking, hair pulling and slipping all over the place, so we took pity and we twinkled up the stairs and the boys put on their upstairs feet to head to the nursery for another shot at bedtime.

This time, they actually did sleep-for a time. They made it 'til about 6 before Kian was back awake and chattering, trying his best to wake everyone else up.

I went up to get them for waffles about 8-ish, thinking that they would be more pleasant if they could have them over a nice episode of "The Backyardigans" which is their favorite show.

They were all sorts of fussy again all day long, and refused to even eat much in the way of dinner. Corn and carrots were flying all over the place, it seemed.

But, after several days of not really sleeping, I can finally say that they are asleep...for a time!

Now if Kian would only CUT THOSE MOLARS we might all could catch a few zzzz's!