Yet, Another Doctor's Appointment For My Eldest

Okay, so we've tried it solo, without any medication and without any doctor's guidance.

It just isn't working out for us at all, and I do not think that it ever really was.

So, I broke down and have gone ahead and called the pediatrician today.

I went on and made an appointment for tuesday after school under the guise of "ADHD."

I really do not know what else to tell them, really. How exactly does one explain to the receptionist that your child was supposedly re-evaluated by the clinic where the doctor that you were referred to practices, and were found "Not eligible for services at this time?"

We never received any sort of diagnosis other than the one that we went in with.

This is the exact same one that had been found wanting by our referring pediatrician and hence the very reason she was wanting this other doctor's opinion as well.

I just do not know how I am going to explain to her that the other doctor never wanted to question or investigate any other diagnosis than the initial one.

I almost feel stupid for some reason. Usually, when one goes to the doctor, one is armed with symptoms and some idea of where to start.

After our experience at this clinic and being told by its clinical manager that my son has symptoms of ADHD, but that he find him to have symptoms of something else instead and that the doctor will be talking to us more in detail about this, and then the doctor NEVER seeing or talking to us again, I just do not know what to think about the situation.

The only response we received from my repeated messages left for the doctor to call me about the problems we were having with the medicine, was a letter saying that we no longer could be helped by this particular clinic.

So, what's a Mum to do? I have been researching symptoms in some attempt to be able to explain to our pediatrician what the other doctor would not/did not tell us.

I am trying to paint a picture of what actually is going on, but without a starting point, it is difficult.

What if I am no where near the right place in looking? I decided to use the bi-polar, mood disorder and depression as starting points for symptoms that other Mums on the boards had been talking about as sometimes sharing symptoms of ADHD.

My son has some symptoms on those lists, some seem like they describe him, some just don't.

I do not even know if I am headed in the right direction symptom-wise, even.

I have had him off of the medication for about a month, month and a half now , and have been taking notes as to his behavior that is the same as when he is on the medication as opposed to being off of the medication.

I have listed the behaviors that seems AMPLIFIED by the medication as well as the behaviours that the medication appears to cause which weren't present in the first place.

I now have lists upon lists of symptoms and am trying to narrow it down to make it make more sense, if even just to me.

I really feel lost, somehow. I know that I am my child's best advocate, but I am starting to feel like I don't have any perspective on what's going on anymore.

I do not have words to define it. I guess what I lack is DIAGNOSIS! I wonder if I am just not forward enough to be able to make one myself, which is basically what a Mum seems to have to do to get anywhere anymore, which is SCARY!!!!

So, I guess I now have at least some place to start when we go in on Tuesday, I just am not too certain about it, though. Wish us luck!

Kian Sings!

I do not know why I am so surprised to find this out, but Kian likes to sing.

At my house, I am always singing something. The babies have ALWAYS been exposed to singing in some fashion or another because of it.

Their nursery has always had a soundtrack or the lullaby channel singing away inside it.

Our television is always set to Nickelodeon and Noggin which is full of singing animal shows, their favorite being, "The Backyardigans."

A few weeks ago, my husband noticed that Kian had this huge affinity for a specific episode of "The Backyardigans" which involved a search for a golden butterfly.

It's rather odd, actually, because this particular episode is a sort of Puccini/Gilbert & Sullivan inspired amalgam that just so happens to be, drum roll please, A WESTERN!

Yep, it's basically a western operetta about a bunch of stage coach drivers and a professor in search of catching the golden gilded butterfly, and my child ADORES it.

We first caught him running in circles in the living room, madly singing, "Tough, tough, tough" at the top of his little Kian guy lungs.

After the song was over, he collapsed in the center of the floor in hysterics, laughing so hard that he was purring (it's a Kian thing!)

Bregon even heard him through the monitor one night, thinking that he was going to wake up and maybe wake up one of his siblings, he ran upstairs to try and head off potential disaster only to find that Kian was STILL ASLEEP!

As it turns out, he was smiling and hugging his teddy, all cuddled up in his little green blankie, SINGING his favorite "Tough, tough, tough" song in his sleep.

We all had a good laugh over that one, because it's common knowledge that I just so happen to sing in my sleep, too!

This past week, I must have been singing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and not have realized it, because Kian has since picked up singing part of that as well.

He now runs around singing, "EIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEI" rather indefinitely until Vivienne will pitch in to STOP the madness by inserting her best, most concerned, "OOOOOOOOHHHHHH" into the matter.

Don't get me wrong, Kaiden sings, too. In fact, he was born singing and has yet to really stop humming or singing under his breath yet (did I mention that his favorite musical is "Rent?)

It has been really funny around here as of late with all three singing babies running around!

Vivie & Her "Linus" Phase

It starts. Maybe it started a little too soon, as I wasn't quite expecting this until my little people were a tad bit older.

Most kids like to classify themselves as, "Punk," "Goth," or even, "Emo."

Not my baby girl, not yet, anyways. Vivienne has officially entered her, "Linus" phase.

Yep, my one year old has officially joined in her first real fashion "Fad."

It happened yesterday, after her nap. Usually, when I get her up out of her bed, she is standing at the rail with Baby under one arm, waiting her turn.

This time, I noticed that she had yet to put down her blanket.

Nope, she held it closed tightly in her fist, with her thumb inserted firmly into her mouth and she was NOT BUDGING on the blankie issue.

I just shrugged it off and lifted her out of her bed as usual, taking extra care to tuck her fuzzy pink blankie up under my arm so that it wouldn't catch on the banister as we descended the stairs.

She was very regal as we left the nursery, too. She carefully posed in her prettiest fashion, elegantly allowing her part of the blankie to cascade across her arm...

I thought that somehow we would be able to get it away from her during pantie-changing.

Oh how wrong I was! She gracefully held tight to that tiny corner of the blankie, smiling with her best dimple forward from behind her fist as I changed her into a fresh pair of panties.

At this point, I was in a quandary. You see, all of my babies have the most fuzziest, shaggiest warm blankie ever, the shaggy part being the root of most of my fears.

If left to be dragged about the floor, it runs the risk of picking up all sorts of ickiness.

Bregon and I waited with baited breath to see if she would let any of us put it on the table for her during their lunch.

Of course she did not budge one inch. She sat there as we positioned baby in the usual spot as to be able to fit the tray precariously on the very edge of her feeding chair.

She just stared at us when it came time to deal with the rest of the bulk of the blanket left trailing out from under that tray.

She only let go of it once the blankie had been wrapped around her feet and tucked up underneath her.

Lunch is never gooey, but dinner almost always is to some extent. I needed a plan and soon!

Bregon tried desperately after lunch to get it away from her. He finally was found catering to his baby sister's every whim, too.

Even the 13 year old gave in. She had him making her little pallets on the sofa with one of the play pillows and her blankie.

The next thing I knew, he was searching for the camera to take pictures of Vivienne because she was just too sweet and adorable lying on the sofa with her baby and her blankie.

Eventually, Bregon was able to break out of the spell of cuteness cast by his baby sister and he found a way to convince her to let us wrap Baby up in the blankie to keep it from getting dragged everywhere.

This lasted a little while, but soon, Vivienne was up and back to trailing her blankie.

She very carefully walks with it, too. She is more careful than a fop parading with his cane, too.

She is just as adept with her blankie. She walks with it like a pro, keeping it to one side in pretty little cascading ripples as she waltzes across the floor with it out to one side of her.

You should see her with it on the stairs. Oh yes, she attempts to climb the stairs with nothing less than Baby (who is almost as large as she is) under one arm, and that blankie trailing from her other.

In order to get upstairs in remotely the same time frame as her brothers, I was forced to pick up the end of the blankie as if I was in attendance to a bride and tending to her train.

It's been a few days now, and that blankie still is accompanying her almost everywhere.

I say almost, because today after nap-time, she accidentally tossed it over the rail of the bed and it was left upstairs (lucky me!)

Tonight, I do not have to worry about what to do if mashed potato happens to find itself intertwined in the shag of the pretty pink blankie.

Tomorrow, however dear Scarlet, is another day! I wonder what the next phase shall bring?

Sick, In Spite Of It All

Yes, we are officially SICK, SICK, SICK. In spite of all of the days spent keeping my tiny trio inside and out of the weird and nasty weather, they have managed to get sick anyways.

Sick toddlers just are not any fun, either. They don't understand what exactly is going on with their little bodies, and often refuse to acknowledge that it just cannot be helped.

Kaiden actually became upset at the idea that his nose wanted to be runny. He would wipe it with the back of his hand, then look at his work.

He determined that it was NOT good, and it made him cry. This of course meant that his nose would run even MORE than it was to begin with.

So, for the last few days, we have been privy to this never ending cycle of Kaiden trying to conquer his sniffles, to no avail.

Then there is Kian. Kian, who normally doesn't require as much sleep as everyone else, decides to power nap for hours on end when he gets sick.

This means that not only will he wake up alone in his nursery (if I don't have to help him wake up of course,) but that he will manage to miss lunch almost every day this past week.

I have discovered that Kian does not like cold chicken bits in the least. It makes him sad.

In fact, almost EVERYTHING makes Kian sad when he is sick. I literally had to pull up a chair next to his feeding chair just so he could make it through his breakfast.

As if this wasn't enough, I found myself actually holding his little Kian-guy hand for nearly the entire meal.

He let go only long enough to lick his pointer finger, stick a fruit loop on the end of it, and put it to his mouth.

Who knew that he actually eats all of the green fruit loops first, then the yellow ones, and then his sibling's colors next before finally finishing everything off?

Apparently when I color coded their bottles at birth, those colors really stuck with them and made quite an impression, hence his discriminatory practices.

Poor little Kian guy, he just could not make it five minutes in a day without a tear rolling down his cherubic little cheek.

I couldn't go potty without him bursting into tears. In fact, he preferred that I sit in the recliner and hold him as much as humanly possible.

This practice of course would never do for his siblings. I found myself getting mobbed by Kaiden and Vivienne soon enough.

Because of all of the tiny baby fights that kept happening in my lap (I drew the line when Kaiden decided to bring a rather large Tonka Truck and tried pushing Kian out of my lap with it) so I moved to the sofa.

On the sofa, I was rudely reminded exactly HOW three tiny babies were able to fit inside my stomach.

I had them all clamoring for their respective spot as soon as I sat down, too. YES, they remember exactly how they were packed, too!

The problem is, that Vivienne was always laying lengthwise on top of the boys and was having trouble getting into position.

It hurt. It hurt a LOT! And of course, the babies fought. Kaiden would lick his hand and put it in Vivienne's face to make her cry.

Kian would try and pull her hair while Kai was attacking from the other side. Vivienne feigned being asleep as if to try and get some sort of sympathy from me while launching her counter-attack of attempting to share her Bogey's with her brothers.

Did I mention that nap time came early quite a lot this week? You can BET that I had them up those stairs as fast as I could manage after that!

Luckily, Vivienne decided to be sick gracefully for the most part. She only decided to limit her diet a bit and never did become quite as clingy as her brothers did.

But man, oh man, did the boys find ways to be clingy! This week was a week full of tears and a Mum who probably ought to take a vacation!

We're not out of the woods, yet. Thankfully, I had a stash of cold medicine in the cabinet since the FDA decided to rule against them for older babies and toddlers too this week.

Tomorrow, the weather promises to be gross again, but I'm prepared. I have an arsenal of cold remedies and a fridge full of juice ready to go!

Now if I can only hold on to my sanity through all of this, I will be in business!

Here, On The Island of Misfit Mums

I suppose it is good to be reminded that I am simply not that kind of Mum every now and again.

It's just that over the past few weeks, I have been being constantly reminded and told just that.

I mean, I really do not have any desire to fit in with any particular group, or even be anything like the apple pie, Mrs. Cleaver sort.

But I do suppose that over the years I have been spoiled by my friends into forgetting that not everyone accepts others unconditionally regardless of age, looks, religious preference, and even career goals and other ways people have found of trying to categorize and file those around them.

Yep, mine has always been a world of tolerance and acceptance of even the most different of us out there.

I am one of those weirdo's that is of the idea that the things that make us different are the very things that should bring us together.

Lately, I have been glaringly reminded that not everyone out there feels this way.

Sure, I am used to the "Circus freak" treatment that my kids and I get whenever we walk out of our front door.

I understand that not everyone has ever seen a set of triplets and that my babies are fascinating to just about everyone we see and meet.

I get all sorts of "Advice" about my tiny trio and even how to handle my eldest son as well.

As of late, it has been pointed out that my eldest should not be allowed to play with his air soft pellet guns.

You would have thought that he had a penchant of using our kitties as target practice or something worse by the way this tidbit of information was presented.

I didn't let him play with toy guns for the longest, too. But once he reached an age where he was old enough to understand right and wrong and the way that one SHOULD use these types of toys, I allowed him to have them.

Besides, my eldest child already had a small arsenal of swords, a whip collection, and a bow and arrow set and has been proficient in using each type of weapon for practice and for the stage for years.

We won't cover things like religion or presidential candidate preference as not to get terribly into politics.

Here, on the island of misfit mums, I let my eldest have chocolate cake for breakfast, or even pizza some days. We have even been known to eat breakfast foods for dinner!

I never even knew that it wasn't normal until the movie "Practical Magic" pointed out that it wasn't.

I let my babies watch television because it makes them happy. My eldest watches zombie movies.

I even let him watch the "Clerks" movies. I have this weird notion that if he dares try and emulate anything he hears within them in front of any girls, that he will find himself dateless.

We talk about appropriate versus inappropriate things to bring up in conversation. If he violates our agreement, then he will face consequences.

Sometimes, I have even been known to let him take holidays such as Halloween off from school.

I'm the mum who could be found at the school office on the day prior to career day, armed with a copy of that letter defining which careers were real and which ones were make-believe, to ensure that my child would not be chastised over his career day presentation choice of being being a pirate.

He went as a pirate, wearing not only his faire identification and actor card, but with copy of his paycheck in tow, just in case anybody tried to tell him that his choice was not a valid one.

He was only six at the time, too! I suppose it could have been worse. Occupations such as ballet dancer and Peter Pan were also on the list (Mary Martin and Baryshnikov would have been so offended!)

Just another day in the life, I suppose! We do what we can for our kids, regardless of what other folks think of us.

I just wish other folks would open their minds to the validity of other's choices and actions. People would learn so much more that way!

But until that day comes, I am happy being, "Not that kind of Mum!"

Teen Troubles

Lately, it's been quite a roller coaster around my house. It isn't something that can be blamed on my babies, either.

Back around his birthday, my eldest starting having super adverse reactions to his ADHD medication.

It started with the misplacement of his Nintendo DS, or at least that is the event that really showed that something was amiss.

My child has every piece to every toy that he has ever had, literally. They may not be kept in the exact same location as one another, but a piece can matched with its mate fairly quickly.

He NEVER loses anything, 'til now. To add insult to injury, he doesn't really know if he lost his DS or if he took it to school and it got stolen.

He honest to God cannot remember. It was so bad, that one day he came into the dining room and confessed having broken the house rule of having taken the DS to school and that he has faced the consequence by losing it and was asking for his house punishment.

The next day, I found him rummaging through his bedroom and the garage frantically searching for the missing DS because in reality, he had no earthly idea what became of it.

When I sat him down and talked to him, I discovered that he had been falling asleep on the school bus every afternoon on the way home from school.

This behaviour had been going on for weeks, and he had assumed that it was normal and was living with it.

I felt awful. Over the next week, I noticed that not only was he sleeping on the way home from school, but that he just could not stay awake in the evenings at home, either.

Then, one weekend, it happened. I experienced "Zombie child" behaviour first hand. I had always heard about the adverse affects of ADHD medication, but I had never in my life expected something so awful.

My child came home from school, and just vegetated. He lay on my couch and stared at the wall for literally hours on end.

The television was on, but he couldn't watch it. His siblings tried to get his attention, sometimes even climbing up on top of him, but he didn't seem to notice.

After the babies went to sleep, I tried snapping him out of it, but NOTHING worked. I even tried to get him to run to Wal-mart with me at 9 p.m. at night (usually something he would have found funny and jumped at the opportunity of going) but he would not budge.

The entire weekend went that way. Monday, I put a call into his Doctor's office about him having adverse reactions to his medication.

The only call back that I received was to schedule a re-evaluation of his situation by the clinic where he sees that doctor, which was to be the following Friday.

I had thought that they might help us or that we might find out something from his doctor by then.

We went in for the evaluation, were told that our case was a priority because of the bad side-effects that he was experiencing, and that the doctor would be calling us shortly.

I finally had to make the decision to take him off of the medication myself so that he could function enough to stay awake at school.

The doctor NEVER did call me back. The only correspondence that we received from the office was a letter referring us back to our pediatrician saying that because my child was not aggressive, violent, or mentally unstable that they could not help us.

So, here we are, without any sort of medication, flying solo in a world of distraction. My child did poorly this past 9 weeks on his grades because the brunt of it was spent on that high dosage of medication that was having the opposite of the desired effect and scary side effects to boot.

Now, we are working together to try and find ways that he can teach himself to focus without the medication in some attempt to get his grades up.

When we had the re-evaluation with the clinical manager at that doctor's office, we were informed that our diagnosis may be off, but that he just could not tell us anything because he wasn't licensed to do so.

I do not have any idea where to start anymore. The teachers were the ones who decided that he had ADHD and all of the questionnaires sent to them by the doctor were filled out to that affect.

His symptoms off of the medication are mainly concentration and focusing. He isn't really hyper and never has been unless he was taking that last medication.

We had an incident over the weekend that I do not know whether to blame him for, or chalk it up to lack of concentration and being able to focus.

Last night, I found myself having to ride him about a project that should have been being worked on for the past WEEK.

He had to re-research everything because the original work printed only half of what was on the page (the left half) and it took most of the evening.

Getting him to write a copy that was spelled correctly and not scratched out on was also difficult.

It took us until 11p.m. to get it finished and even then it was not as good as it should have been.

So I am torn. I do not want him to be put on another round of medication that will make things worse, yet I do not know where to start in asking for help.

I only have focus and concentration problems to go off of, and the idea that a clinical manager thinks that he does not have ADHD.

What is a Mum to do?

Oh, The Weird Things We Do For Our Children

As a parent, I have done some pretty bizarre and weird things under the guise of my children's well being.

I have found myself using their play-yard, not to keep them safe inside it, but to keep our Christmas tree and all of its decorations safe inside from all of my babies.

My baby boys became infatuated with my collector's dolls that used to reside inside my grandmother's china cabinet.

They decided to launch a full scale attack on that china cabinet in some attempt to "Free the babies" by attempting to break through the leaded glass with their peek-a-blocks.

In a quandary, I somehow found myself boarding up the china cabinet with cardboard and paper tape.

It wasn't done to save the china cabinet, mind you, but rather to keep my babies from slicing themselves to ribbons if and when the day came that they might penetrate the fortress of glass surrounding the objects of their affection.

Just last week, my husband found himself having to fashion a way to raise our dining room chandelier to keep Kaiden from "Flying" from it or in our language, swinging from it like Errol Flynn.

Kaiden was inconsolable at first over the idea that he might actually be shrinking and never again be able to take "Flight."

Oh, the things we do for our children. I really don't feel so bad, though. I talked to my Daddy the other day.

He has my baby sister's three children at the moment, the youngest of which is two.

As of late, he has been faced with the daunting task of dealing with a little boy who simply does NOT want to keep his clothes on while he sleeps, diaper included.

Of course, this habit in a two year old often results in a very dirty and messy bedroom, especially since little boys take longer to potty train than little girls do!

The solution? Well, Daddy has had to basically give up on the idea of the little boy keeping his pajama's on, however he does want to find a way to keep that diaper in place.

My thrifty Daddy has turned to the most reliable and universal solution known to humans at this time, DUCT TAPE!

Yep, he has taken to having to use duct tape as a sort of belt to keep the little boy's diaper on him at night.

The baby is so used to it, that he automatically will go and get the duct tape when it is time to have his last diaper change before going to down for a nap or for the night.

As parents, we do what we have to do to maintain our children's safety and well, our sanity!

Otherwise Known As "Vivienne The Brave"

For the second day running now, the Beautiful Baby Vivienne has managed to find a way to wake up at 6 a.m. for some reason or another.

I have yet to figure out exactly WHY this is happening, all that I know is that it does!

This morning was the same as yesterday, as husband's alarm clock goes off, so does Vivienne's internal alarm, resulting in a very high pitched wail.

For a moment, she even fooled me into thinking that maybe, just maybe, she was going to go back to sleep.

I was sadly mistaken. I stumbled upstairs to the nursery, plucked Vivie and her baby doll up out of bed, and brought her downstairs and crawled back into my bed.

Usually this will calm her down enough to at least go back to sleep. Not today, there wasn't even a chance of it!

She had very sneakily tucked her contraband sippy cup under her arm and was trying desperately to will it to have some milk in it.

Luckily, her Daddy knew just what she needed and came in at just the right moment with a clean and fresh cup of milk for her.

She was very grateful, but she still did not see any reason to quell her deluge of tears.

Husband, in his haste to try and appease his baby girl, had somehow managed to spill his very large, gi-normous cup of coffee all over the kitchen counter and cabinets....and the floor.

I wouldn't find this out until AFTER he had already left for work, of course!

Now, in his defense, I must say that he did attempt to clean up the mess while trying for another pot of coffee.

The coffee grinder noise scared Vivienne, and she burrowed down into my covers to try and hide from the big scary grinding noise coming from the kitchen.

Meanwhile, between Vivie's tears, and the coffee grinder grinding, I managed to miss the whole spilling event somehow.

This meant that once I ventured out of the bedroom to make blueberry waffles and get baby breakfast ready, that I was met with sticky floors, cabinets and counters.

In his haste, and in his defense, husband had grabbed a towel out of the laundry room and managed to soak up the coffee mess.

But, it left the sticky gooey residue behind in its place, along with a trail of coffee leading to the laundry room, where I discovered the wet towel used to mop up the coffee in the middle of the floor.

This meant that Vivienne the brave would have to endure trials of house cleaning while waiting for her waffle to cook.

Did I mention that the Beautiful Baby Vivienne is deathly afraid of all cleaning implements and products?

Even a seemingly innocent broom can frighten her into bursting into tears. Don't even consider using a Swiffer Mop in her presence.

All acts of cleaning can and will make Vivienne cry. There just isn't much else to it, really.

I was in a quandary. I didn't want to leave the sticky mess any longer than it already had been, yet I didn't want to make Vivienne cry anymore than she had been, either.

I very carefully stood her in the far corner of the kitchen and surveyed the task at hand.

She just stood there, staring, clutching her Little Mermaid Sippy cup under one arm, and her very large Baby doll under the other.

I figured that I should at least try to get everything cleaned up (visions of babies stuck fast to the floor,) so I headed for the laundry room in search of my mop.

Vivienne was very brave. She stood there quietly shushing Baby, patting her head as best as she could without dropping her cup, watching me mop.

She didn't cry at all, but she did have her lower lip out. It was very sad and very square.

I managed to get the ick mopped up and the sticky off of the floor, somehow. The wet towel even finally made it into the washing machine.

I was even able to set a container of Clorox Wipes out on the counter in hopes that it would remind me to scrub the counter and cabinets down after I brought the boys downstairs and changed them.

All of the babies had their breakfast and happily watched their cartoons while I scrubbed the rest of the ick away.

And as for Vivienne, the Brave, she is very proud of conquering her fear of the mop! All in all, it's not a bad start for a Friday morning!

Visiting With Friends

This past week has been a very full one for my tiny trio. On Saturday, they had a big play date with some of our friends.

We had children over ranging in age from almost a year old, to about seven years old.

It was funny, because we have never had a play date while Daddy was at home.

Normally, I would not have thought that this would have made any difference at all.

For whatever reason, though, it made a huge difference in how my tiny trio behaved!

Whenever I tried to go outside to show the bigger kids how to get into the trampoline enclosure, Kaiden would absolutely lose himself and scream as if someone was hurting him.

If I went outside anyways, he just stood at the back door, with his tiny hands up on the glass, crying his baby boy eyes out for me.

But if Daddy came and picked him up, it suddenly would make everything better and those tears would mysteriously disappear, for a time.

At one point, we were all outside in the backyard. Some of us were on the trampoline, while others tried visiting on the back porch.

I was feeling adventurous, and had all three of the babies out on the trampoline, playing.

Daddy walked outside to visit with our friends on the patio, and Kian decided that he needed DADDY!

He made his way over to the netting and stood there all sad and pouty.

He was trying his very hardest to muster some real tears in an attempt to make his Daddy feel very bad about not holding him.

Of course these antics worked like a charm and in no time, Kian was being carried around by his Daddy.

Then Daddy tried to go inside with Kian ONLY, which caused a small uproar amongst his siblings.

Now, where ever Daddy went, all of the babies decided that they wanted to go, too.

It's not easy trying to calm two very sad toddlers down while trying to extract them from the trampoline enclosure, safely.

I did finally manage to get them inside and into their Daddy's presence, but then they noticed that he was still holding Kian.

This would NEVER do, so both Kaiden and Vivienne decided that screaming would be the best plan of attack to entice him to pick them up.

Meanwhile, the Mommies and I were trying to talk like big people, about big people things.

It got very, very interesting for a while there! We did manage to talk a tiny bit about things that did not concern babies, but not too much!

We decided to try again during the week sometime, in hopes that the babies would be more complacent without as many folks around, Daddy included!

All in all, the play date went well. Bregon made a few new friends, and we got to reunite with some old friends.

And maybe, just maybe, we will even get to talk about some big people topics next time!

Averting The E.R. AGAIN!

Yesterday was just not my day. I feel like I spent much of it in some sort of dreamworld, waiting for something awful to happen AGAIN.

I know, you must be thinking, aren't weird and unusual things ALWAYS happening at your house?

You have surely read about my tiny trio's adventures in chandelier swinging, high-wire play-yard rail-walking antics, and even stunts performed on various toy horses that we have.

There was even the incident of Kaiden using his upstairs feet to go downstairs when we first moved into our new house.

Usually, though, these incidences don't seem to happen ALL AT THE SAME TIME anymore.

Well, unless of course one incident is actually a diversion for a bigger and better, more dangerous stunt.

Much like the day when I found Kian tail-gating in the bottom oven, twirling pieces of the chandelier like Mardi Gras beads.

Kaiden used this particular opportunity to give the dining room chandelier a good spin...while he was dangling from it!

What's a Mum to do? I have boarded up the china cabinet, gated off the hallway to keep the babies off of the stairs, inserted plug stoppers into all of the electrical sockets, packed up much of the breakables...

Yet, there are the things that I am finding simply cannot be avoided. I dread these, too.

I have this weird notion that one of these days, I will find myself in the emergency room.

How am I going to be able to explain to the unknowing, unfamiliar doctors and nurses on duty exactly what happened that resulted in one or more of my children getting hurt?

It is one of my biggest fears, really. I just know that they wouldn't understand and that I would end up being accused of child abuse or have something worse happen to us.

I sometimes sit there, thinking about all of those near misses that my kids have, and what I could have done maybe to prevent them.

Yesterday, I had one of those days where things just kept happening. I don't mean hearing that funny metallic noise that means that Kaiden and Kian are on the dining room table playing spin the chandelier, either.

I should have known that I was in trouble before nap time, but I didn't. Kaiden had taken to climbing up onto the recliner arm and perching there next to me while I was holding Vivienne in my lap.

He didn't fall, miraculously enough. I don't know how, but he did manage to keep his balance until I could manage to get one arm around him to protect him.

Kian, meanwhile was practicing stunts on his tricycle which he had walked precariously close to the brick hearth.

It was all good, until nap time, really. We did our usual race for the gate, and then to the bottom of the stairs.

Vivienne was too tired to walk upstairs, yet too silly to allow me to carry her up.

She insisted on my holding her waste while she "Walked up" the entire way. Kian was slowly making his way upstairs, too.

Kaiden had already made it to the top and headed off to the nursery, when it happened.

Kian stopped for whatever reason, and had turned around to look down. In doing so, he managed to lose his balance and started to slide down the stairs.

I had to stand there and try to get Vivienne balanced and set on the landing before I could do ANYTHING at all, really.

Lucky for us, when scary things like this happen, it all seems to happen in slow-motion, so there is plenty of time to think and rationalize.

First instinct was to reach out and try and catch Kian as he slid, but if I had let go of Vivienne, she would have lost her balance and started to fall as well.

I did manage to get her up to the landing (only a few stairs up) and then I basically ran down to try and help Kian.

This is the most AWFUL feeling in the world, knowing that one of your children is getting hurt, but that if you drop everything as instinct tells you to do, that you will harm another of your children by doing so.

This is not the first time that this has happened to me, either. Luckily, Kian managed to stop his fall with his hands and was only a bit shaken and frightened.

I think it actually scared me more than it did him, because he looked at me and told me that he was, "Tough, tough, tough" as he climbed the rest of the way upstairs and headed of to the nursery.

I think I must have just stared at him in disbelief for a moment...I was ecstatic that he was okay, but upset that I hadn't been able to keep him from falling and getting hurt really.

As if that wasn't enough for my day, Kaiden decided to perform another amazing feat while I was trying to get their dinner ready.

He waited until he knew that I was in the kitchen, and his brother Bregon was trying to change a particularly icky diaper of Vivienne's (and she was doing her best to NOT get changed at the time.)

While we were all distracted, he used his rocking horse as a step-stool to try and scale the recliner again.

Apparently, his foot slipped on the plastic of the rocking horse saddle which caused him to lose his footing as he had kicked up to the arm of the recliner.

His head actually made it up to the very top of the back of the recliner, giving an appearance that he was higher up than he really was.

At this point, I had walked into the living room to help with diaper changing, and was just in time to see him fall from what looked like the very top of the recliner onto his back.

He ended up being just fine, but I don't think that I am. I feel awful. These sorts of accidents cannot really be prevented, but it really makes you feel like getting rid of all of the furniture in the house just in case it would help to do so.

Thankfully, the babies are all okay and unharmed. Neither of the boys even has a bruise from their respective tumbles, and each basically got up, dusted themselves off, and took off to do whatever they wanted.

I, on the other hand, have been going over and over yesterday's events, trying to figure out what I could have done differently that might have prevented these things from happening.

I just do not think that the E.R. staff would be very sympathetic to my situation if we somehow found ourselves having to go in for any of my children's bizarre antics.

I am certain that they wouldn't understand my problem of not being able to help one child because I was already holding two of them to begin with, which makes me feel like an awful Mum.

But, for the moment, everyone is really and truly okay, and once again we have managed to avert yet another visit to the E.R. again.

Feeling A Little Adventurous!

I don't know what got into me, but maybe I was feeling a tiny bit adventurous on Friday.

Maybe it was just Mommy guilt, who knows. I decided that if the school board decided to take a snow day without any bad weather in sight, that we should at least take advantage of it.

I packed up my tiny trio along with my eldest son, and headed down to the Boardwalk with the idea of catching a movie.

We had a choice. We could go see, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" or "Alvin & The Chipmunks."

I opted for the latter because, after all, it was Bregon's snow day, and not the babies day off!

The showing was at 2:10, and we left our house at 1:30. I do not know what I was thinking.

I know better than this, I really do. Oh, it wasn't that I didn't allocate enough time for me and my kids to get there or anything.

It was the fact that I had quite forgotten to allocate time for all of the rude, stupid people in the world who get in one's way whenever somebody tries to do anything.

I almost had it made, too. I even had mapped out a game plan on where to park.

I should have gone with my first instinct, and opted to park somewhat illegally under the bridge past the parking garage.

But nope, not me, I decided to do the nice and legal thing, and opt to turn innocently down a regular parking lot aisle.

That was when it happened. The suburban at the end of the aisle was just about to turn onto the main drive in front of the shops when it suddenly decided to floor it in reverse.

I, along with several other cars that were meandering innocently down the same aisle in search of a parking space, did not have anywhere to go, really, except forward.

This suburban thing appeared not to care, and was about to back into me regardless. They had to have been going about 45 and in REVERSE.

They did not appear to see any of us, and showed no signs of braking anytime soon, so I laid on the horn in hopes of avoiding getting hit.

They stopped within inches of my bumper, alright, but they were actually MAD!

They were mad at me for whatever reason. I was just glad that they didn't hit me!

Apparently, they were busy stalking this woman who had been innocently walking to her car (I hadn't seen her because I was more worried about the car racing backwards towards us!)

They actually unrolled their window and demanded her parking space and that she sit there until they were next in line to get it.

We saw something better an aisle over, and wanted to go over there, but the suburban only wanted to sit there and try and block everyone from going anywhere, unaware that I didn't want their parking space!

Eventually, they gave in, and we finally got parked. It only took an extra 15 minutes off of our time, too.

Bregon and I hit the ground running, and managed to make it to the ticket window at the movie theater without having to stop and field questions about the babies.

We had about three minutes to spare by the time it was all said and done. I gave Bregon popcorn money and told him to meet us in the auditorium.

We were very lucky that our handicapped seats weren't taken! We made it just in time, too.

I parked the limo and immediately started fielding questions about my tiny trio as I doled out animal crackers and juice to the babies.

Bregon made it back with the popcorn just as the lights went down. Luckily, I had thought to bring extra cups to dole the popcorn out with!

I hadn't any idea what to expect from the babies, but I was going off of the idea that they would be amused with the funny voices of the chipmunks.

As it turns out, my tiny trio acted better than the little kids sitting behind Bregon who were about 5 or 6 years old.

Kian laughed so hard that he purred during the kitchen scenes. I didn't have any tears from Vivienne at all.

No hair was pulled, nobody kicked anybody else, and everyone stayed happy for the most part.

Kiaden got a little restless towards the end, but he ended up sitting next to his brother in his own chair with a booster seat like a big boy and seemed content.

After the movie, I decided that I should check out the baby stores for pajama's because I never do seem to get down there unless we are going to a movie.

We made an interesting discovery with Kaiden. It would appear that he has this internal switch that goes off whenever we enter any store and pass the security panels by the doorway.

Once we get to that point in any store, he starts to wail inconsolably as if he has something seriously wrong with him.

Once we start to leave, and pass the same point, the wail magically disappears and he is suddenly calm and happy and complacent again.

It got to be a joke with Bregon and I, really. I am sure that others found us a bit odd, but it really was funny to watch Kaiden.

Bregon was wonderful about watching the kids while I ran through the baby stores in search of pajama's.

I must have spent $60 and ended up buying 12 pairs of pajama's in various sizes and 2 t-shirts for Bregon.

At least now, I am set for pajama's through next winter! Kaiden had obviously had more than enough of our outing (he hadn't taken much of his nap earlier, either) so we decided to head home.

As we unloaded everyone into the van, I noticed that we had quite a bit of popcorn trailing from various points of the babies clothing.

Apparently, they had squirled some away for later wherever they could. As I was sitting Vivienne in the van to wait her turn for her car seat, I noticed that a car was starting to back out of the space across from us.

This car apparently did not notice that my stroller was beside my van, and it was headed straight for it.

I had to leave Vivie before I was sure that she was standing (she tumbled into the very stuffed shopping bag.)

Kian was still in the stroller, and that car just did not see him. Luckily, I was able to get to the stroller before the car was completely out all the way.

This is one of those moments that I wish that there was some other way to get my children unloaded safely, but there just isn't any other option.

Even with the assembly line system that Bregon and I had been using, we still run the risk of someone possibly hitting our stroller (the cars on either side were parked very close to us and we couldn't get the doors open and the stroller into the same space, too.

We just were not having any luck with parking lots today! There was one nice thing that happened, though.

While I had the stroller on its side, trying to get all of the popcorn out of it, a man did come up and ask if I needed any help getting it folded up.

He was really super nice and found it funny that I was really not having trouble folding it rather, but I was having a time getting all of the popcorn out!

It was really nice to have someone actually offer to help me instead of trying mow us over! All in all we had a super nice afternoon, in spite of the parking lot troubles!

It's a Yellow Snow-Day...

My eldest child is just ecstatic. There isn't any school today. This gives him a three-day weekend.

After yesterday's water problems in the city of Shreveport, the school board decided to keep the schools closed on Friday, until the water is deemed safe again.

I suppose one might say that they are basically using days normally reserved for bad weather, or "Snow days."

Yesterday, my child came home from school all sorts of giggle-ish and with a sly smile on his face. He was very proud of something.

Apparently, at some point during his day, the kids were told NOT TO DRINK THE WATER!

They weren't exactly told why, so their little minds went to work and came up with an explanation.

From this explanation, a new term has come to light, "Mexican water."

This is supposed to mean something similar to the disclaimer used by some Mexican restaurants around town that is meant to be funny and can be found written across the bottom of their menu's.

This disclaimer normally reads, "Don't drink the water!" So, the kids at my child's school have come up with the idea that because they have been advised just that, that the city water must be like the kind you get in Mexico.

Then, the children seem to have spent the remainder of their day defining exactly what this must mean.

Since the treatment of our city water isn't exactly up to par at the moment, they have determined that it must have sewage in it, hence it is "Yellow" in color and must have urine and excrement mixed in with it.

Of course, you have to understand that this was the highlight of their usually dull school-day.

They all spent the rest of their day policing each other, trying to remind their friends NOT to forget and drink from the water fountain as is the normal habit.

Of course there is always the poor kid who forgets. Those children of course were informed IMMEDIATELY by their well-meaning friends as to the contents and new label of the water that they had just consumed.

This practice seemed to fill up most of the rest of their day. I think the other bit must have been spent watching and waiting for school to be dismissed early.

Even the school childlren knew that this would become inevitable since the water pressure was bad and the water was undrinkable.

So, once my eldest got home, he of course was all too excited to fill me in on the details of the day.

I was given a list of those poor, unfortunate souls who accidentally drank the water after they had been warned not to do so.

We also had a very informative conversation as to the potential contents of the water, and he even ran to show me that it looked a slightly different color (it looked like water to me!)

Every time he went to the bathroom, I was informed, quite gleefully, that he was contributing to our "Mexican water" each time he flushed the potty.

I suppose that I should be grateful, really. I mean, most days I have trouble getting him to REMEMBER to flush...

He was very anxiously awaiting the determination and ruling that school would be cancelled on Friday, so I kept a watchful eye on the website, waiting for the update.

Once it came, I just walked to the living room window and waived his Gameboy and PSP in the air so that he could see them from where he was, outside jumping on the trampoline.

When he came inside to see what was up, he asked, "What, are you trying to bribe me to change dirty diapers, or something?"

He was very ecstatic to find that the school board had opted to use what is normally called a "Snow day" for Friday and that there would be no school for that day.

This meant that he could play his video games and watch movies and all as if it were the weekend. He was going to have two Saturdays!

In his excitement over the "Snow day," he did come up with one more tiny way to describe his newly earned three-day weekend.

If the "Snow day" was being taken because of the water still being dirty, then it must be a, "Yellow snow day!"

Today, he has insisted upon wearing his t-shirt around the house that has a dog with his leg lifted on it, standing next to what appears to be a snow-bank.

The dog on his shirt is sporting a sheepish grin, and the shirt gives a sort of public service announcement. It reads, "Don't eat yellow snow."

Ah, the wonders of being a teen-ager! Remember, "Don't drink the water!"

What Is So Alluring About My Dining Room Table?

Okay, so exactly what is so alluring about my dining room table? Why are my little boys so adamant about being on top of it?

I know it's not the availability of leftovers. My table stays virtually food-free in between meals!

It cannot be the various nifty things found on top of most dining room tables, either.

I have long since removed the lazy susan, the salt & pepper shakers, the basket full of tempting paper napkins, and anything else of interest to a curious toddler or three!

Yet, they still feel compelled to try and climb up onto that table. Why, oh why?

I have tried everything and anything that I can think of to deter them from getting up there.

I have removed all sources of temptation from the top of it. I have even gone so far as to move all of the dining room chairs (and there are ten of those) AWAY from the table.

Three of them have feeding chairs strapped to them which render them all but completely useless for climbing purposes.

Two chairs are lined up along the wall next to the back door, while two are on either side of the china cabinet.

Three of the chairs are kept along the wall across from the doorway to the hall, making the move to the table very daunting for any toddler.

Yet, they still find ways to get up on top of that table. Kian is the designated furniture mover.

I thought we were going to be okay until he figured out that there is a support bar across the bottom front of each chair that is just perfect for him to grab onto and drag that chair across the floor long distances.

It's nothing for Kian to grab a chair and just pull it across the floor at his leisure. Apparently that bar is very strategically placed for that reason alone, or so it seems!

Yesterday, both of the baby boys climbed up to "Read" a little pamphlet that came in one of their Christmas toys.

Kian was content to read the comic part, while Kaiden immediately set about shredding his half of the little book.

Once Kai was finished shredding, he decided to play with his new favorite toy, the chandelier.

Now, that chandelier has been attached to that ceiling since I was about four years old and my grandmother had renovated this house.

It's been up there basically for the past thirty years. I am seriously worried that Kaiden is going to be the one to bring it down for the first time in years!

My dilemma is, how exactly do I stop this from happening? I have tried telling him that it is going to break, that it is breakable, and that it will hurt if it falls on his head.

No, I am not telling him all of that at one time. This is becoming quite a common occurrence and I just pick a phrase each time it happens, varying for my sanity's sake.

He looks at it while we talk it over, and nods in agreement, and says, "Oohhh" as if he understands.

Then not five minutes later, he is back to playing with his favorite chandelier AGAIN.

I have yet to find a toy or an activity that is effective in redirecting his attention. Really, my problem is, that he just does NOT forget anything that he wants to do.

He can sit in time out for a few minutes, and then be sat down with a cool toy that he seems interested in playing with, only to still manage to remember that he had wanted to play with that chandelier.

He is also convinced that it will help him FLY! I had hoped not to have this flying problem until he was older.

Now I worry because I live in a two story house! I am seriously dreading his deciding to play "Superman" or some other flying hero.

What's a Mum to do? How would you keep your child from hanging from the chandelier? I would appreciate any and all solutions!

Sharing a Mommie: The Three-way Split

Something has been happening as of late. I suppose it has always happened in my family, but I think that I am noticing it more now that my babies are toddlers.

Anyone with more than one child knows what it's like to have your kids demand your attention at the same time.

And, I know first hand, how hard it is to appease them when they each decide that they need you NOW!

I often times wonder if it is any different for Mums having more than one child of varying ages than it is for me having three of the exact same age.

After all, my husband and I have conquered feeding three all at the same time, sometimes even doing it solo.

We have mastered bathing three babies, dressing them, changing their diapers (yes, multiples really do EVERYTHING together including soiling their nappy's!)

The only thing that I haven't quite mastered is teaching them that it is okay to SHARE THE MOMMY!!!!

This morning, I heard Kian start to have a meltdown in the living room.

I decided to go ahead and see what the frustration was, and ran in to see if I could make him a bit happier.

As it turns out, he was sitting in the recliner with a Christmas toy that had bad batteries in it, still (the horrors!)

The silent toy had him all out of sorts, so I went ahead and ran to the rescue armed with a butter knife and a fresh set of batteries.

He was delighted at first. He and I sat in the huge recliner together, checking out all of the nifty things that the new toy does.

Our baby-Mommy moment only lasted a few minutes. It was interrupted by Kaiden taking notice of the cool music and pretty blinking lights coming from the new toy.

He came running over, and scaled up the side of the recliner and one of my legs with the skill of an experienced mountain climber.

Before I really could realize what had happened, he was sitting perched on one of my knees, his thumb in his mouth, playing with the half of the toy that faced him.

Kian was left still sitting in my lap with only half of a toy available to him, and apparently not near enough of his Mum to himself.

Of course, in typical Kaiden fashion, he had managed to toss one of his legs over Kian's to where he was also technically sitting in part of Kian's lap as well.

We have long since dubbed Kai our little personal space invader, as this is his usual habit which he takes such a delight in doing!

Kian's lower lip went square and the crocodile tears began to fall. Pretty soon, he was all snotty, which made him even more upset (he doesn't like ick of any sort.)

Kai remained oblivious to the entire thing, finding Kian's reaction completely natural and apparently normal and to be expected.

Since it was nearly nap time, Kaiden decided to throw himself around to where he was facing me, and burrow his head into my shoulder, regardless of poor Kian still sitting in my lap.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not comfort Kian and calm him down. It was all that I could do not to let either of the boys fall out of my lap, really.

Kian kept trying to wriggle out from under Kaiden. Kiaden couldn't decide whether he wanted to snuggle more, or play with that really super cool toy.

Then, Vivienne, who had been playing quietly with her dollie and her doll furniture, decided to come and try and join us.

Apparently a good snuggle seemed like the order of the day for my tiny trio. The only problem was, that my lap was more than full.

That fact was lost on Vivienne, who feels that there is ALWAYS room enough for everyone regardless of logistics.

She just surveyed the situation a little bit longer before attempting to scale the recliner and find a spot on top of us.

So, there I was, sitting in my mother's recliner, under a pile of Christmas toys and babies.

I was in quite a quandary, really. If I tried moving, somebody might fall. Then again, if Kaiden or Kian decided to move, Vivienne might fall.

I only had two arms, and they were both supporting the boys at that very moment. Thankfully, I could tell time by what was playing on the television.

The "Wonder Pets" were rolling their end credits, meaning that it was 10 o'clock and definitely nap time.

Hoping for the best, I decided to ask the babies if they wanted to go, "Night, night" and go to sleep.

Kaiden gasped, and began to scramble down from the body pile in my lap. Somehow, he managed NOT to upset or topple anybody.

His feet hit the ground running as he made his way to the hallway baby gate.

Vivienne also hopped down and tried making a beeline for the baby gate.

She got all the way there before remembering that she had forgotten her baby in her haste. Where ever Vivie goes, so goes baby.

Meanwhile, the mass evacuation had given me a chance to actually get to hug Kian properly which calmed him down enough to want to make the same trek that his siblings were making.

Nobody wants to lose the race to the stairs at my house! When I opened that gate, Kian took off as fast as he could, leaving Kai standing by himself at the bottom of the stairs.

He was trying to figure out how best to use the banister to his advantage, when his sister managed to pass him on the landing with baby in tow.

Thankfully, everyone really was ready for a nap and went pretty much happily and of their own volition.

Wow, after that, I really needed nap time to recuperate! What's a Mum to do? Sometimes, one baby needs more attention than the others.

But it's times like these that inspire the other babies to decide that they also need the SAME solo attention!

There are days when Vivienne will absolutely lose it if someone else even climbs up onto the couch and sits next to us while she is in my lap.

You don't even have to touch her to upset her, either. Just the mere presence of a sibling can set off a flurry of tears and Vivie wailing.

I suppose it's the one thing that I never will figure out. I suppose that they might outgrow this Mummie-need rivalry...or not.

Sadly, this problem extends to my husband as well. Lately, Kian has taken to calling him, "My Daddy!"

It is as if he is trying to warn the other babies that their Daddy time is to be vastly limited and not nearly as important as his want and need of it.

Funnier still, they even do this to my eldest son. They adore their big brother as well!

I suppose that it is good to be loved, even if it means that you get looked at as some sort of high-stakes prize that must be split up and time-shared!

10 Memorable Things of 2007

Instead of making New Years Resolutions and such and trying to keep them, my friends and I each make a list of 10 memorable things for the past year.

The sorts of things that make the list can be good, bad or in between. It really doesn't matter as long as they are important to you in some way, shape or form.

So, in no particular order, here are my 1o most memorable things for 2007, good, bad and everything in between.

1. My baby sister came home and is doing well.

2. Kaiden, Kian and Baby Vivienne each finally learned to walk, run and do all of the scary things that come with knowing how to do so & they are HEALTHY, and I now have a TEENAGER to raise....EEK!

3. I lost my best friend that has been around since I was 16 years old.

4. I have gained several new friends through the loss of my best friend (it doesn't make it
better for any of us, but good things are growing out of our friendships.)

5. I no longer drive a four-door sedan. Instead, I have a mini-van that can safely seat my
entire immediate family and still have room for groceries, our limo-sized stroller, the baby
booster seats, and a friend or so for my eldest.

6. We now live in a much bigger house than the tiny 2 bedroom, delapidated cottage that we started out in!

7. I have put together and brought to fruition a project that is almost 15 years in the making
and it's gaining strength by the day.

8. My house is relatively clean in spite of my tiny trio and their reign of terror, my 13 year old,
and my husband. My father has even admitted this, which means a LOT to me!

9. I am making Mommie friends and even have some folks that I can invite over for play dates
who won't run screaming in terror when they see or meet my kids!

10. I finally was able to have my family over on Christmas Eve for the first time EVER and they
actually came, and seemed to enjoy themselves.

I challenge each of you to make a list of your own. It's harder than it looks, especially if you try and include the ENTIRE year instead of just the past few months!

Kian The Great!

Kian has always been a little slower to develop than his two siblings for some reason or another.

It's not that there is anything to be done about it, really. It's all just part of being a preemie and a member of a group of triplets.

He was born weighing the exact same as his brother, however instead of the little doll body that Kaiden came into the world with, Kian rather had a "Jack Skellington" physique.

He only started growing outward when he was about a month old. It was funny, really.

The nurses joked about how he waited until he knew that he was going home to start growing for me.

I thought that he would never figure out how to sit up on his own, and really he couldn't sit from a laying position until he was about a year old.

The physical therapist checked everyone over when they were six months old, just to make sure everyone was doing as they should be.

They all swore that the muscles were there, and that he could use them, if only he had the will to do so.

He just was a different sort of guy, that's all! Instead of sitting up, or attempting to crawl, he would rather roll onto his belly, arch his back, and put his arms out to his side and rock back and forth like an airplane, making buzzy noises.

Eventually, he finally did crawl. He did so more out of the necessity to catch his brother than anythying.

Kaiden tortured him relentlessly. He would cruise around the play-yard gate and crawl really super fast around Kian in circles, almost daring him to do something.

Kian was a whole eighteen months before he finally decided that it was okay to walk, too.

But at least he wasn't the last to learn to walk, as he had been with sitting and crawling!

This brings me to his latest accomplishment. Kian actually made it all the way to 21 months having only 8 teeth in his little boy head.

I was really starting to worry, too. Everybody else had a head full of teeth.

In fact, Kaiden has so many teeth that I don't think he really has any more room for new teeth in there (just call him "Jaws!")

This didn't bother Kian at all. Having only 8 teeth doesn't mean that you can't share your dental imprints with others just as well as someone with a head full can!

It just means that you get caught MORE than your siblings because your imprints are more sparse than the usual sets that I find!

Well, he finally did it. In fact, I suspect that he might have actually asked Santa for his molars this Christmas when nobody was looking.

Last week, he managed to cut no less than five new teeth, three of which are MOLARS!!!

Don't worry, they aren't all completely in all of the way just yet. Two of the new teeth are the sharp, pointy kind that are super painful and slow in coming in completely.

The worst part about it, is that after those pesky teeth finish poking through the gum, the rest only gets bigger and bigger and it appears to hurt more and more as it breaks through fully.

Kaiden and Vivienne gave us all sorts of sleepless nights for about three months trying to get theirs in.

Thankfully, Kian seems to sleep somewhat better knowing that he is getting new teeth and more of them!

He has only kept us up about three days with his latest endeavors. Poor little guy, he does try to keep in a good mood over it all, though!

It's really hard to get frustrated with someone who is always smiling at you and giving you hugs and kissies.

Well, then there is the time he decided to try and steal my pillow...but that was only once, and he gave it back when he decided that my knee made a much better one than the real thing.

I knew that teething was going to be interesting this time around, but I never realized that it would be this different.

Who knew that anyone could manage to cut so many teeth all at the same time successfully? I suppose that's why we call him, "Kian, the great!"

Finally, Broadening Our Horizons!

It has finally happened. I am fairly certain that it might be safe to say that my tiny trio have agreed that new foods are not harmful or bad.

Used to, they only would eat things with which they were already familiar, such as bananas and chicken strips.

Lately, however, I have been sneaky and have found ways to introduce new foods that are quickly becoming favorites.

How did I manage this feat of epic proportions with three toddlers to please?

First off, I knew that I had to keep serving the usual fair at the usual time of day each was expected.

We still eat waffles for breakfast every morning. The difference now is that they are blueberry, and are accompanied by different cereals to try each morning.

In this way, I have managed to wean them off of solely eating Cheerio's and have introduced them to the wonders of the different variations of Chex cereals and even a Fruit Loop here and there.

Lunch must still consist of a chicken strip, cut into tiny bits and pieces. Kian also will still request his favorite "Fwench Fwies" to accompany his "Chickie," too.

However, as of late, nobody is protesting to my adding a bit of ham or turkey here and there for something different.

For dinner, we have somehow integrated the use of forks and spoons along with little cute bowls full of anything from chicken noodles to macaroni and cheese.

Gone are the days of drawn and quartered hot dogs served next to tiny cubes of cheese and tortilla bits.

They have progressed to the wonders of Ravioli and sometimes even a bit of left over stir-fry.

Our snacks have really changed, as well. Used to, it was Cheerios all the way.

Now, the babies have developed a taste for tiny cheese crackers, a glowing Ritz cracker addiction, and even the occasional (very very occasional) baby Oreo cookie.

I have even discovered a nifty snack mix. Cheerios makes it, and it is similar to what we used to make at Christmas time and called "Nibbles" in my family.

Cheerios Snack mix comes in regular and cheese flavors, and has all sorts of nifty things in it like little cracker twists, pretzels, and even a sort of Melba toast in miniature.

My kids love this stuff and could sit there and eat it all day long, if I let them!

Of course, I don't let them, but they would certainly like to try if I wasn't watching them like a hawk!

They still love their old favorites, too, such as their baby flavored Goldfish and plain Teddy Grahams.

Another Holiday find, is that they adore pumpkin bread of any sort. I have found that if I buy a generic pumpkin bread mix, and cut it with a basic yellow cake mix, I can make a batch of 6 loaves, freeze some, and have happy babies for about a month!

They like to eat it with their dinner, usually, because they can easily spear it with their new Backyardigan's forks!

It's amazing how fast their little taste buds have grown over the past few months.

They have even cultivated a love of oranges, thanks to a thoughtful neighbor of ours who brought us a few the other day!

Now, if I can only find a way to keep them from sharing their new-found favorite foods with one-another across the table via flight, I just might be in good shape!

Define "Safe"

Okay, so for Christmas, Santa Claus brought all four of my little people a trampoline to share.

I KNEW that Bregon would be ecstatic, as he has wanted one of these since he was four and our friends in Tyler had one that he borrowed every weekend.

I figured that the babies would adore it, too. After all, they had always enjoyed anything and everything that allowed them to boingy their way through life.

It never occurred to me that my boingy-est baby, my daredevil Kaiden, would manage to actually be afraid of it.

After sitting on my back porch for almost an entire week because of the rain and mud, husband finally was able to get up enough gumption to grab my eldest and attempt assembly.

The whole thing went up in under an hour, as opposed to the many reviews and advice that we had read online about having to be a rocket scientist to get the whole thing assembled and together safely.

My eldest, Bregon, immediately hopped up into the enclosure and spent the evening bouncing and boingy-ing away.

Eventually he came inside with a request for hot chocolate because his insides were even cold, poor dear!

The next afternoon, Bregon and I dressed the babies, put their socks on, and toted everyone outside to the trampoline.

The entire time we dressed them, we talked about going outside to bounce on our new boingy machine.

Kian went inside first. Bregon had to climb up with him to get him moved away from the doorway so that we could get Kaiden and Vivienne inside, too.

All three babies just sat there, with lower square lips out, staring at us with the biggest baby eyes.

I very carefully and gently started to bounce the mat a little so that they would get the idea of what it was for.

That was when Kaiden did it. He looked DOWN. Not only could he see his little doggie bouncing up underneath us in an attempt to try and come up too, but he could see THE GROUND!

I suppose for him, it must have been very much like someone having to walk out over a canyon on bridge that could be seen through or something.

He was SCARED! He jumped up in fright, and tried to run to me, but only ended up getting bounced a bit before he tripped and fell into me.

I did manage to catch him somehow, but his mouth was already open in one of his very super sonic silent screams that is so loud that no sound can come out!

He just stood there, clutching me as tightly as he could, trying to get himself together.

Kian and Vivienne just watched him. Finally, Vivienne tried standing up. She found her balance fairly quickly, too.

Pretty soon, she was walking very fast (almost running) in circles around all of us, laughing the entire way.

Kian never would stand up, but he crawled around behind her, chasing her and giggling as well.

Poor Baby Kai, all he could do was stand there and clutch my shirt with both hands and sniffle.

I was finally able to stand up and he did let me hold his hands (tightly) and bounce very gently.

It's really funny, though. I cannot get over Kaiden being afraid of the trampoline. This is the child who finds it fun to walk around the top of his play-yard gate.

Kaiden is also the one who prefers to ride his Bounce & Spin Zebra while standing on the saddle part, jumping on it as it spins 'round in circles.

Yes, this is the very same little daredevil who was found swinging from my grandmother's very old, antique, dining room chandelier just last week.

He felt perfectly safe scaling the dining room table and standing on the points of his toes to reach the very edge of the chandelier arms, yet he doesn't feel safe sitting on the super-enclosed, extremely sturdy, trampoline.

Kaiden was even the first to figure out and scale the new tricycle. He loves to bounce on his new rocking-spring horsie too.

I have really learned something about toddlers this week. They have their very own, very different definition of "Safe."