A Bigger House Means Big Changes!

My tiny trio has grown so much over the past two weeks. What a huge difference a move can make in their little lives!

Recently, we moved into a much larger house in hopes that some of our problems would iron themselves out. It's probably much too early to tell if it has worked, yet, however the kids have really grown by leaps and bounds which is a really good sign.

Our old house was only 2 bedrooms with a little sun porch off of my bedroom which we turned into the babies' nursery. It was big enough for the three baby beds and their wardrobe and dresser too, but just barely.

Our sleeping arrangement meant that if one baby woke up, they had a HUGE chance of waking up their sibling(s) either through sheer noise level or by tossing toys at them or shouting, "Up! Up! Up!" which was not all that uncommon either.

This also meant that one or more babies often ended up sleeping in MY bed just so the rest of us could get SOME sleep, which is a really bad habit to get into (I despise co-bedding for a myriad of reasons, but necessity called for it sometimes.)

Our new house has much larger rooms. All three babies still share a room, but the beds are spaced much further apart and each basically has its own wall which cuts down on the noise problem (sounds odd yet tis so true!)

Even though they have been sick for the past week or so, they have managed to pretty much not wake each other up if one has a problem late at night.

They have also learned new words such as "Upstairs" and "Downstairs" from having an upstairs room.

I have been able to fold up their much to tiny play-yard and let them just run around rampant in our new living room and dining area, too.

Having this much space for the babies to play in has resulted in less incidences of biting and hair pulling, too! Before, when they were confined to the play-yard, everyone sported their sibling's dental imprints on their little arms and legs.

Another interesting perk is that within only a few hours of being in the new house, Kian took off and started walking, never to stop!

I really was excited for a few hours until I realized that this meant that I now had 2 walking babies and that they each often would walk opposite directions of each other! This has also made their games of chase REALLY interesting.

On a funny note, the boy's tag games may have made Vivienne a bit more cautious about learning to walk. I have caught her taking a few steps here and there, but never for very long and never consistently.

I don't know if I should be worried about this, or if I should just be glad that only 2 out of 3 can walk so far!

The babies have learned what a "Kitchen" is and that pyrex dishes make the most interesting clanking noise when moved about. Mumsy has learned that cabinet closures will soon become HER friend!

Kai has figured out that there are many fun cabinets and doors in the new house and that each one should contain at least one object belonging to him.

I have run across sorting shapes in the pyrex cabinet, clean diapers stashed in the pots & pans cabinet, and even found Vivienne shut into the dark pantry with a little light-up tape measure toy that Kai had use to lure her into it so that he could practice shutting the door!

Lucky for me, they really haven't mastered the art of using a door knob just yet. That time is coming faster than I realize, I do fear.

The babies have come such a long way in such a short time. It's amazing that such a small change as moving into a new house can have such a profound affect on their development.

A Mumsy's of Multiples Best Friend

One of the very first people to give me actual triplet baby advice was one of my nurses from the labor and delivery floor at Schumpert where I delivered.

At the time, the advice seemed a bit, well, dated. After all, I had just given birth and had yet to even meet my tiny trio…Very tiny trio, actually.

I suppose that’s why I filed it in the furthest most depths of my very oxygen deprived mind, never to surface again until one day…

As you all know, we have been in the process of moving for the past three weeks. I know what you’re probably thinking. How can it possibly take anyone that long to move?

Well, as it just so happens, husband is working full-time and has two different shows that he is also working on in his spare time. Oh, and did I mention that I have triplets?

I also have a twelve-year-old too, but he spent this past weekend at Six Flags with his best friend. (What sort of mum would I be if I had said no?)

Basically, knowing all of this (save for the Six Flags trip which was nearly spontaneous,) I had started packing up the old house as soon as I knew we were moving into the new one.

I packed up EVERYTHING that wasn’t being used and some things that were. For the past three weeks we have had a lot of fast-food and eaten off of many a paper plate!

Everyday, once my eldest got home from school, I would start taking things over to the new house.

Every night after the babies were fed and put to bed and all was quiet, I would run over and unpack what I had moved earlier that day. When my husband would get home from rehearsal, he would also take loads over, too.

As you can see, this went very, very VERY slowly as necessity dictated that I attempt to clean and pack while quieting fighting babies who had become much to big to share one extra-huge, much- extended play-yard.

When the weekend came for my sisters-in-law to help us move the big stuff (furniture and such,) they were actually very surprised at just how much we had managed to move already.

At this point, I was still keeping the babies at the old house, safe in their play-yard so that they wouldn’t be accidentally trampled by everyone trying to move the large furniture.

Then the day came, our official moving day, our first day in the new house. This meant that the babies would no longer be confined to their play-yard in the living room.

I had very artfully placed the pots and pans in the huge bottom cabinet just so they could discover them and get to play with them, and all of the downstairs electrical sockets had been covered in anticipation of tiny scientists trying to discover electricity.

What I didn’t count on, was that within only a few hours of us being over in the new house, that Kian would decide it was time to get mobile like the big kids and WALK. Yep, Kian walked, A LOT!!!!

This meant that I now had 2 very mobile babies. I had been spoiled by only having one baby which meant that I hadn’t any clue that once I had 2 or more walkers, I would be in TROUBLE!

To Be Continued.....

Pantry Moving Revelation

We are currently in the process of moving to a bigger house. Over the course of packing and weeding out the things we really just do not need anymore, I made a startling discovery.

I know it’s a strange thing to start with, but on this particular day I had run out of things to pack up that weren’t in the bedroom near the babies. So, I turned to my kitchen of all places.

I opened my pantry door, and decided to start organizing and boxing the things we just really do not use or need right now. I discovered that I had 8 boxes of Cheerios.

These weren’t ordinary boxes, either. These are the 36oz, double-bagged super-duper extra-huge boxes. I had the equivalent of 16 large-sized boxes of cereal in my pantry (plus one newly opened one on my counter!)

Now, we do go through a lot of cereal each month. We get one huge box per child per month from having the WICC program. I really do not know how the state can possibly expect a toddler to consume that much cereal in one month, but apparently they think it’s very possible.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for this program. It’s just that I am amazed, knowing how much the kids really do eat and waste from being babies each month, and I am quite certain that we could NEVER possibly eat that much cereal.

Next, I noticed that I had over 25 cans of evaporated milk sitting on my shelf. I don’t normally cook with evaporated milk unless its Christmas time. I can tell you that we will probably be making a LOT of fudge this Christmas!

Then there is the case of the pound of beans or peas we get for each child per month. I know that I have only ever cooked one pound for them. They adored the black-eyed peas, too. In fact, we STILL have some in our freezer from that original pound that I figured out how to cook one weekend.

It made so much food, that I have been hesitant to cook anymore as we STILL have leftovers! A friend of mine who also has quite a collection of dried beans and peas in her pantry has decided that we really should get together and pool them.

We have decided to either put them in a shallow wading pool and put it in the backyard as a make-shift sand box for our kids, or make dried soup mix bags and give it out as Christmas gifts this year.

I haven’t even opened our fridge yet. Then again, I know that since it quit cooling a few weeks ago (in anticipation of our moving I think it just gave up on us) that I had to throw out 8 dozen eggs that had potentially gone bad. I was afraid to test them on anyone to find out if they were any good or not after not knowing how long the fridge had been warming up.

It’s amazing the things we accumulate over time in our pantries. I could open my own grocery store soon if this had kept up. As it is, my fellow WICC recipient Mom’s and I plan on brainstorming for new and innovative uses for our surplus goods.

Our apologies in advance as our closest friends, acquaintances, and maybe even the mail man, will most likely be getting a festively adorned Holiday Gift Basket from us this Holiday Season.

It will come well stocked with some sort of Cheerio/Chex mix adaptation, some yummy fudge made from our evaporated milk, and possible some brownies or cookies from our surplus eggs supply (the babies only eat eggs if husband cooks them & that only happens on weekends)…

We even promise to come up with some nifty soup recipe to include in our very interesting yet oddly alluring dried bean & peas soup-mix included in your gift basket!

‘Till then, I am very creatively going to plan out my new pantry with all of those surplus boxes and bags. If I do it right, I may be able to make extra shelving space if I stack the boxes a certain way…After all, waste not, want not!