2 Year Appointment

The boys had their 2 year doctor's appt this morning.  Despite not having to get any shots, they were NOT fans.  Three screaming two year olds in one small room for an hour and a half is about as much fun as it sounds.  The sucker they got afterwards made everything just a little better though.

Our stats: 

Ollie - Weight: 28.5 lbs (50-75th percentile), Height: 33.5 in (25th percentile), Head Circumference: 20 in (95th percentile)

Nolan - Weight: 24.5 lbs (10th percentile), Height: 32.75 in (10th percentile), Head Circumference: 21 in (>95th percentile)

Lucas - Weight: 23.5 lbs (5th percentile), Height: 32.75 in (10th percentile), Head Circumference: 21 in (>95th percentile, though this may not have been very accurate as he was screaming and flailing when they did it...I feel like his head is still smaller than Nolan's)

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I asked our doctor if she was concerned about the little boys' size (particularly Lucas) and she said she wasn't.  She said as long as they're growing on their own curve, they're fine.  I was happy to hear that.

Nolan's head growth has slowed down which was reassuring.  

I brought up a concern we've been having about Ollie.  He has been occasionally waking up with blue lips.  She recommended getting an echo-cardiogram which we will have done at Children's Mercy this Thursday.  Please pray his results come back with no issues.

The Day My Two-Year-Old Triplets Were the Best Behaved Kids at Chick-fil-A

This story deserves a little bit of background.  This morning I decided it'd be a good idea to get the boys out of the house since we didn't go anywhere yesterday. I was going to take them to the Parents as Teachers play group which we usually do once a week if we don't have anything else going on.  So I got everyone ready and out the door.  We got there only a few minutes late, only to realize I didn't have the wagon nor my Hold-on Handles with me.  I considered trying to get in the door without either but since I didn't have a very good parking spot, I decided it probably wasn't a good idea.  So I turned around and drove back home to get the handles.  Play group only lasts an hour, so I knew that it wouldn't be worth going back.  I decided instead to go to the open gym at one of our local churches. I checked online to make sure they didn't have any events going on, and sure enough they were closed for the week.  Glad I didn't drive the 20 minutes there to find this out!

I was starting to feel defeated and considered just staying home...but then I finally settled on going to the Chick-fil-A play place. When we got there, I went through the drive-thru to grab myself an iced coffee, then I parked, got everyone out of the van, had them grab their handles, and headed into the restaurant.  People, of course, stared and commented, as they always do.  We got into the enclosed play area and I took their shoes off and set them free to play.  My goal was to be able to finish my coffee before someone had a meltdown and we had to leave.

The boys were actually playing pretty nicely despite the fact that it was really loud with all the screaming children running around.  Ollie was up in the play structure playing with one of his little cars when I heard him start crying.  I looked up to see what was wrong.  I couldn't pinpoint it right away but a little 3 year old girl told me another boy took his car.  Shortly after this, I saw a matchbox car come down the slide.  I walked over there to grab it, right as a four-year-old boy came whooshing down and snatched it up before me.  I went over to him and said, "Hey, that's my little boy's favorite car.  He's really sad that you took it.  Can you please give it back?"  I opened up my hand with a friendly smile and he ran away with it.  I looked around for his mom to come in and intervene.  Of course, I was the only parent actually in the play area at that time.  He ran up the play area, almost stepped on Ollie, then came down the slide again...death-gripping the car.  This time I wasn't quite as nice.  "Hey, buddy...that car doesn't belong to you.  You need to give it back, please."  At this point, I reached toward the car in his hand.  He yanked his hand away and ran off again.  I was getting rather frustrated at this point since Ollie was still crying.  So I pulled a second car out and gave it to him to calm him down.  You better believe I wasn't going to leave though, without getting that little yellow car back from the bratty kid.  He was starting to figure out I wasn't a Momma to be messed with, sohe started hanging out in the top of the play structure rather than coming down the slide again to face me.  I decided to wait it out.  He had to come down sometime.  Finally he did and I reached out for the car and said, "Give it to me now or I'm going to go talk to your mom?"  He was contemplating when his mom finally came in and said "Are you playing nicely?"  I told her that he took my two-year-old's car and made him cry.   The meanie four-year-old gave the car to his mom and she gave it back to me.  Don't mind that she didn't even ask her child to apologize.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I guess.

Fortunately they soon left and we were able to enjoy a little more playtime before heading home. Allow me to paint a picture of how well-behaved my kids were being during this time.  They went back and forth between playing with their cars, "talking" to each other, and just running around playing.  Ollie made a girlfriend with the little three-year-old who came to his rescue earlier on. Nolan kept dancing to whatever music that happened to be playing in his head.  And Lucas kept going up to one of the other moms and giving her little side hugs.  They were being so good!

Getting out of the house with three little ones is never easy, but I do it to keep myself sane.  Often times I come home feeling defeated because one or more of my kids had a huge meltdown.  But days like today give me the confidence and energy to do it all again tomorrow.  Because, dang...I have two-year-old triplets and today...they were the best behaved kids at Chick-fil-A!

And for the record, I DID get to finish my coffee.  Small victories!

The Cutest Thing - Pt. 5

Time for a "cutest thing" update!

The cutest thing about:

Ollie is his "super cheese" face.  Whenever we say "Ollie...SUPER CHEESE!" he gives this giant open-mouth smile thing.  It's ridiculously adorable.

Nolan and his obsession with books.  He LOVES them.  Anytime someone comes over, he will bring a book over to them and crawl in their lap so they'll read it to him.  James comes home from lunch every day and Nolan will make him read him a book before he can eat his lunch.  It's really sweet.

Nolan reading with family friend Kathy Bosch

Lucas is how lovey he has become.  I believe in my last "cutest things" post, I may have mentioned that he would randomly come up to you and give you kisses.  Now, he'll just come up to you out of nowhere and lay his head up against you.  I feel like it's his way of saying "Love you MOM! (or Dad)!"  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of him doing this.

23 Months

We're almost TWO!  Yikes!

weights:

Estimates:

Oliver - 28 lbs

Nolan - 24 lbs and change

Lucas - 23 lbs and change

sizes: 

Oliver - Mostly 24 month/2T clothes, size 5W (or 6 if they aren't wides) shoes, size 5 diapers

Nolan - 18 month clothes, size 4.5 or 5 shoes, size 4 diapers

Lucas - 18 month clothes, size 4.5 shoes, size 4 diapers

teeth:

Oliver - 16 + (bottom left molar over halfway in)

Nolan - 16 + a couple two year molars (bottom ones) starting to poke out

Lucas - 16 + (bottom left molar over half way in) and another working its way through

eating habits: 

Hit or miss.  Ollie still really loves his fruit.  They all love yogurt and none of them particularly care for donuts. Wha'?!?

sleeping habits: 

Overall, most days we're sleeping through the night, but we still have our bad nights.  These past few days naps have gotten worse.  No good...

gross motor: 

No major gains here.  They seem to be on track.  They certainly are FAST!

fine motor: 

I feel like all the boys are doing quite well in this area.  They continue to love shape sorters and puzzles and we are coloring more often now.  Lucas really likes to draw with the magnadoodle.

language/communication (new words underlined)

Oliver - waves, claps, gives/blows kisses, points to his head, hair, nose, mouth, ears, and belly button when asked Signs: all done, milk, more, thank you, daddy, please, eat (7 signs)
Says: mama, dada, hi, hey, uh-oh, auntie, ball, banana, wow, stinky, yeah, three, yea, yellow, gorilla, ow/ouch, wee, Kahlua, Pato, Elly, Loula, baa, Ollie, baby,  shoes, all gone, car, airplane, bubbles, eat, please, cheese, apple, thank you, water, door (36 verbal words)

Nolan - waves, claps, gives/blows kisses, points to his head, nose, mouth, eyes, ears (kind of), and belly button when asked
Signs: all done, milk, ball, eat, thank you, please, daddy, juice, cereal, mama, water (11 signs)
Says: mama, daddy, ball, all done, book, baa, uh oh, apple, hot dog, cookie, banana, cheese, cracker, shoes, baseball, baby, nose, diaper, papa, toast, hi, more, milk, lights, "dis" (what's this?), please, belly button, door, up, juice, bubbles, bye bye, clock, tree, eat, go, car, milk (38 verbal words)

Lucas - waves, claps, gives/blows kisses, points to nose and belly button when asked

Signs: all done, milk, more, ball, please, thank you, eat, cereal, mama, daddy, water, cracker (12 signs)

Says: mama, dada, done, ball, uh oh, apple, banana, cookie, cupcake, cheese, thank you, more, stinky, go, three, Pocoyo, cracker, please, bye bye, shoes, yea (21 verbal words) These are all words he's said at one point but he's "lost" quite a few of them...currently he only uses about 5 words consistently.  I was looking over some videos that were taken back in January.  He said more then than he does now.  Pretty concerning!

Ollie and Lucas have officially started speech.  I will update about that in a separate post.  Overall, Ollie has really taken off with his vocabulary and in the past month has caught up to Nolan.  Lucas is still really limited in what he says in terms of actual words.  He does babble a lot.  Perhaps he knows another language!

favorite things: 

Oliver - CARS!!!

Nolan - BOOKS!!!

Lucas - MAGNA-DOODLE!!!

challenges: 

TEETHING crankiness, fighting, hair-pulling/pinching (Nolan), head-banging (not as bad as it was though)

special outings/events:

We leave the house pretty much everyday!  Lots of walks, park dates, play places, and visits to the open gym (due to lots of rain).  We had a great time at the arboretum last week!

22 Months

22 months...almost 2!  Yikes!

weights:

Estimates:

Oliver - 27ish lbs

Nolan - 24ish lbs

Lucas - 23ish lbs

sizes: 

Oliver - 18-24 month clothes, some 2T,  size 5W shoes, size 4 diapers (5 overnight)

Nolan - 12-18 month clothes, size 4.5 shoes, size 4 diapers

Lucas - 12-18 month clothes, size 4.5 shoes, size 4 diapers

teeth:

Oliver - 16 

Nolan - 16 + a couple two year molars that have just broken the surface

Lucas - 16 + a couple two year molars that have just broken the surface

eating habits: 

Still picky toddlers.  But apparently they love gnocchi!

sleeping habits: 

This has been better which occasional rough nights.  The last week or two has gotten bad again with Nolan and Lucas.  I'm thinking it's teeth...

gross motor: 

We're climbing up onto things more now (chairs, car seats, etc).  Both Nolan and Lucas can crawl up onto the couch on their own now.  They're all really good at climbing up our play set out back and they've all started climbing up our slide on our kangaroo climber.  Nolan's new favorite thing is to climb up on the car wash toy but then cry because he can't get back down.

The boys can also finally go forward on their ride-on toys now!

fine motor: 

Nolan has become quite the pro at stacking blocks.  He can make a block tower taller than he is!  All three boys have gotten really good at puzzles and shape sorters.  Ollie is especially talented in this area.

language/communication (new words underlined)

Oliver - waves, claps, gives/blows kisses, points to his head, hair, nose, mouth, ears, and belly button when asked, signs all done, milk, more, thank you, daddy & says mama, dada, hi, hey, uh-oh, auntie, ball, banana, wow, stinky, yeah, three, yea, yellow, gorilla, ow/ouch, wee, Kahlua, Pato, Elly, Loula, baa, Ollie, baby (24 verbal words)

Nolan - waves, claps, gives/blows kisses, signs all done, milk, ball, eat, thank you, please, daddy, juice, cereal & says mama, dada (now "daddy"), ball, all done, book, baa, uh oh, apple, hot dog, cookie, banana, cheese, cracker, shoes, baseball, baby, nose, diaper, papa, toast, hi, more, milk, lights, "dis" (what's this?), please, belly button, door, up, juice, bubbles, bye bye (32 verbal words)

Lucas - waves, claps, gives/blows kisses, signs all done, milk, more, ball, please, thank you, eat,cereal & says mama, dada, done, ball, uh oh, apple, banana, cookie, cupcake, cheese, thank you, more, stinky, go, three, Pocoyo (16 verbal words...very inconsistent)

I voiced my concerns about Oliver and Lucas' speech/language to Infant Toddler Services.  They came out last week for an observation.  We are going to have an ECSE (early childhood special education) teacher start coming out to work with them on their language and behavior.

favorite things: 

Oliver - LOVEY (Croakers), sleeping, sucking his thumb, racing cars down the slide, throwing toys off our deck, bead mazes

Nolan - balls, swinging, building with foam blocks, his lovey "Babies", books, "Baby Signing Time" show

Lucas - airplanes in the sky, "Pocoyo" show (seriously obsessed), books, stacking cups, shape sorter

challenges: 

Sleep (Nolan and Lucas), head-banging (everyone...ugh), hair-pulling (mostly Nolan), not listening and running off when in public (mostly Lucas and Ollie)

special outings/events:

March for Babies, various trips to the park, lots of walks...really enjoying the spring weather!

March for Babies 2015

Yesterday was the March for Babies walk in Kansas City.  For the second year in a row, we joined Multiples of Kansas City in raising money for this great cause.  Our organization partnered with Enterprise Car Sales this year.  We raised over $10,000 for the March for Babies.

The walk went pretty well.  It was a great day for it.  Unfortunately, James had to miss it as he's currently out of town on a business trip.  Auntie Lisa came in his place and was very helpful chasing babies around!

It was nice to get to see the boys' "Look at me now!" posters.  And as always, seeing all the "In Memory of" posters was very emotional.  It just makes you so appreciative of what you have.  So grateful to have my three healthy boys!

Beautiful Chaos

The hubby is out of town, so these past couple evenings after the boys go to bed have been pretty quiet.  Tonight after putting them to bed, I hopped in the shower as it was the first chance I'd had all day.  After that, I came downstairs and just sat for a bit.  I stared at the floor littered with matchbox cars and blocks.  I ignored the fact that the sink was piled high with dishes.  I just sat there...in silence and thought to myself how crazy and perfect my life is.

There are so many people out there that would cringe at that thought of having three toddlers terrorizing their house.  Three times the mess.  Three times the fighting.  Three times the diapers.  But for us, it's just a new normal that I can't help but love.

These boys have brought us so much joy.

These moments of silence are few and far between, but tonight I'm very grateful for the chance to reflect on the beautiful chaos that is my life.