Playing With Food

Everyone always says not to play with your food, which is a great rule in theory. In practice it sometimes leaves much to be desired by a two-year-old. My pickiest eater, little Cami, settled on salami for the mainstay of her food supply this week. That, along with her newly discovered power over refrigerator doors, has provided under-supervised salami time. During one of these wonderful moments of exploration, as I'm rocking two babies and an offended  toddler to sleep, in walks Cami. She had not only stripped down to her diaper in a burst of toddler rebellion, but she had adhered salami down her chest and stomach using its own juices. She stood there proudly, looking very much like a life-sized gingerbread girl with little salami buttons. Needless to say she knows how far I can reach with three kids in my lap, which isn't very far, and she pranced around keeping me like a dog at the end of a tether. Eventually she loses interest and eats her warm, shiny, oily meat buttons, but really that's just a consequence of the worlds best game of dress up.

Accessibility: Botanical Gardens, Saint Louis

Accessibility: Twins

All doors fit a double umbrella-style stroller or a double front to back stroller. Triplet access is limited. Front door cannot fit side-by-side triplet strollers and elevator cannot fit front-to-back triplet strollers. So bring a second stroller pusher! It's worth the hassle and our kids have always enjoyed it at least as much as we have.

Tram ride has a car for hauling folded strollers that can easily accommodate double strollers. They are usually very patient about loading and unloading children.

The Cabinet

It is always a victory for a parent when a child puts herself to sleep... especially at bedtime. That victory seems somehow diminished when they go to sleep inside a cabinet and have to be tediously extricated from its depths.

We have a narrow cabinet that we have long since abandoned as a storage location. It has been left available for those occasional moments when our girls need alone time with the high demand toy of the day. They love that cabinet! I cannot express to parents of multiples how many times one empty cabinet keeps all the other cabinets from expelling their contents in a flurry of flour and pot lid thunder. We have safety latches on our cabinets, but we all know that periodically there is born a child gifted in wreaking mayhem and skilled at overriding child safety protocols. With triplets you have three tries to make sure you get one capable of such feats. Our little curly headed menace is really a sweetheart deep down and so she uses her powers for good. A modern day Robin Hood, she opens cabinets and distributes snacks, new 'toys,' and anything else her poor sisters seem to stand in need of.

Sometimes I do feel like Prince John cutting off supply lines to a populace that thinks they are in constant crisis, but we have battled for every inch of kitchen that is currently possessed by cooking paraphernalia. Our lower drawers are all disassembled and taking up valuable storage space that they should have been providing. (Low drawers are stairs!) Our fridge must be arranged in a very specific way to avoid broken pickle jars and sticky jam attacks. The cabinet was our largest and most rewarding sacrifice. It has, in essence, brought peace to the land.

DVD Belt

Like all little girls, my girls love the opportunity to accessorize. Sometimes the high demand for accessories in our house sparks creativity that we wish we could redirect.
1. Open DVD case
2. Bend case backwards at a 90 degree angle
3. Separate clear plastic layer to remove paper jacket insert
4. Step between plastic cover sheeting and hard plastic case
5. Pull up to comfortable waist level
6. No, no, no, don't bend over to look!

She cried like a two-year-old girl who just broke her favorite DVD belt. Her sister tried to help me out by offering some free mommy-ing, "No, a bad. You broke it, a mess. Oh no, no." Needless to say that ALWAYS calms down a heartbroken toddler. The following thirty minutes of belt mourning was punctuated by, "It's okay. Sorry. It's okay," from the little mother. All in all a good start to the afternoon.

Introduction

Three years ago we were a family of two and had been for quite some time, two years ago we were a family of five, and this year we find ourselves a family of seven. Five children under the age of three. It sounds overwhelming... it probably is. I'm honestly too tired to tell. Some people count themselves to sleep at night, but I count to keep myself awake...
one... more *insert favorite snack/story of the day*
two... new babies
three... two-year-olds
four... hours of sleep on an average night
five... children in all
six... hours fixing food, snacks, refilling cups
seven... in our family
eight... years we waited
By this time I'm usually sound asleep, slumped over in the living room chair.

We moved out east for work two years ago and, without the opportunity to find a place for ourselves, ended up in a three bedroom apartment in Saint Louis, Missouri. As a family of two we had a four-bedroom home with fruit trees and a perfectly dog-sized lawn. Now we're seven, in an apartment, in the big city, and these are our adventures...