Shift Sleeping

There is a very important survival mechanism for coping with the joys of multiples, shift sleeping. We learned the hard way that there is no such thing as nighttime. Triplet parenthood restarts life into 21 hour days that feel like forty and nights that are a collective endeavor of the five-minute naps accidentally stolen over the course of the day. We always felt like someone needed to sleep at night, that someone had to stay up during the daytime, and that a 24-hour clock was somehow essential to maintain our humanity. We were wrong.

Shift sleeping was the salvation of our survival. Every second of everyday that two adults are home, not starving, and the house isn't completely falling apart, one of those adults should be asleep. We divided the evenings and nights into shifts and the rest of the day was based on lucidity. This plan took us from the one to three hour nights of the first few months to the three to five hour nights that sustained us for the next two years.

Here are the rules:
1. Your shift means you get first priority for sleep.
2. Your shift means you get dibs on the most easily consumable meal (getting food out of the way makes more time for sleep).
3. If it's not your shift and everyone is asleep seize the moment, but sleep lightly.

Bella in her favorite napping cabinet.

Our children have their own version on shift sleeping. They seem to have the days and nights laid out in an overlapping schedule to make sure that we're never lonely. Within seconds of one child being laid down to sleep another is automatically activated to take their place.

This is the basis of day to day survival for us. We are now on our second week of somewhat regular night times. Four out of five kids sleeping through the night, a stable bedtime, and almost six hours of sleep most nights. As our brains begin to wake up from their survival coma, it becomes easier and easier to laugh about all the night time adventures we've endured in the last two and a half years.

Product Review: Teddy Grahams

Product Review: Teddy Grahams (aka 'Teddy Bear Cookies')
Parent 2 stars
Kids 3 stars

Bears and food tend to be a common combination in our house. If we're not eating them we're feeding them or pretending to be hungry bears ourselves. Adding the word 'cookie' to the end of the name only boosts this particular snack to the top of the list of favorites. The fact that they are shaped like cuddly little bite-sized bears makes them at instant hit with my girls. They are not the most cost effective snack... at $2.88 a box, considering that, left to their own devices, my girls have been known to devour a box in under twenty minutes.

Our little Cami is the biggest advocate for bear rights. Her right to have teddy bear cookies in the car, her right to hide teddy bear cookies in her bed, her right to have chocolate teddy bear cookies when she's been good, and her right to bribe her sisters with teddy bear cookies when they mysteriously run out. She guards her bears and often spends a great deal of time organizing and manipulating her legion of ferocious cookies.

I was reminded tonight of an amusing hassle. Our little Cami filled her mouth so full of teddy grahams that she vomited. Of course she aimed for the most intricate toy available. Her sisters, intently watching, wanted nothing more than to come play in the exciting new puddle. I have several battle strategies that come into effect at that point as my brain goes into auto pilot. I arrange my supply lines while keeping the clean, cuddly enemies at bay. Obviously it's helpful to take the offender's ammunition. I feel bad wrestling a box of teddy grahams from my little sunshine, but as her weapon was already reloaded to half capacity, she left me little choice. Positioning myself between the battlefield and the toddling onslaught I laughed so hard it becomes difficult to fend off the curious onlookers.

My advice to parents everywhere... vanilla flavored.

We Love Bears!

The Mixed Up Mommy

 Sometimes I feel like the mixed up chameleon... Changing a spit up sock here and a drenched shirt there until my clothes are unrecognizable.  I never know what I'm wearing without checking first. Some days, okay, most days, we fill the washer with just the drippy remains of the day and even have a few things left over for another load.

Laundry is a never ending chore. For every load there are two more loads worth in the process of being dirtied. With multiples the best plan of attack is what my husband lovingly refers to as the 'Frankenload.' Every fabric washable used during the day goes directly into the open abyss of the washer. Recently I realized that even though our hampers still manage to fill themselves and we usually have piles of clean laundry from which to pull our daily clothing allotment, I can wear the same clothes day after day fresh from the dryer. Sometimes it's been a few days before I realize that that is exactly what I've been doing.

Going out of the apartment always involves an entire wardrobe change... breaking my clothing slump. Unfortunately our children understand this and want held snugly against our new clothes to make sure they get to come along.... and so the cycle continues.

Warning: Do Not Leave Dryer Unattended As Babies Explore New Territory and Destroy Dryer Bearings

Sleepwalking

As I gingerly lower myself into bed after a twenty-one hour day, I catalog in my mind the various health issues that come from being a mom of such young multiples. Bad knees. Back problems. Sleep deprivation. Low vitamin D. Occasional hypertension. The very best one of all... Sleepwalking.

This isn't any run of the mill case of sleepwalking. This sleepwalking leaves me with a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes it's dishes, but most often I awake surrounded by neatly folded stacks of laundry. Sometimes it's just stack-like piles of things that look like they were neatly folded with three happy little laundry monsters rolling around among them.

I can't pretend that this condition is entirely beneficial, but I do appreciate the midweek burst of laundry powers. These ten to twenty minute bouts of power napping/cleaning leave me fulfilled and refreshed. We treasure every ten minutes of sleep in this household.

My husband regales me with stories of my sleepwalking conversations that range from new nicknames for family members to plans involving a cougar in a jewel heist.  Occasionally I've been kind enough to incorporate him into my sleepwalking creations. From his account I give him a clear role in heists and getaways, adventures in the wilderness, and exotic animals with unusual resources and abilities.

I look on this as a gift at times when I'm behind on chores and too tired to get started, but I have to admit that it can be awkward socially. I have woken frequently in mid conversation with friends and family (especially over the phone). Then comes the dreaded 'great, see you then,' or 'thanks for taking care of that.' For all those that know and love me, I wouldn't say no to a simple recap at the end of conversations.

Hair

Cami

 When you have three little girls the same age you don't always have time to fix their hair. It may be an epic struggle. We have developed the following methods for streamlining the process.
1. Fix it while they sleep
2. Wait until they are strapped in highchairs or car seats
3. Fix it while they are eating candy (It better be something good!)
4. Fix it on the run

It takes two hallway lengths per pig tail. That means I run the length of the hall twelve times for pig tails all around. That's not considering broken or projectile rubber bands which are both common casualties. My favorite way is to open the rear door on our minivan and reach over the back to the girls strapped in their car seats.

Bella, Cami, Ava

The trouble with triplets is that from a very young age they are fascinated with each other and each others' accessories. Cami was the worst with hair stuff. No one in the room could keep anything in their hair without her diving at their heads in a frenzied excitement. Bella and Ava used to be more than willing to sit as long as it took to get their hair fixed, but they soon discovered the correlation between hair fixing and rubber band ripping, flower and hair carnage. We see an adorable little girl crawling towards us at church with a flower on her head the size of a small island nation and we cringe in tense preparation for the upcoming battle.

Bella

There were days when they chased each other around, crawling their little hearts out, until they ended up in a little clump with their fingers so dug into each other's hair and woven into their clips that I found myself with three screaming girls. All I could do is slowly pick their hands free. There was more crying because I took away each of their new sibling hair toys than because they were stuck.

Our kids are finally old enough that rubber bands are safe once more. So here we go again trying to learn the how-to of chasing down multiples with a brush.

Fixing their hair in their sleep has the benefit of being a slower pace activity. Typically this results in pig tails.
Step 1: Roll child onto side
step 2: Gather up all the hair on that side and secure.
Step 3: Flip child
Step 4: Repeat step 2

Ava

Highchair hair fixing seems like a great plan in theory, but the further you get in the process the more time the final child has to prepare. The first hair victim usually tries a simple wiggle and squirm method. By the second they have prepared the backwards head tip, headrest wallow technique. By the time you reach the third... Sabotage! Keeping a careful eye on the hair fixing progression, they in desperation streak their hair with the best options of the meal. Yogurt does a particularly good job of thwarting my hair fixing powers. Peanut butter, butter (from rubbing their head down with toast), but the most creative is macaroni and cheese. Hopefully you don't know what macaroni does in nice, dense, but fine toddler hair.
Imagine a Christmas tree decorated in disposable tinsel. Except that they are covered in starch and pressed hard into the hair by the head roll application method. Also, unlike a Christmas tree, they don't hold still while you pick off the decorations.

We're a work in progress and so is our hair. Someday we hope to make it out all nearly spit up free and hair fixed... well, we'll see.

Accessibility: Butterfly House, Saint Louis

Cami admiring the plants at the Butterfly House in St. Louis

Accessibility: Twins

Ava, Bella, and Cami at the Butterfly House indoor exhibits.

All doors fit a double umbrella-style stroller or a double front to back stroller; however, it's more fun for everyone to walk. If it's possible to release hoards of children into the insect wilds that is how they will have the most fun exploring and enjoying the creeping and crawling displays.

The downside of walking children is that they could in theory have access to butterflies that often land on the pathways. In theory they could grab one of those butterflies by its little wing and they could give it a really good shake. It could happen while the butterfly house employees look on in horror. They could all rush to the aid of the poor, now probably flightless creature. In theory this might startle a two-year-old, for instance. A startled two-year-old may in fact cling more tightly to her new friend and make a run for it. This is just a theory, but I do have some experience with two year olds and I'm confident that this situation could take place. It's particularly likely if it's triplet two year olds and the other two like to stand by the water feature looking like they'd love a swim. I'm just saying, it could happen.

How to Eat a Milkshake

1. Acquire milkshake
2. Establish a defensible position
3. Drink steadily, but not so quickly as to draw attention to yourself.
4. Increase distance between all milkshake drinkers to maximize travel time of toddlers
5. With any luck you will successful ingest 50% of your milkshake

Remember: straws make you a more desirable target.