It's funny how I seem to have less time to write blog posts now than I did when our trio was younger. Although in some ways life with triplets has gotten a little easier, I have managed to fill my time with other things. January is always a busy month for me since I am the Treasurer for our church and there are many tax-related forms that need to be completed at year end, the giving statements need to be printed for donors, and the budget needs to be finalized for the next year. But this year, as if I wasn't busy enough being a stay-at-home-mom to three 2 1/2-year-olds, I volunteered to take over as the Treasurer for the Albuquerque Mother's of Twins Club. The current Treasurer had to step down for a variety of reasons, and since my background is a perfect fit since I'm a CPA with non-profit experience, I decided to take on the role. There is always extra time spent getting up to speed when one takes on a new role, so I spent many hours working on that while the kids napped. Although the volunteer work has made for a busy January and beginning of February, I am happy to be helping out two organizations that are important to me and also to be using my accounting skills that would otherwise grow stale as a stay-at-home-mom.
As always, too much has happened since the last blog post for me to give it all justice, but here are some snippets of each of the kids at 2 years and 8 months:
Alexis:
Lately Alexis has been a "Mommy's girl." She demands that I am the one to take her out of her carseat, not Daddy, and she often wants to sit on my lap during meals or be carried by me when we are at places such as at the zoo. I think her temperament is actually a lot like mine was as a child, which I know because my parents love to remind me of how strong-willed and opinionated I was at the same age. Alexis feels emotions intensely, whether it is something that makes her happy and excited or frustrated and mad. I try to give her a lot of cuddles as I think she needs a lot of reassurance. I've also realized that she likes to talk about negative things that happened as it makes her feel heard. For example, this morning she fell down the last couple of steps when going through the gate and after she cried for awhile I said something about how much that must have hurt and she said, "I fell and went boom, and I hurt, and I cried." After explaining what happened she seemed better.
Alexis consistently has the hardest time waking up from a nap. Although watching a show right after she wakes up temporarily makes her happy, she usually remembers how grumpy she feels when the show is over. I get it since I hate napping because I feel so groggy and grumpy when I wake up, but unfortunately she really needs to take naps to make it through her day. Faith tries her best to make her sister happy at times like this. She will find Lexi's Snoopy dog or try to do something to make her laugh. One day when Alexis was having a particularly hard time after a nap Faith looked at me and said, "Maybe she's hungry!" Faith really wants her sister to be happy and when one of her efforts results in a smile Faith will tell me, "I'm making her happy!" I love that Faith loves her sister so much that she will search her two-year-old brain for solutions.
Jack:
A couple of weeks ago Micah and I took Jack up to Denver for more doctor's appointments. Micah's mom graciously offered to watch the girls at her house, so we left around 5:00 am, drove four hours to Monte Vista, dropped the girls off and let Jack play there for over an hour, and then Micah, Jack, and I drove up to Denver for two nights. We saw an Immunologist and a Hematologist, and both appointments proved to be very beneficial.
Through blood tests that the Immunologist ordered it was determined that Jack had Parvovirus at some point in his life and that is believed to have been the trigger for the production of antibodies to his platelets. The test showed that he does not currently have Parvovirus, but at some point he had it. It's amazing what a simple blood test can reveal! Of course I've spent a lot of time thinking about when he could have had the virus, and looking at photos for the distinctive facial rash, but I haven't been able to pinpoint anything. According to the Mayo Clinic website, though, "Most people with Parvovirus infection have no signs or symptoms." (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/parvovirus-infection/basics/symptoms/con-20023045).
The Hematologist in Denver was very informative and our appointment was basically a consultation as we spent an hour discussing Jack's history and future treatment options. Both the Hematologist and Immunologist said that Jack should be treated with a two week course of Prednisone or with IVIG next time his platelets are low. These treatment options have been discussed briefly with Jack's doctors in ABQ, but now that we have been dealing with Jack's low platelets for eight months, we are ready to try other options even though there are more known side-effects with Prednisone and IVIG than a platelet transfusion. The hope is that one of these two options will be all Jack's body needs to stop the antibody production and heal his body.
Of course, there is a lot more to Jack than his medical condition and, through his play, his interests are very obvious. First of all, his captivation with guitars, violins, and all things musical continues to grow. Every day he plays one of his instruments and he is getting really good at singing along while he "strums." I've even caught him tapping his foot to the beat while strumming and singing, just like the worship leaders in church. He's a natural! Jack is also a budding artist. He has figured out how to hold a writing instrument properly without any additional instruction, and he often draws guitars that are very good! Jack's play is also evolving as he not only enjoys pretending to be a nurse and drawing our blood, which I know is very therapeutic for him with all of his blood draws, but he also spends time fighting monsters, using his rake as a leaf blower, and pretending to cut down branches on the tree in the backyard. It's astounding to me how Jack's play generally involves things that are more "boy-ish" than the girls even though they all have access to the same toys.
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| Medical play happens almost daily at our house without any prompting. Jack now insists on wearing his "gloves," which are actually his mittens, before doing any sort of medical work while playing. He often takes his mitten off and taps on our arms looking for veins, just like the nurses do with him, before doing the blood draw. |
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| After his first blood draw in Denver Jack picked out this princess crown as his prize. He may often play like a boy, but he's also influenced by his two sisters (and Frozen)! Jack loved the three days in Denver despite the doctor appointments since he had both Mommy and Daddy to himself. |
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| While in Denver we stayed with Micah's sister and Jack enjoyed playing with his boy cousins. We look forward to our next trip to Denver as our kids are now old enough to play with their cousins. |
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| "I want to drive it!" Jack was all smiles while "driving" Grandpa's ATV. |
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| "I need my hammer." This boy loves his tools! |
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| Jack's guitar drawing. The bottom two lines were added out of enthusiasm after I told him how great the picture was. |
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| Jack holding a marker properly |
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| Jack "playing" the violin while watching violin music on TV |
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| I won't name any names, but one of his sisters did this to him during a disagreement |
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| Jack at the zoo |
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| Walking the bricks in our yard like a balance beam. We hope to put the kids in gymnastics soon, but we'd like to get Jack's platelet issues resolved first. |
Faith:
Faith seems to be the leader of the kids these days and she is also the one that seems to have the most logic and understand consequences. One day I overheard her assigning "roles" to Jack and Alexis when they were playing: I'm the mommy, Jack is the big kid, and Alexis is the baby. We often use mini marshmallows as a reward for sitting in their car seats without fighting, and she is usually the most responsive to that technique. At the same time, though, Faith is very strong-willed and independent and often says, "No, it's my turn!" when we try to help her with something such as take off her pajamas in the morning. She really wants to be a big kid and do everything by herself.
Faith is also the most likely to let someone else other than me hold her hand or carry her. At music class she sits with the teacher instead of fighting Alexis and Jack for space on my lap, and at outings with the early intervention therapists she is happy to be with a therapist as Jack and Alexis fight to be carried by me. Also, Faith seems to prefer Daddy to me when he's home.
Faith says some of the funniest things. One day she started calling us Mr. Daddy and Mrs. Mommy (although sometimes I'm Mr. Mommy too). The rhyme "one, two buckle my shoe," etc. ends with nine, ten a big fat chicken (instead of hen) when she recites it. And one afternoon when she didn't nap she decided to read to me and she did a fantastic job not only explaining what was in the pictures but also saying something close to the actual words in the book.
Faith had been napping in the pack n play in the guest room for over two years without much of a problem, but last week she decided she no longer wanted to sleep in that. After she climbed out of the pack n play a few times I told her that she could sleep on the guest bed as long as she was a big girl and didn't get up, and she listened! Although she has had trouble staying in bed one of the afternoons, mostly she has done a great job sleeping on a big bed.
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| Drinking out of a glass mug at Grammy's house |
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| First time sleeping on the guest bed. She insists on bringing toys to bed with her at nap time (the bottle is just a toy for the babies now). |
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| Happy girl in the backyard |
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| "No, it's my turn!" |
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| The girls can now put on their own socks and shoes (when they want to). |
All Three:
All three are slowly understanding reason and at night time if they are having trouble falling asleep we can now go in there and talk to them about how it is night time and Mommy and Daddy need to sleep too, and they get it. We thought this day would never come!
A couple of days ago I took the mattress springs out of the girls' cribs and put the mattresses back in the cribs on the floor. Since they could easily climb in and out of their cribs they were having a hard time going to sleep, so we decided to try this for awhile before switching to big beds. We just aren't ready to deal with the sleep regression right now if we don't have to so we bought ourselves some time.
Like I mentioned above, all three are engaging in cooperative play and they can spend quite awhile doing this together, although I still end up breaking up fights as it's hard to play cooperatively at any age. Last Sunday we went to a friend's house for a Super Bowl party and our three and another two-year-old entertained themselves for most of the game! It truly feels like we've turned a corner here as we could actually hold full conversations with the other adults at the party. I almost didn't know what to do with myself!
The kids love to sing songs and recite things, and I love hearing them do this without any prompting as they play. They do watch shows with a lot of singing, but they've also learned new songs from music class that they love to sing at home. Lately I've realized that they are getting much better at identifying colors too! I've worried about this for awhile as they know so many things but colors have been hard, but as my mom pointed out, there are many shades of each color so it might just be a harder thing to learn.
We've decided to enroll the kids in a Tuesday / Thursday morning preschool program in the fall. It ended up being a hard decision as there are many great options near our house, but I am very happy with the program that we chose and I think the kids will love going to school. It's starting to feel like their 3rd birthday is just around the corner!
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| We had some really cold days in January, but we still got outside to play a little bit as fresh air helps us all sleep better. Jack is a few inches shorter than the girls, but this picture is a bit deceiving. |
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| Choo choo! |
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| Sharing a blanket on a Saturday morning. |
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| For some reason they like to sit on each other's laps |
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| Sleep sacks and turning the cribs around didn't matter. These girls could still get out of their cribs! |
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| So now the mattresses are on the floor inside of their cribs (and the baby mobiles are down...tear!) |
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| Even though they are toddlers, we have to buy a lot of food! I no longer go to Costco without help as I can't fit all three kids and the groceries in one cart, so now we meet Daddy there after work. |
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| Big Milestone: The booster seats are gone! I'm so thankful that I don't have to clean the collection of crumbs that accumulated between the boosters and the chairs every day. |
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| I love that activities capture their attention for so much longer these days. The rice play is messy so we don't do it often, but when we do they love it! |
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| Three toddlers in a box! |
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| Only two out of three thought it was funny when they fell over |
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| Try #2: Alexis, Jack, and Faith |
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| Faith said, "Mom, take a picture!" |
