Howard Trio Plus One: 2019

Graham is now officially 2 1/2-years-old, and he is as sweet as he is strong-willed.

Height: 34.75 inches, which means he grew 2.25 inches since his birthday. Until now he has always been the same height as Jack was at the same age, but this is the first time that he measured 1/4 inch taller. Jack didn't grow much from age 2 to age 3, probably due to his health issues during that year, so we expect Graham to be taller than Jack was at the same age going forward.

Weight: Graham is 24.8 lbs, which is the heaviest of any of our children at this age, although it is still super light on the growth chart.

Size Clothes: He is solidly in 2T, although some of the 2T pants are super long on him since some brands are made bigger.

Night sleep: Thankfully he sleeps through the night almost every night. This past week he had a cold so he woke up a few nights, but our older kids do that when they are sick too. He continues to share a room with Jack, which has worked out wonderfully. They don’t keep each other awake at bedtime, and Jack knows to sneak out of the room in the morning when he wakes up before Graham. I think they both enjoy having a buddy at night.

He falls asleep with the most random things. I never would have let our other kids have toys in bed, but this time around I do whatever is easiest.

On our most recent camping trip we realized he is outgrowing his pack n play

Naps: Unfortunately Graham only naps 1-2 afternoons a week. Thankfully, though, he willingly goes into his crib at nap time and rests or plays quietly for 1-1.5 hours even if he doesn’t sleep, but I’m nervous that he won’t do this much longer. I depend on his naps for getting work done for my job while the older kids are at school during the week, so it will be difficult when he stops having his nap / quiet time. When he does nap, he sleeps for about 2 hours (or longer, but I wake him up so that he sleeps well at night).

On a day he actually napped he somehow fell asleep with his dirty socks on his hands

Food: Graham continues to be a picky eater. Chicken nuggets, fruit, and almond milk yogurt are his staples. He also likes several kinds of bars and PB and J. Recently I’ve discovered that he’ll drink smoothies with celery and cucumber (and fruit) in them, so it’s been a convenient way to sneak in some veggies. Sometimes he’ll eat broccoli at dinner when he’s pretending to be a monster eating trees :). Since we fought Jack over food for many years, we have decided to be more laid-back about it with Graham in hopes that he comes around to trying more foods on his own.

Food Allergies: I took Graham to an allergist last month, but nothing conclusive was discovered. Dairy did not show up as an allergy in the skin prick test or the blood draw, but the doctor said he most likely has a milk protein intolerance, which would not show up on either of those tests. Thankfully, kids outgrow milk protein intolerances, so hopefully he outgrows it sooner than later. I do give him pesto even though it has cheese in it as pesto pasta is one of his favorite foods. We avoid straight milk, yogurt, and cheese, though.

Speech: Graham has been seeing a Speech Therapist twice a month since December. For awhile we didn't see much improvement, but something seemed to click for him this summer as when we got back from Michigan at the end of July his speech seemed to explode. He is still working on articulation, but he definitely has a lot to say. Last week he had his annual evaluation for early intervention and the only thing category he actually had a delay in was Self Help (getting himself dressed and undressed, eating with utensils, etc.). During the evaluation the Speech Therapist asked me if he said certain things such as: does he say mine, does he ask questions, does he say his own name, does he regularly put four words together? I didn't think he did any of those things, but in the days after the evaluation I heard him say those things!

I got my haircut and when I showed it out to him he said, "Daddy cut it?"
He was talking to one of his siblings about a toy and he yelled, "No, mine!"
When driving down the road he started asking me to "Open window."
When we picked the kids up from school I said to them, guess who didn't nap today, and Graham answered, "Graham."
When he got up in the morning he looked at me and said, "Daddy woke me up."

New Things:

Just in the last few months Graham has decided that he is totally fine with us leaving him in the church nursery or leaving him at a friends house. This is wonderful and freeing after struggling with leaving him for the first couple of years of his life.
We have been doing a Parent / Tot gymnastics class and it has been fun to do something for him since he is usually just along for the ride for the other kids' activities. It's also been fun for me since I never had the opportunity to do a Parent / Tot class with the triplets.

The older kids started Taekwondo a couple of months ago and Graham loves to watch. Sometimes Graham has the option to stay home with one parent, but he chooses to go to the class to watch. He can even recite parts of the oath that the kids say at the beginning and end of each class.
He plays really well by himself, which really isn't new as thankfully he seems to always have been this way. Part of the reason he is probably so independent is because last year we did homeschool on Tuesday and Thursday morning so he had to play by himself those mornings. Our other kids still have trouble just playing by themselves as they think of it as a punishment.
He no longer sucks his fingers as we bought a finger guard and used it for a couple of weeks in June. We were surprised at how quick and effective this was at getting him to stop sucking his fingers as we actually traveled to Michigan during the time period when he was wearing the finger guard, but he never regressed.
He is an awesome little brother and I love it when I find all four kids playing together.

He doesn't always want to pose for pictures for me

He loves creating things. When we painted pumpkins he spent twice as much time doing it as the other kids.

He is super goofy and does anything to make the other kids laugh.

A crazy noodle

He wears these goggles all of the time

His current favorite footwear

Difficult 2-year-old stuff: I was just reading the 2 1/2-year-old blog that I wrote about our triplets, and it seems that Graham is doing the exact same frustrating things that they did at this age. I absolutely cannot believe that I had to deal with these things x3, but in some ways it was a little simpler as we didn't have to get out the door four days a week for school drop off and pick up. Graham goes through spurts of refusing to get buckled into his carseat, he still bites (although thankfully he doesn't really bite me anymore...just his siblings now), and diaper changes and getting him dressed are a fight (especially on school mornings). He also loves to chase his older siblings around the house with his big metal dump truck, which makes them run and scream...which is pure chaos. But now that I've realized I've dealt with all of this before with triplets and survived, I guess I shouldn't complain!

Overall he is a super sweet, loving, cuddly, mama's boy. He loves to ride his balance bike, look at books, play with trucks and cars, and just be outside.

Somehow another year has already passed and Alexis, Jack, and Faith are 6-year-olds! We are now in the stage of mental and emotional exhaustion as opposed to physical exhaustion from raising our triplets. Although we are glad that they don't need to be carried, have their diapers changed, and they don't depend on us to get them dressed every day, this stage has it's own difficulties. The sibling rivalry has definitely increased in the last year and all three kids are starting to figure out who they are as individuals. Many days I wish I could do less refereeing and instead just enjoy talking with my kids, but that is life with multiple kids in the house. I am constantly amazed at how different all three of them are from each other, although they still love playing together and they missed each other during their school days apart. We are now getting glimpses of what the future holds with kids who are able to do activities that we enjoy, and it has been fun. They are currently in the middle of two week sessions for both tennis lessons and swim lessons. They are enjoying both, and what surprised me the most was that this was the first time there weren't any tears or major anxiety surrounding the lessons. They are truly becoming independent from us, which is both exciting and scary. Overall all three kids are intelligent, polite, engaging, brave, and funny. I suddenly feel like I'm going to blink and they are going to be all grown up and moving out of the house. Time sure is a funny thing once one is raising kids!

Snuggling on our new sectional

First day of tennis lessons

A rare evening when Graham went to bed first and we were just hanging out with the five of us. Now that we have Graham, "just triplets" seems like it would be easy ;).

Always excited about new shoes. Jack learned to tie shoes in less than 20 minutes. He was determined to have shoes with shoestrings, but I said he only could have them if he tied them himself!

Water and the trampoline is a blast

I can't keep up with them on their bikes when I run, but at least I'm getting a workout in and they are enjoying themselves too!

They love these kind of swings, which are perfect for triplets.

I waited a very long time before trying Trader Joe's with the kid carts. It was worth the wait as it wasn't that stressful and the kids thought it was super special.

The last blog post update I wrote was in December when the kids were 5 1/2-years-old. Here are some current things about Alexis, Jack, and Faith:

Heights and Weights:

Alexis: 44.5" and 36.5 lbs (+2.5" and 4 lbs in the last year)
Jack: 43.5" and 34.5 lbs (+2.5" and 4 lbs in the last year)
Faith: 46.5" and 38.5 lbs (+2.5" and 4 lbs in the last year)

* I have no idea how they managed to grow the same number of inches and gain the same number of pounds in the last week. I guess I should be thankful since everything is a competition and this way there is a tie!

There stair step height difference is very obvious in photos

Faith outgrew her 5-point harness carseat, so we bought her a high back booster. The other two were fairly jealous at first, but they are over it now. I'm sure they will make the transition in the next year or so.

Alexis: She continues to love looking at books (and now starting to read them aloud to us). She seems to enjoy her alone time when she gets it, although this is hard with triplets because she never wants to miss out on the fun. She is a Daddy’s girl and she lights up when he is around. It’s really hard for her to make decisions and she often says, "Half of me wants to do X, but another part of me doesn't want to do X." I find it interesting that she can articulate her mixed emotions so well.

Jack: He had his adenoids out in March as we felt like that was causing the issue with his eating (he seemed to eat slowly because he couldn't breathe and eat at the same time). Unfortunately when the doctor removed his adenoids she said they weren't as large as they had appeared on the X-ray, but he does have small nasal passages so that could be causing the issue. Thankfully he was back to 100% a couple of weeks after the procedure. He continues to be “all boy” in his interests. He has become the most confident climber and the strongest as he can do five pull-ups in a row. He knows he’s the smallest triplet and he’s determined to be big and strong someday, so he loves to do little exercises like sit ups and lunges to get stronger. Jack has become very brave when it comes to trying things (going down the big slide, climbing, the zip line at the park, etc.).

Faith: She continues to be the self appointed leader of the trio. She is a perfectionist and she does not like being corrected, which is challenging when trying to homeschool a Kindergartener who still has a lot of learning ahead of her. She also loves to be helpful, which can be great. She has a really wiggly tooth, and she will soon be the first of the triplets to have lost a tooth naturally (Jack has two teeth pulled when he was four).

All of Them:

Playing Upstairs: The main level of our house is an open floor plan. Although this was ideal for keeping track of three babies / toddlers when the kids were younger, as they have gotten bigger it simply meant that the main floor was a mess of toys and that all of the noise and chaos was near me all of the time. For the past couple of years I had been encouraging the kids to play upstairs in the loft and in their rooms, but they usually just ended up bringing whatever toys were upstairs back to the main level. This felt frustrating to me and I'd often tell Micah that my dream was to have them play out of sight since it felt like I didn't have a moment to finish a thought during the day. Recently, when Micah came home after work one day, he pointed out that the kids had been playing upstairs a lot more as we were actually able to have a short conversation when he came through the door instead of me competing with the kids for his attention. This was an amazing realization!! Part of this transition has to do with our main floor remodel since we now have a giant sectional in the area where the kids used to spread out their toys and run around, plus the floor is no longer carpeted in that area so it's probably not as comfortable to play there. Another part of this has to do with trying to keep Graham from messing up their games. I do believe, though, that part of this simply has to do with them being older and not needing to be right by me every second of every day. This has been a welcome change for me since it keeps some of the mess and chaos upstairs and gives me a little more quiet during the day. (Although this also means that I'm often downstairs working on dinner or laundry and wondering if I should go upstairs to break up a fight since it's hard to tell when the yelling is play or a disagreement.)

I snapped this photo during our remodel this winter. We had already cut out some of the carpet, but this is the area the kids played on from the time we moved in over 5 years ago.

The new family room / play area set up. I tried to buy a really comfortable area rug for the kids to play on, but the new furniture takes up a lot of the floorspace.

Early morning reading

Different Interests: Jack has become more frustrated with the girls lately as he simply doesn’t want to play the games that they want to play. Most of the time he ends up going along with it, but they usually want to be dogs and he is tired of that game. He cannot wait until the day Graham is really old enough to play with. The other day Jack and Graham had a foam sword fight, and Jack was elated. Hopefully more of this will happen in the future since Jack is often upset that the girls don't want to play "bad guys" or whatever games he has made up.

The kids were interested in playing Monopoly and Micah patiently played with them four days in a row! The first day they played for over two hours.

One day they were a little bored and the weather wasn't great, so they started playing games themselves. I've been waiting for things like this to start happening!

Favorite Pretend Play: When the kids are getting along and agreeing on what to play, they love to play elaborate games that involve creating things and pulling out a bunch of toys. For example, they love to pretend to go camping. They often set up a fort in the girls’ room and they pull out their backpacks and fill them with books, toys, and snacks. The other day they thought of a new game which involved making signs for pretend store fronts and selling things to me and each other. I think this type of play is great as they are creating artwork, writing, and using their imaginations, but it also makes quite the mess. Whenever they start one of these games I remind them that they’ll have to clean up and they assure me that they know this, but there is still a lot of complaining when I tell them to pick up.

Faith made her own kangaroo costume

Kangaroo back

I think Jack was a snow leopard. They spend so much time making costumes.

A very elaborate tea party, which involved taking all of this kitchen stuff to the main floor as it's kept in the loft upstairs.

They created a juice stand based on a book.

This is supposed to be Daddy on a float.

Jack loves to dress up.

Kindergarten Grads: In May they finished Kindergarten and they are looking forward to first grade, which is great as for awhile they talked about how scared they were to go onto First Grade. Now they love to say to me when I treat them younger than they are, "Mom, we are First Graders now!" We are hopeful they’ll get into a school in another district (we are on the waitlist), but if not they’ll go to our neighborhood school.

Walking to the car after school

Graham wanted to be like the other kids at a school event

Alexis

Jack

Faith

Reading, Writing, Math, and Telling Time: When I signed up to homeschool our kids part time I had no idea how much the kids actually learned in Kindergarten. I remember learning my letters and counting. This year our kids learned how to read and we are currently working our way through all of the Bob Book sets. They all have good handwriting and they love to sound out words to make notes and signs. They learned how to add and subtract. And they even learned how to tell time on an analog clock! It has been amazing to witness them learning all of these things and more during the last year.

Grammy always brings a bag of books, and the kids devour them.

A note from Faith

Art: We continue to have a constant stream of art at our house, especially from Jack. We are always amazed by Jack's drawings and he seems to really enjoy it. Faith enjoys it as well, but lately she seems more focused on writing notes. Alexis doesn’t love drawing as much, but she is still proud when she makes something.

Valentine's decorations. The kids get really into things and it's hard to say no, even though these aren't my ideal decorations.

Jack

Faith

Alexis

Jack sat at the table for two hours listening to music and drawing the other day

Regular Plates: This might sound like a funny milestone, but when you have four kids using plastic dishes the top rack of the dishwasher fills up fast! For awhile I turned the heated dry off of my dishwasher so that I could put the plastic stuff on the bottom rack, but I was always fighting mold in the bottom of the dishwasher. In the last few months I started having the kids use regular plates for most of their meals and it has been great for my dishwashing loading routine! The kids also feel ver grown up since we are trusting them with the dishes I got for Christmas this past year. (Graham still uses a plastic plate, although I don't think he's ever thrown his plate on the floor like the other kids did when they were younger.)

Eating: For a long time Jack struggled to eat. He was fairly picky and he always seemed too distracted to eat. I even took him to an OT to have him evaluated to see if there was a concrete issue we could work on with him, but nothing was found. Thankfully, something has clicked with Jack in the last year and he now is a fairly good an focused eater. There are still foods that he doens't like or doesn't want to try, but things have gotten a lot less stressful for us at meal time. Alexis struggles to find food that she really likes for snacks and lunch, but she does fine with breakfast and dinner. Alexis doesn't like many sweets as she says that they tickle her throat, so even Fig Bars, Z Clif Bars, and applesauce don't appeal to her most of the time (those are staples in my diaper bag). Faith really likes it all, which is probably why she continues to be the biggest triplet.

Backyard Play: They all love riding the little bikes in the backyard, which are really Graham’s size and are meant for him. Our yard is definitely too small for the kids now, but they make do. Someday when we move I'd love to have a larger backyard and be at the end of a cul-de-sac so that the kids can ride their bikes around without having to go to a park.

Park Play: This has become much easier, except for Graham of course. They can all keep themselves going on a swing by pumping, and Faith and Jack can even start swinging by themselves. All three are pros at the monkey bars.

Climbing: I wish we would have taken them to the gym more, but it was hard to find time during the school year. All three were excited to climb outside this past weekend, but Jack is the one who understands it the most right now and can consistently make it to the top of the wall. The girls are athletic too, though, and I think they will catch on soon. The kids are all strong as the girls can each do one pull-up and Jack is up to five in a row.

Auto belay at the gym

Jack and Alexis at the gym

Jack

Fatih

Alexis

Skiing: They all skied a few times this winter and they do really well. Micah always has his dad with him to help with the kids, but next year I'm guessing he'll be able to ski alone with them if he wants to try.

Swimming: We stopped our weekly indoor swim lessons last July and it was obvious that the kids hadn't been swimming in awhile when we first went a few weeks ago. But right now they are in swim lessons at the Y and they are doing well. They are in the Guppy level, so they can float and they can swim a few yards to the teacher using doggy paddle / freestyle. They are extremely comfortable in the water, and they are able to jump in and then turn around and get themselves back to the wall. I believe they will become much stronger swimmers this summer after more lessons and practice.

It's been a little bit chilly this summer, so they always want to lay on the ground to warm up after swim lessons

Big Siblings: They are all constantly commenting on how cute Graham is, which is great considering how often he also frustrates them. He gets into their toys and ruins their creations. He has bitten Jack several times when he gets mad about something, but Jack is quick to forgive. They are great at telling me if Graham is getting into trouble.

All three were quite selfless when it came to sharing this car with Graham. They agreed that he could stay in the whole time and the rest of them would rotate with the other seat. This is great...except Graham is really bad at taking turns since he gets his way a lot.

Jack's Roommate: Jack and Graham now share a room which has worked so well. I decided to move Graham a couple of months ago after having family in town and having to move Graham out of his own room for the 100th time. Although it worked well for Graham to have his own room most of the time, having to move him meant that his sleep was disrupted as well as ours since he would sleep in a pack-n-play in our room. Although it was a difficult couple of nights, overall the transition of putting the boys in the same room went very smoothly. Jack is extremely proud to have a "mate" as he calls it. The girls have almost always shared a room, and I think Jack was always a little jealous about that.

Birthday Weekend Recap:

Months ago we mentioned to the kids that we could camp and climb at the Enchanted Tower for their birthday. They loved that idea and immediately they started creating signs and invitations to "The Big Tower" and they hung them all over upstairs. We hadn't been to The Tower since last September or October, so Micah and I were both surprised when Faith drew a very accurate picture of the main feature on one of her signs. Although the rest of the signs and invites were taken down soon after the kids made them, I kept the one picture from Faith on the wall until this weekend.

Faith's drawing of the tower and a campfire

As the birthday got closer the kids started getting cold feet about camping. They have been to friend's birthday parties and they kind of wanted one of their own. Of course we could have done both a party and camping, but putting together and hosting parties aren't my favorite thing, and getting ready for a camping trip is a ton of work, so I told the kids that we were going to stick with camping and we would have a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, Micah got a cold 10 days before we left and it lingered for awhile and he lost his voice. The cold preceded to make it's way through 3 of the 4 kids, so I was really worried that Faith and I might get it at the last minute and not feel well during our trip. Thankfully that didn't happen and overall we enjoyed ourselves.

Our friends were also planning on camping at The Tower since we made the plan several months ago, and it was extra special since my friend Val shares a birthday with Alexis, Jack, and Faith. Her youngest son also turned 2 over the weekend, so we had five birthdays between the 12 of us in three days.

We celebrated the birthday weekend with lots of sugar (cupcakes, cake, soda, s'mores, and other junk food), climbing (we had to take turns watching the kids, but everyone got a little climbing in), the "Mega King Swing" (the kids swinging from a tope rope hung on the most famous climb in NM called Goliath), playing in the dirt, lounging in hammocks, sitting by campfires, and some adult beverages for the parents. As expected there were some difficult moments, as there always are in life, but it was definitely a memorable weekend. Hopefully when the kids look back on their 6th birthday they remember all of the fun they had!