Just one baby

Alice took Will and Marie for the night so I'm down to only 1 baby. Therefore, I have a few extra minutes to post some pictures. Here you go!

Here are Abby and Will on my lap. Will wanted to sleep on Abby, but she didn't want any part of it. This was right before he took a gigantic crap, which oozed out all over me. Good times!

Abby is in her jammies taking it easy in the boppy.

Here is Will posing with his hand on his face inside a boppy pillow. Yes, it's a girl boppy, but I don't have time to always place him in his more masculine one. He's just going to have to deal with it.
The girls also love the boppy pillows. I keep them on the couch, and they spend a lot of time there next to me during the day. I also use the boppies to feed 2 at a time. I put them in there and sit in front of them with two bottles.
Marie likes to do tummy time on the boppy. Here's her fat, little face resting on the boppy.

Here is Abby. She always seems to have her neck craned in weird positions when I take her picture.
Billy came home on Friday to find me with all of the babies on top of me. First, Abby started to cry so I was holding her, but soon thereafter, Will started up, and I added him. Finally, Marie was feeling neglected so I put her on me too. Once they were all situated I couldn't move. I had to wait for Billy to extract each one off of me.

Also, notice how scary I look in the picture. It was 4 in the afternoon, and I had not brushed my teeth or hair, was still in my pajamas, and I had not eaten lunch yet. It was just one of those days. I wish I could say it was unusual, but it's not anymore!

The nanny diaries

The search for a nanny is on big time! We interviewed one lady last Saturday, and she was wonderful. She was from South America and therefore spoke Spanish. She was also mature, and she had been a pediatric nurse in her country. She had experience working with twins. However, all of that came with a hefty price tag! I just don't think we can afford her.

I thought we might just be clueless about nanny rates so I asked my triplets group what they were paying for their nannies. Most were paying about $5-7/hour less than what our woman had quoted us. I'm all for paying for someone that will take top notch care of our babies, but I don't want to be ripped off.

Anyway, we are continuing our search this week. We had another interview last night with someone I found on CraigsList. She was not so great. She was young, probably around 20, and a single mom. She was VERY chatty, which got on my nerves within 5 minutes of her being here so I can only imagine how much she would grate on my nerves after months of having her around. She told us 2 or 3 times that her baby daddy was "not in the picture." We just didn't get a good vibe from her. She didn't try to hold the babies or interact with them. I don't know, she just wasn't right.


Today, another chick came by, and I liked her. She was probably in her mid-twenties and married. She's from Brazil and speaks Spanish and Portuguese. She's nannied for 2 families with triplets and knows how to feed them simultaneously, how to handle assembly line diaper changing, etc. I also liked that she saw that I had two babies crying, and I was holding Abby while trying to comfort Will, and she asked if she could pick up Will. She did great with him. He just stared up at her with his big eyes. He continues to be a lady's man. She was also much more in the ballpark, pay wise, of what we were thinking. I'm going to have her come back to meet Billy next week. She had to come early today because she had an English class she was taking in the evening. I figured I would pre-screen her. She passed my test.

On Sunday, we have another lady coming by. She is the sister of one of the women in my triplets group. She has nannied for other families, but also spends a lot of time babysitting her triplet nieces and nephew. In fact, when she called me, she had a day off from her nanny job and was babysitting the triplets for her sister. So I already know she has good triplet experience. A couple of the other moms in the group had used her for babysitting and had raved about how wonderful she was with the kids. The only drawback is that she does not speak Spanish. I guess we'll have to decide if that's a deal breaker or not.

My dad said to wait and not hire anyone until he heard from some of his "contacts." He was being all mysterious about him so I asked him who these "contacts" were. He told me to just be patient, because he was "shaking out the bushes" to see what would fall out. I asked if he was shaking Mexican bushes, and he said, "something like that."

My dad has a Mexican guy that he uses for all kinds of odd jobs and recommends him to people. The guy has totally effed up a few projects so I never recommend him to anyone. He put in a fence for my friend, Kristi, and her husband basically had to redo the whole thing. He did some painting at Alice's old house and his guys cut her phone line twice by accident, and then, they didn't have proper ladders to get high on the house so they rigged up some ropes and pulleys and were hanging all over the place. Alice was at work when they did this, and a neighbor of hers called her at the office and said, "I don't know if you were aware of this, but there are several Mexicans dangling all around your house." How embarrassing!

We are hoping to make a decision by the end of next week. Then, we'll probably have the person start with us 1 day/week in early September, leading to 2 days/week the last couple of weeks, and by October, we'll have her up to 3 days/week so I can go to work. I sure hope I regain some brain cells before I return to work or I may be fired the first day! I feel like I've gone retarded since I had these babies. Is it the lack of sleep?

I have a few new pics, but I haven't loaded them on the computer yet. I'll try to do that later. Until then, I'm off to tend to the babies.

Lots of updates

I have a lot of updating to do. I got too far behind with the blog. Sorry about that, folks!

First, I visited my lady business doctor and everything appears to be healing nicely. My c-section incision is looking good, and apparently, my uterus is still going to take a little while to shrink. My ob informed me that I would probably have some extra skin from all the stretching I did. Lovely! We are lucky enough that Billy's best friend is a plastic surgeon, and I may be giving him a call about that skin when everything settles down.

My ob asked what we would be doing about birth control, and I informed her that I would like for Billy to have a vasectomy. She asked if he was on board with that, and of course, he's not. What guy would volunteer for the snip? So, she wanted to know what we would do until he got on board, and I told her abstinence. Ha! She said enough of that would probably encourage him to get the vasectomy taken care of.

As for the kids, they had another doctor's appointment, and they continue to grow like crazy. Abby is up to 7 lbs 9 ozs. Marie is just behind her at 7 lbs 8.5 ozs, and little Will is 7 lbs 5 ozs. Will better watch out or his sisters are going to start kicking his butt!

Abby is having some issues with night-time crying. Basically, she starts whaling right when Billy and I sit down to have dinner every night, and she continues ALL NIGHT LONG! Some nights she can be consoled by holding her, and her favorite thing is to sleep in the bed with either mommy and daddy (and Winnie) or with whoever is our night helper. A couple of nights ago, she slept almost 6 straight hours in our bed. Now I understand why people end up with babies in their beds...I would do anything for sleep.

The nurse practitioner suspects she may have "silent reflux" so we tried Axid, but that didn't work. Now, we've moved to Prevacid for a week to see if that helps at all.

Marie's only problem is that she has a blocked tear duct. It got infected last week, and I had to start using antibiotic drops in it. It's looking better now, but they think it will probably persist for a few months. We just have to keep wiping it down, and there is some weird little eye massage I have to do for her a few times per day.

Will has no problems, except that the ladies love him. One of the nurses at the office asked us if it was okay if she had a favorite, and we said sure but wanted to know which one. She said it was Will because his little features are just so adorable. Mems also has friends that favor Mr. Will. He's already breaking hearts everywhere he goes.

Speaking of Mems, we pawned off Abby on her last night. She was alone and could only handle one baby, so we sent our biggest crier. We are such a-holes! Seriously, though, she said she would like to take them one at a time for a few weeks to give them one-on-one Marmie (that's her grandma name) time.

Tonight, the babies are traveling to the Clarke household for an overnighter. Vivian volunteered to take them for the evening. She's going to need to switch her Sunday night because Rose's new school has parent orientation on Monday morning. I think she just wants to have the babies there all night to scare Paul so that he won't want another baby. He has always wanted more kids, and Vivian shut down the baby factory after Rose. I'm sure that she thinks having the Zeigler trio for one night will show him how good they have it with just one little girl.

We are interviewing a nanny today. She's coming at 11 a.m. to meet us and the babies. I talked to her on the phone for a while earlier this week, and she seems great. She's older, which is important to me for several reasons. First, I want someone with a lot of experience. Also, I just think someone more motherly is more responsible, and lastly, I'm hoping she's not a cougar or a MILF so that I won't have anything to worry about.;)

The nanny is also fluent in Spanish. I want the kids to grow up speaking Spanish and English so I definitely want someone to be speaking to them in Spanish the days that I'm not home. When they all speak Spanish, we'll talk crap about Billy, and he won't even know it.

I'm hoping she works out. I've found that good nannies get snatched up very quickly so if we like her, we'll have to make a move fast! I'll probably start using her a couple days/week, even before I go back to work. I need some relief from the babies to get some things done around the house and run errands.

Our next order of baby business is working on the birth announcements. We're hoping to do that soon. I wanted to wait because I wanted them to be a little filled out. They were just so skinny and wrinkly until now, but with the amount of weight they've gained, they are looking like little porkers. I like the fat baby look!

Okay, that's enough updating for now. I'll try to be better about keeping you all up to speed. I also need to get a few new pics up. Looks like it will be next time.

I got some rest!

Mems has taken the babies the last couple of weekends to allow Billy and I to have some time to ourselves. Last weekend, she took them most of the day Saturday. I got my hair cut that day and also got a manicure and pedicure. My hair had not been cut since I was about 4 or 5 months pregnant! I was way overdue. I also had not had a pedicure in months because rubbing your feet a certain way can trigger contractions and premature labor. Therefore, the doctors warned me not to get a pedicure.

When I was getting my manicure, the lady who was working on my nails asked when I was having a baby. Yes, I still have a little pooch that annoys the hell out of me, but what do you expect, I stretched beyond anything I could ever imagine! Anyway, I informed her that I already had my babies, but she didn't quite get it. She asked if I was having a boy or a girl, and I said I had 2 girls and a boy a couple of weeks before. She was still confused. She looked at the lady who was working on my feet, and they spoke in Vietnamese, or whatever they were speaking, and then she looked back at me, and said, "OH! You have 3 baby all at same time?" She finally got it!

This past weekend, Mems took the babies overnight so that Billy and I could get a good night of sleep. Teri came to town and spent Friday night with us and Saturday night with Mems, helping with the babies. Bill also went by and helped Mems out for a while on Saturday night. It was so strange to be home without the babies. Winnie seemed to really enjoy being our only child again.

We ran some errands on Saturday after dropping the kids off. Then, I went to sleep at 11 and slept until 9 a.m. It felt great. I had to get up a couple of times to pump, but 10-15 minutes of pumping each time beats being up for an hour and half for a feeding and changing.

We were a little concerned about Mems having them overnight because one time, Winnie spent the night with her, and she had a really hard time with it. When we went to her house to pick Winnie up, Mems was still in her pajamas, had not brushed her hair, had on no makeup, and just looked completely overwhelmed. I guess 1 Winnie is more of a handful than 3 babies because Mems did very well with threesome.

Okay, I've got more pictures. Here are some recent shots:

Here is Will snuggling with his frog binky that Mems has for him at her house.

Abby is fast asleep in her car seat after a long lunch at Papa's house on Sunday. A girl has to get her beauty rest!

Will and Marie are holding hands in this picture. I didn't stage this. They just grabbed hands. It was too cute not to take a picture.

All 3 swaddled bundles on the couch. Billy set their heads all up together to get this shot.

Marie's little face has gotten really fat in the last week. She's a chunkster!

Cooperisms

Here is a picture of Cooper dead asleep when he came to visit me and the babies at the hospital. He slept in this chair the entire time he was in the room, and he didn't believe he had been to see the babies after they left.

Since Cooper and Carley moved to town, I've gotten to spend more time with them and talk to Liane more so I get to hear and experience all kinds of stories about their adventures. Lately, Cooper has been saying some of the funniest stuff.

Alice and Kibby recently had their entire kitchen and family room remodeled. When Cooper went to visit after the project had nearly been completed, he said, "Awice, your kitchen looks vewy nice. You must be vewy pweased." Where did he come up with that?

Kibby told Cooper that he was going to be out of town for a few days, and Cooper responded, "I'll miss you, but I'll twy to stay busy." Hilarious!

Cooper and Carley recently started taking lessons at a place that offers all kinds of kids' activities. Carley is taking ballet, and Cooper was taking soccer. However, after a couple of soccer classes, Cooper decided that he did not like soccer, but he did want to take up ballet since Carley was enjoying it so much. Needless to say, Jason was not having any of it. Cooper will be staying out of ballet. He told Alice, "I don't like soccer. My mommy was vewy disappointed."

Cooper attended a camp for "Pirates and Princesses" last week with Rose. Rose came home and reported to Vivian that Cooper had not talked to her all day long. When Liane questioned Cooper about it, he said, "Mommy, there were lots of boys and girls there. I sat next to Rose." He's a busy man. I guess he had a lot of networking to do and figured he could talk to Rose any time.

By the way, Billy bought me a new laptop so I can blog more often. I can also get more pictures of the babies up. I'll work on that some tomorrow. I have my follow-up appointment with my ob tomorrow morning. Hopefully, everything is looking good in my land down under.

The rest of the day/night

So I left off with the early afternoon feeding last time. Here's a continuation of a "typical" day:

After the 12-1:30 feeding, I fold baby laundry and put it away, rinse more bottles, pump more milk, console crying babies, take Winnie out to do her business, and try to eat a little more. By the time I'm done with getting these things done, it's time to feed AGAIN!

3-4:30-Last feeding before Billy comes home! I divide up my day into the number of feedings until Billy gets home because it gives me a way to break up the day, and when I'm alone, it gives me something to look forward to...help with the babies.

I've been working on ways to feed more than one at a time. Yesterday, I propped one up on the boppy pillow next to me on the couch and held one in my arms. I held the bottle in the mouth of the one on the boppy and fed the one in my arms one-handed. It worked well. I hate to prop, but I also hate to hear a baby crying because he/she is hungry.

4:30-6:30-I try to relax a little during this time if the babies are being good, which isn't usually the case. I sit on the couch, but I don't usually sleep. My problem is that if I take a nap, I wake up feeling worse than I did to begin with. Yesterday during this time, I put Abby, Marie, and Will on the couch with me. Winnie decided that if the whole family was up there, she should also join us so she did. It was hilarious. All 5 of us were on the couch!

I also have to pump again during this time. I try to pump every time I have a "spare" 10 minutes. The babies are constantly increasing the amount of milk they want, and I need my milk supply to keep up. It ain't easy feeding 3 babies from 2 small boobies!

6:30-7-Billy gets home. After he changes, he helps me with the next feeding, which may last until about 8. After that, we try to eat a quick dinner. As you can imagine, the time I have to cook is very limited. This is why I am so thankful for all of the food that has been sent our way.

8:30-Baby bath time. Will has cradle cap so we are supposed to bathe him daily, but hell, who has time for that? We usually get around to it every other day. Last night, we skipped the baths and went for a walk. It felt great. I think we will alternate bath and walking nights.

If you are curious about baths, here's how we do it:
-Billy fills the tub in the sink.
-I undress 1 baby at a time and bring him/her in to Billy
-Billy scrubs the baby in the tub and I rinse
-I wrap the baby in a towel and dry, diaper, and get him/her dressed while Billy preps the bath water for the next baby.
If we have help, the other person does the drying and clothes, and I help Billy with the bathing.

9-Time to feed the babies. Yes, it's been 3 hours already! Tonight, we started taking the babies upstairs to their room after this feeding. We used to wait until after the midnight feeding, but we were both just too tired at that point. As I type, Will and Marie are fast asleep in their cribs, but Abby is in our bed snuggled up with Billy. She was being a crying nightmare, and we could only soothe her by holding her. This will probably go on most of the night.

10-I brush my teeth and wash my face and pee. Notice I have not documented going to the bathroom all day. Most of the time, I don't pee from the morning until the night. This is not normal. I drink tons of water, but maybe the breastfeeding dehydrates me.

10:30-12-Load more baby bottles in the dishwasher, prep bottles for overnight, run the dishwasher, and pump again, while running back and forth to the babies' room to check on criers.

12-It all begins again!

A half day and night in the life of the trips

I'll finish this entry later. It was just running long, and I wanted to get a post up today. I'll get the rest of the day done later tonight.

12 a.m.-We are feeding. If Billy and I have help, everyone will take one baby, feed him/her a bottle of breastmilk I have pumped. If it's just me and Billy, one of us will handle 2 babies back to back. Then, all babies get their diapers changed, and we take them all up to their bedroom from the family room. Whenever we take all of the babies somewhere, I refer to this as the baby parade.

Once we get upstairs, all babies have to be swaddled tightly and placed in their respective cribs. They used to all sleep in the same crib, but we just started separating them. They can now break out of swaddle, and they all end up whacking each other and waking each other up. We do not want that.

Inevitably, someone is usually extra fussy and has to be held and rocked for a while to encourage them to go to sleep. I usually am in bed by about 1:30 a.m.

1:30-3:30 a.m.-All babies sleep, if I'm lucky. Abby has had some bad nights where she wakes up over and over during this time and needs to be consoled. Marie has also done this. Sometimes Will drops his paci and cries for me to come put it back in his mouth. It all depends on the night.

3:30 a.m.-Somebody wakes up crying, and I know it's feeding time again. I jump out of bed and race downstairs to warm up bottles. I pace frantically as the bottles heat up because I can hear a baby or two or three crying, and I want to get to them. My breasts usually start leaking at this point, and they ache.

3:40 a.m.-The bottles are ready! If someone is spending the night, they are already in the babies' room trying to deal with the hungry babies. I bring up the bottles and the other person and I tend to the babies crying the loudest. If I'm alone, I deal with the loudest baby and let the other(s) continue to cry. It's sad, but what can you do?

3:45-4:30-Feed the babies and change their diapers. It only lasts about 30 minutes if there are 2 people, but if it's just me, it could take about an hour or an hour and a half. It just depends on how quickly the babies drink their milk and how many of them pee and/or poop on themselves during the diaper changes. Last night, Marie peed all over herself when I was changing her diaper so I had to clean up that mess and change all her clothes. Before that, Will barfed all over me. It was not a good night.

During the week, I usually wake up and take care of the 3:30 feeding with our help or alone. On the weekends, Billy and I alternate who will take that feeding. Sometimes, I skip the 12 feeding and go to sleep around 9 so that I will have gotten 5 or 6 hours of sleep by the 3 a.m. feeding. However, I have to pay the price, which is horrendously sore breasts. If I go more than 3 hours without feeding the babies from my boobies or pumping, I'm in pain. My breasts get hard as rocks and start leaking. Attractive, huh?

4:30-4:45-I pump milk. We usually feed the babies from bottles at night because they drink them much faster than they nurse. I pump milk and feed them breastmilk, but if I haven't pumped, they get a formula bottle. I'm usually back in bed around 5 a.m., which gives me about an hour and a half of sleep before the next feeding.

4:45-6:30-Again, if we are lucky, the babies all sleep. We usually have a fussy one at this point that needs a little extra attention (rocking, paci holding, etc.).

6:30-The feeding cycle begins again. I hear a baby crying and wake up Billy because he typically handles this feeding with any help we have. However, if we are alone, I get up for this one with him. It's amazing to me that he doesn't hear the crying himself. I used to be a very heavy sleeper, but one little peep out of the babies, and I'm awake and out of bed racing to their bedroom. I feel like Vivian. She said that she's so paranoid and such a light sleeper that a piece of pinestraw hitting the roof of her house will wake her.

This feeding usually lasts until about 7:30. Even if we have help, and I don't have to help with the feeding, I have to get up at this point and pump for about 15 minutes.

7:30-9:00-I may drift in and out of sleep for a little while, or I may need to get up and get some bottles ready, empty the dishwasher, load the bottles in from the night before, etc. It just depends on the day. At some point, I get dressed for the day because if I don't do it now, it won't happen.

9:00-10:30-Time to start prepping for and do another feeding. At this feeding, I like to try to breastfeed each baby individually to spend some one-on-one time with him or her. However, this only works if they are not all hungry at the same time. If they are, I have to feed 2 at a time and then the third. I'm still trying to figure out how to grow a third nipple.;)

If I breastfeed one at a time, this feeding ends up taking about an hour and a half. The babies aren't quite as efficient at the breast as they are at the bottle. If I don’t breastfeed them all, I have to pump again after the feeding.

10:30 a.m.-Baby parade downstairs. All babies are transported to our second baby station in the house-the family room. I sometimes carry 2 babies at a time, but usually I do all 3 separately just for safety. Winnie tends to want to run up and down the stairs as I bring babies down so I feel better just carrying one to be able to control the beast at the same time.

If I didn’t do it earlier, I now begin rinsing all the bottles from the night before and loading them in the dishwasher. This is about 9-12 bottles.

After this is done, I get a load of baby laundry going. Most nights, they have peed, pooped, and/or spit up on outfits, the changing table covers, their crib sheets, swaddle blankets, etc.

Now it’s time for me to stuff my face. All this breastfeeding makes me starving so I usually eat a couple of bowls of cereal and milk and a glass of o.j. I also take my special herbs to make more breast milk.

12:00-1:30-The feeding frenzy begins again. If I’m alone, I try to get a jump start on the next feeding by getting one of the babies fed before he/she starts to cry. I start with whoever got the first bottle at the last feeding, figuring he/she will be the most hungry to begin.

This is what you all care about

Everyone asks me to post new pictures constantly so here it goes:


Here is a picture of our squirmiest child, Will, in his favorite position. He wiggled his way into this position on his own. We placed him in the crib the same way the girls are placed in there.

In this picture, Winnie is guarding the babies. I think she's actually just exhausted after hearing them cry all day, but I like to say she's being the protector.

How cute is this? Marie has her little arm around Will's back during tummy time, but Abby is grabbing him from the other side. The girls love their little brother!

Here is a close-up of Marie's little face.

Here is one of Will's face.

Last, but not least, here is Abby.

We had a doctor's appointment yesterday. I'll post their new weights and lengths tomorrow. I also had a request for a blog entry about our daily schedule. I'll keep track of a "normal" day and give an account.

So thankful

I was writing thank you notes between feedings yesterday, and I just started thinking about how really thankful I am for all of my family and friends that have been so incredibly generous, loving, and supportive throughout the pregnancy and now into motherhood. When I think about not only all the gifts the babies have received but also the food, hand-me-downs, visits, calls, texts, e-mails, hits to the blog, etc., I am amazed. There are so many people who care so much about our new family.

First, I want to thank our immediate families. Alice stayed with us when we first came home from the hospital, and Teri followed her. Mems was next. Bill has also spent some long nights with us, and my dad stays every Tuesday and Thursday night. A side note on that...he stayed this past Tuesday, and Abby was up all night. My dad patiently rocked her from 1 a.m. until 5 a.m.! Every time he tried to put her down, she would scream bloody murder. I was scared to ask him if he was going to be back again on Thursday. I guess I'll find out.

Maureen has also come to help. In fact, she's watching the kids with my dad when Billy and I go out for my birthday. We are going to Season's 52. Yummy!

Vivian stays Sunday nights, but she's unavailable for 2 weeks so we are going to be missing her. Winnie especially will be sad since she enjoyed snuggling with her. Vivian said that if it wasn't enough that Winnie hogged up the whole bed, she also woke up in the middle of the night to Winnie staring at her, panting heavily. I guess she thought it was time to play.

Liane, of course, gave us the best gift of all--these babies. She has come by on several occasions to bring me baby stuff. She can't really spend the night since she has 2 young ones of her own and a bun in the oven. However, she still stays very involved in the babies' lives, and I can tell by the way she interacts with them that she feels a special bond. Carley loves the babies and has even named 2 of her own baby dolls Abby and Marie. She sleeps with them at night.

My step-sisters have also been amazing. Laura made a delicious chocolate chip pie for us that I'm sure is part of the reason I haven't lost some of the my baby weight. That thing was so good! She also has given me a bunch of hand-me-down clothes and baby supplies. She has everything you can imagine! Erin has come by a couple of times with gifts for the babies and additional baby supplies and hand-me-downs. Noelle came to visit at the hospital and brought diapers and has provided some great advice on caring for multiples. Caroline has given us bags and bags of matching girls' outfits.

Our extended families also deserve some thanks. Our aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. have been sending us gifts and calling to inquire about the babies constantly. Some have brought over good Cuban comfort food, like black beans and rice and pork. Good stuff!

Finally, we very much appreciate all the support from our friends. They have been instrumental in keeping us well fed and visiting me to keep me from going insane. Becky's food calendar has worked beautifully. I think after this month, we'll have food prep under control, but Billy said he was going to miss the deliveries of all kinds of different foods. It was always exciting to see who and what was going to show up at our doorstep for that night.

I don't know how I can thank you all enough for what you have done. Just know that if there is anything you should ever need, please do not hesitate to ask. I love you all dearly and am thankful to have amazing people all around us. Our children are so lucky to have you all in their lives!

I'm so sorry about that

Liane has been working on potty training Cooper for several months now, but he still has accidents. He's just too lazy to take the time to actually go to the bathroom. I think he's afraid he's going to miss something important in those few seconds it takes to pee and/or take a dump.

When he came to visit me at my house a few weeks ago, he went out in the backyard. I was watching him from the sun room, and I noticed he was taking off his pants. I asked Liane if we should be concerned about that, and she said that he sometimes likes to pee outdoors. However, he then began to squat, and we soon realized he was actually pooping in my yard! I'm not sure what made him thinking that was okay. Billy said that when Cooper grew up and had a house of his own, he was going to go over there and take a crap in his yard to get him back.

A few days ago, Cooper pooped in his underwear, and when Liane took them off him to clean him up, he saw that he had been wearing Spider Man underwear. Cooper looked at them and said, "I'm so sorry about that, Spider Man." Hilarious! He was actually apologizing to his underwear for pooping in them. Liane put a pair of Thomas the Train underwear on him, and he looked back at his butt, and told Thomas, "I won't pee on you, Thomas. I promise!"

What you've all been waiting for

Abby is pictured above. We call her our "one-legged baby" because she loves this position.

Here is Will. He's our little chicken. Billy said we have to be careful about calling him that because the nickname may stick, and he could be 15 years old, and we'll still be calling him chicken. His friends would have a field day making fun of that!

Here is our threesome dressed up for their 2 week doctor's appointment. The girls have on their matching outfits. I don't always dress them alike, but I have some matching clothes that I do put on them.

Sometimes when Abby gets hungry, she will suck on her brother or sister's forehead, if she can get to it. It looks like she's trying to make a move on Marie's face here.

This is our reserved parking spot when we go to Papa and Maureen's house. Dad wanted to make sure that the kids felt welcome, and that we would have easy access to the door when toting around 3 car seats.
Our threesome is all swaddled up and cozy in this picture. Look how cute to see Abby and Will touching heads. Marie is kind of hanging out on her own.

Personalities

I now have a new system that will allow me to keep up with the blog a little better. I hooked up my breast pump right next to the computer so that whenever I pump, I can type. I've always been into multi-tasking. So when you read my blog entries now, think of me hooked up to a torture machine that pulls my nipples in and out to extract milk.

Since I've had a special request, I figured I would write a little about the babies' personalities today. It's so funny to see how their behaviors in utero still exist outside the womb and how much they are each becoming their own little person.

Will is probably the best behaved and most patient. He loves to be held and will just snuggle for hours without getting upset. However, he is the most active. He squirms around like crazy. Just the other morning, we found him in the crib with his feet pushed up on Marie's stomach and his head on Abby's belly. He had squirmed around to that position after we put them all lined up. Billy thinks he was trying to get back into the position he was in when they were inside of me. How does he move so well at this age? I'm afraid he's going to be a little daredevil when he's actually mobile.

Will may also be a prankster. He seems to really like to pee on people when they change him. Sometimes, though, he must get his aim a little off because he has shot himself in the face on several occasions.

When Will was in my belly, we would often see his movements from the outside. I said I felt like he was always moving around his hands. You should see him now. He's constantly moving his hands in front of his face and all around the place.

Abby is incredibly impatient. When she wakes up and wants to eat, she starts to scream. Then, she gets so into having a screaming fit that she can't even see straight to be able to latch on to my breast. She also likes to suck a pacifier and the moment it falls out of her mouth, she screams bloody murder. This is the worst at night because I think she's asleep and content, and I leave her room to go back to sleep. The moment I get back in bed and get comfortable, she screams, and I have to run to her to get the paci in her mouth before she wakes up the neighborhood.

Abby also likes a lot of one-on-one attention. She loves to be held and once she gets used to being in your arms, she does not want to be put down. She's easily spoiled.

Abby always made big movements when she was in my belly, and it often felt like her and Will were fighting each other. Now, she still moves around a good bit, and a couple of times when she has been placed next to Will, they will throw punches at each other.

Marie is sweet and a great sleeper. I always have to wake her to feed her. It's rare that she wakes up on her own to complain about being hungry, but when she eats, she's a little sucking machine. She can definitely put down the breast milk.

Marie was probably the most laid-back baby in utero. She hung out on her side (far right), and I didn't feel her nearly as much as the other two. In life outside the womb, she continues to be chill and fly under the radar.

I'm about to stop pumping for now, but I'll try to get our newest pictures downloaded off the camera at the next pump time. Then, I'll post them the pump time after that.

My fat babies

We had a doctor's appointment today, which means we have updated weights for everyone:

Abby-She's still in the lead at 6 lbs 1 oz
Marie-She has gained the most at 5 lbs 13 1/2 ozs
Will-He's our wimpy, white, chicken, old man, and he's 5 lbs 13 1/2 ozs

Abby has the most gigantic boogers come out of her nose when I suction it. How can a little person with such a tiny nose have such large boogers? It's a medical mystery. Apparently, that's pretty normal. I just have to suction her out a few times per day.

Marie is in good shape, besides her vomiting episodes. We just need to burp her more often during feedings. She may be getting air bubbles. She also has a blocked tear duct in one eye. I have to massage the duct 4 times/day.

Will has cradle cap so we have to wash his hair with special shampoo daily. He also has a slightly flat spot on the right side of his head. We have to make him look left more. He has some dry skin on his face that needs to be exfoliated. He also had a little extra flap of skin under his tongue that the doctor snipped off today. It will help him feed better because he can now get more of his tongue out. He cried when they did it, and I almost started to cry also. He was fine within in a minute, and he got to suck my boobie to make him feel better. Boys are so easy to please.

I've gotten a request to blog about their budding personalities. I will start that the next post. If you have any special requests for updates, just leave me a comment or send me an e-mail. I would be happy to oblige my readers!

First really bad night

It's the first of many to come, but we had our first terrible night on Monday. Will and Marie projectile vomited a couple of times, and we didn't know what was going on. We called the pediatrician's office, and they said that if the vomiting didn't subside, we should go to the emergency room. Obviously, I was panicked about that scenario.

The nurse recommended that I only breastfeed the babies, since breast milk is easier to digest. She also suggested that I feed every hour, but only enough to satiate them, not fill them up. Billy and I decided to sleep in the family room with the kids in the pack 'n play so we could stay close and monitor any problems.

Well, the babies cried almost all night. They were hungry and wanted to eat more every time I fed them. I felt awful each time I had to pull one off my breast as they were sucking away. I felt like I was starving my little people. They were so pitiful.

The good news is that they did not throw up any more the whole night, which meant we didn't have to go to the hospital. The next morning, I resumed their normal feeding schedule, and they did just fine with it. It took about 1/2 the day to get them back to every 3 hours, but we did it. My dad came over and helped me, and he spent Tuesday night with us. He's our Tuesday/Thursday night nurse now.

Speaking of night nurses, Vivian is our Sunday one. She spent her first Sunday with us last weekend, and when she went to get in bed, she found a surprise waiting for her-Winnie! I think Winnie has been feeling neglected by me and Billy since the babies arrived, and she sticks like glue to whoever comes over to help with the babies. Vivian was the victim of the day. I was in the kids' room, and I could hear Vivian talking to Winnie. She was asking her to "please move" and "scoot over." When I walked in the room, Vivian was pushed up against one side of the bed with Winnie sprawled out on the rest of it. She said, "Could you do something about the dog? I've got half my ass hanging off the bed!" Billy pushed Winnie to the side, and they were able to sleep happily ever after...at least until each of the night feedings.