Croup (Again!)

So, last year around this time, my kids got croup, and guess what, it's happened again! UGH!!! Last week, Will got a fever and then threw up several times. Marie did the same a few days later, and Abby followed up this week with the same routine. Did I mention that many of those vomiting fits were in our bed...in the middle of the night? We probably changed our sheets 5 or 6 times in two nights when it got particularly bad.


Throwing up and fever I can handle, but for each of them, it led to congestion, coughing, difficulty breathing, etc. Now that stuff, I HATE! It is so stressful to hear your child coughing all night and gasping for air.


It turns out they all have croup and are on oral steroids, which are making them CRAZY. Will is more aggressive than usual. He beats the crap out of his sisters, which has resulted in some backlash from them. Abby bit him on the cheek when she got sick and tired of the abuse. Marie just gets upset from the steroids. She stands in the middle of the family room, stomps her feet, and cries. My poor, little Bear. Abby just started today so we are yet to see the effects the meds will have on her. God, help us all!


I am so tired. I haven't slept in about a week...between watching babies to make sure they are breathing, changing sheets, listening to coughs, comforting upset children, etc., I think I have averaged about 3 or 4 hours per night since last Thursday. This reminds me of the good ole days of newborn triplets.


BTW-Marie broke my camera a couple of weeks ago. We ordered a new one last week, and I'm still waiting on it. That's why my picture posts are limited. I'm hoping to get you some new pictures next week.

Bilingual Babies

Since I speak to the kids only in Spanish, but Billy and Michele (our nanny) only speak to them in English, people always ask me if the kids speak more Spanish or English, and I would say it's about 50/50. This weekend, as we were riding to my dad's house, we had a perfect illustration of that.


We passed over the Chattahoochee, and there was some construction on one side of the street. They all pointed at the river and said, "agua." Then, they turned their heads and saw the trucks, and started yelling "trucks." As we drove away they said, "Adios, agua. Adios, trucks." Then, they asked me for "mas trucks." I told them we would see more as we got closer to Papa's house (I explained it in Spanish), and Will said, "Papa home." It's a bit of Spanglish, but they are getting it.

I can ask them to do anything in Spanish, and they do it. Billy can make the exact same request in English, and he'll get the same response. I'll ask, "Como dice el gato?, " and I'll hear a chorus of "meows." Billy will ask, "What does a cat say?," and he will hear the same noises. They know it both ways. It really is amazing!

Sh!++y Morning/Pukey Night

This morning, I awoke to Abby crying at 5 a.m. When I went in the room, Will saw me pick up Abby and freaked out. Therefore, I picked him up also, and we all 3 sat in the rocking chair in their room. They both fell asleep, but then, I realized I was stuck. At around 5:30, I tried to put them back in their cribs, but they both woke up. Therefore, I brought them both to our bed. At that point, Will took a major dump. Therefore, I went downstairs to change his diaper, and Abby stayed asleep with Billy and Winnie.

When I went downstairs, I discovered that I had forgotten to put the 2 lbs of chicken I breaded and cooked for them in the fridge the night before. Great. All that time, effort, and money down the toilet. I had to throw it all away. Ugh.

I changed Will’s nasty poop, and he joined me, Abby, Billy, and Winnie in bed. By then, I slept about 15 minutes, and I had to get up to shower. Perfect. Abby and Will stayed fast asleep while I showered and got dressed. When I was ready to go downstairs, Abby woke up and came down with me.

I heard Marie crying around 7:30 so I headed up to grab her. The smell of poop hit me as soon as I walked in, and I figured the pooping must have woken her up. I bring her downstairs to change her diaper and notice brown on her shirt. Yes, it’s poop, but it gets better. I look at her hands---crusty poop everywhere!! UGH! Remember, she’s thumb sucker, which means she had poopy hands in her mouth. Disgusting.

I don’t know why she has this obsession with putting her hands in her diaper and then sucking her thumb right after, but she seems to think it’s hilarious. I’ve tried ignoring her, scolding her, putting her in time out, but it doesn’t faze her. Hand in diaper + hand in mouth = Super funny to her. She looks right at me when she does it and smiles. I don't think I would be smiling if I put a hand thumb full of poop in my mouth.

I got her diaper and clothes changed and hands washed, and then, I went up to inspect her crib. Poop was on the sheets, her blanket, her pillow case. Gross. This keeps getting better.

I put that all in the washing machine on the hot/sanitary cycle, and I thought it was over, but when I went to give her a kiss, she still smelled like poop. That’s when I discovered she had crusty poop all in her hair. YUCK!!! I had to leave for jury duty at that point, so I just had to ask Michele to please wash her hair when she sat the others down for breakfast. When I talked to Billy later, I asked how the kids were after I left, and he said, “Fine, but Marie smelled like s&8+.”

This whole episode was incredibly timely because at work, we had been talking about "fecal-oral transmission" of diseases, and some people had been questioning how kids get poop in their mouths. Marie is now the poster child for fecal-oral disease transmission. I'm such a proud mom! My child can demonstrate worst practices in the public health field.

Just another morning in the Zeigler house. Good times. But wait, there's more. The evening just capped off a perfect day.

Michele (nanny) texted me late in the afternoon to inform me that Will had been feverish. She gave him some tylenol (not name brand, I know about the recall), and he seemed to be okay. I came home, hung out for a while with them, and I left Billy to put them to sleep because I was having dinner with some friends. When I came home, Will was on the couch with Billy, and he was burning up. I gave him more medicine and snuggled for a while. He asked for some cold juice, and I gave him a few ounces. After chugging that he proceeded to puke all over me, himself, and the couch, which we just had steam cleaned a couple of weeks ago. Awesome.

Jury duty

So, I am currently waiting around to possibly get called to serve on a jury. Seems like a good time to post a few pics.


Abby has an ET neck here.


Marie is really into accessories.


Will is a super cool dude. These pictures were on the way to a first bday party for twins we know. They had a great time partying!!


Abby and Marie spent Friday night marmie's doing girlie stuff, like hugging. Will was our one and only to enjoy for the evening, and we took him out for Mexican with friends for another bday and Italian ice. He had lots of fun being spoiled, but he did ask for Abby-g and Marie a lot. So funny how they know when a part of their pack missing.



We had a shower for Alice, and the girls joined me to celebrate. Will and Billy had boy time. Alice's baby will be arriving august 9th!!! So exciting.

Papa's house

There are no rules when we go to Papa's house. Here is Marie sitting on my dad's lap while he eats lunch. You can't see Will and Abby, who are standing next to him because he lets them drink sweet tea out of his glass. While he was distacted giving the other 2 their tea, Marie was grabbing fistfulls of black beans and rice off his plate and stuffing them in her mouth!




Marmie's house is also pretty easygoing.



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Ft. Walton Trip - The Details

Okay, I will now chronicle the entire week we spent in Ft. Walton using pictures and captions. Here we go....



Marie rode down to the beach with Marmie and Pop-pop. That helped us out because with only 2 car seats in the back, I could sit back there and help keep the kids entertained. Anyway, when they arrived in Florida, the grandparents took Marie to the grocery store, and I guess she was hungry because here she is munching on an apple with one hand and the other hand is in the bag of goldfish.



We spent most of our days by the ocean and in the pool. We had a wonderful first floor unit, and our little patio area opened right out to the pool. The kids would look out everyday and scream, "agua." They wanted to be out there all the time.


Marie hated the sand. She would not put her feet down in it. Whenever we tried to put her down, she would lift her feet and say, "no." The first two days, she would only sit on my lap on a blanket in the sand, and she played strictly with water-no sand. By the third day, Billy convinced her to sit on the blanket by herself. She never stood in the sand on her own. Maybe next year.


Abby had sand caked in all her private places within minutes of hitting the beach everyday. She loved it. They all really liked to play with buckets of water, which kept Dada, Pop-pop, and Papa very busy--a lot of running back and forth to the ocean to fill up buckets.


Besides beach time, we did some extracurricular activities. Papa wanted to take the kids to "The Track" in Destin. They had a bunch of kiddie rides that the little ones enjoyed, and Rose was able to do some of the bigger kid stuff.

The swings were a big hit with everyone.

Abby on her spinning swing.

On our way to the Track, Marie decided she was carsick and barfed. Therefore, when we arrived, we were really hesitant to put her on the rides. This one was especially dicey because the ride spins plus the cars they ride on spin. That's a lot of spinning for a girl that just threw up. However, she insisted on riding, and we gave in. We could hear her giggling every time that little car spun by us, and she did not throw up again.

The choo-choo train was a favorite. I think we rode it 3 times. They kept saying, "mas" (more) as soon as it would stop.

In the evening, we would relax on our patio with the kids. Here they are eating popsicles. They were a sticky, nasty mess after each eating 2 popsicles.

Will looks like a little vampire here after eating a cherry popsicle!

We had like 10 pictures of them sitting on the couch sharing this bag of chips, and the whole time, Pop-pop is just reading his book. I thought that was so funny. By the end of the week, he could just tune them out.

We also took the kids to the Gulfarium, which is a small aquarium. It was right around the corner from where we were staying. They didn't really care much about the dolphin show, but I loved it!

Their faces say, "I am not entertained by this. What do you think I am, your clown?"

Here is Dada with Abigail, or Abby-G, as the other two call her.

Marmie took this picture one night as she was getting ready for dinner. The kids gathered to watch her get ready in the bathroom doorway. I didn't know Marmie curling her hair could be this entertaining!

We treated all of our wonderful helpers to dinner at a nearby restaurant. My dad, Maureen and Billy's parents all came down to help us. That's one of the reasons why this trip was so much less stressful than last year's. The grandparents are just amazing, and we appreciate how much they help us out. We could not possibly repay them with just a dinner, but I guess it's something.

After dinner that night, we took a walk on the Boardwalk, and the kids were watching people playing on the beach. They also ate ice cream for dessert.

There was even a playground on the beach where we played with friends.

On our way home, we stopped at Petsmart to let them play. It was raining so a rest-stop wouldn't work. They ran around and looked at all the animals and practiced their animal noises.
Here they are with the guinea pigs, rats, hamsters, etc. Gross!

All in all, it was a lot of fun. It's so much different than last year because they are down to 1 nap a day. Last year, they were napping in the morning and afternoon, and so by the time we got them all ready to go to the beach (swim diapers x 3, bathing suits x 3, sunscreen spraying x 3, sunscreen lotion on faces x 3) and gathered all of our beach supplies, lugged everything down the elevator, got set up on the beach with our tent, toys, etc., it was time for their morning nap! It was awful. This year, we would get them ready, and walk right out to the umbrellas and chairs that came with the unit.

This year, as I mentioned, we had tons more help. Therefore, when the kids would nap in the afternoon, Marmie or Pop-pop would hang out and listen out for them while Billy and I sat by the pool or ocean to read and relax. That felt great! We were also able to eat out almost every night because of all the help we had. Granted, we ate around 5:30, but that's when the restaurants were least busy, and our kids usual dinnertime.

We also had a lot less to pack. We rented from a fellow triplet mom, and she really hooked us up. She provided 3 high chairs, 3 strollers, and a monitor in the unit. She also rented us 3 umbrellas and 6 chairs on the beach. We rented cribs from a company down there, and they set them up before we arrived and took them away as we were leaving.

I'm already looking forward to next year's vacation!

Beach trip 2010

We spent a wonderful week at the beach at the end of last month. It was SO much better than last year's trip.

Here is a sneak peak at some pictures. I'll give a full recap with more pictures later - when I'm at my computer. Typing on my phone is too time consuming.



Will is fed up with the girls asking him for more veggie chips!


Dada and will off to fill their buckets with agua.


Marie wanting another Popsicle-after having 2. Sugar high!!


Abby, my sand princess-she loved playing in it. Marie would not touch the stuff or stand on it.

More to come!!!

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