It's been a long time....

It's been a long time since I've had time to sit and write about the things going on in our lives.  Where do I even begin?

We celebrated David's first birthday.  What a beautiful day!  That little boy has come a LONG way from the baby who spent 40 days in the NICU.  My niece Aeri spent a few days (and nights) in "Tia Elly Bootcamp" as a result of a fight with her mom and it was great to spend time with her!  She's a great kid.  By the day of the party we were absolutely exhausted, but with only a few mishaps.... it was a great party! 

I'll write more about it, but in mid July I sat in on IEPs for Gracie and Serafina.  That was a tough day.  I held it together in the room, but did fall apart completely once I was in the solitude of my car.  Needless to say I told the district to take the placement and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.  I was nicer than that about it, but that was the message that the coordinator received and she knew it. 

We enrolled the triplets in a private pre-school.  It's a parent co-op, which is great.  Because we have three students enrolled we have a TON of parent hours to work, which is fine.  The nice thing is that they give families a break on tuition for all extra hours worked.  I plan to work any extra hours possible in our crazy schedule to help out with tuition.

In late July, on a Sunday morning, I went to run my errands.  As I'm walking around Walmart looking for the things we needed, Luis calls me and just about gives me a heart attack!  With no other details he says, "Come home, come home now, and what's Lenzo's number!?!?!?!"  He hangs up on me before I can say more than that I was running out of the store and was on my way.  The reason I freaked is b/c Lenzo works with the police department, so I'm thinking something horrible has happened.  While it wasn't the tragedy I first imagine, Luis telling me that we had "....a leak...." was a gross understatement.  Our neighbor upstairs had gone out of the country and her toilet tank cracked and was continuously filling up and spilling over, which consequently made our bathroom look like it had a waterfall and it was raining in the hallway and down the hallway wall.  It was fun times.... really.  As a result we spent about 2 weeks living with my parents while the carpets were dried out and the bathroom was re-done.  They still haven't finished the baseboards for one wall, but that's their issue.  Not much we can do about it.

In early August we were able to take a couple days off from reality and had a mini vacation with the Denis family at a rented lake house in Northern California.  Other than a difficult Saturday afternoon from the triplets and a very interesting drive home - curtesy of David - it was a lovely weekend.

We're finally back home and more in the groove of things.  I won't call it downtime, but it almost feels that way!

I knew it was coming

A part of me knew it was coming,but I had hoped it wouldn't happen quite so soon.  Less than a week ago we went through our regular bedtime routine and had the triplets in bed by 7pm.  A few minutes after closing their door we hear Gracie start screaming.  This wasn't her "I want out of bed" screaming.  I go to the nursery to check it out.  Imagine my surprise when I see Luisito sitting in Gracie's crib - where her head had *just* been.  It seems that our gymnastics classes are really paying off.  Luisito learned to jump from his crib, straight into Gracie's.  I put him back into his crib, but the jumping up and over went on for another 45 minutes.  Fun times, right?

The next day we go through our naptime routine after lunch.  Luisito decides to pull the same stunt so I put him in timeout in his booster chair (the only spot we have available for TOs in our small apartment).  I go into the nursery and find Gracie sitting in Luisito's crib.  Really?  REALLY?  How on earth did that child figure that out?!?  She's not very tall, so it was quite amazing to me that she made it over the railing.  Bedtime was more of the same.  NOT fun.

The day after that rolls around, and naptime hits.  Everyone goes to bed.  Out of nowhere Gracie decides to come strolling down the hall - to talk I'd presume.  That little girl managed to jump out of her crib, down to the floor.  The rest of the day and all day today.... Luisito and Gracie have been jumping out of bed.  They don't always leave their nursery, but they don't stay in bed. 

Serafina has not yet shown an interest in jumping out of her crib - other than that one time a few months ago.  This doesn't surprise because Serafina's personality dictates that she will MASTER the art of jumping out of her crib - and probably jumping back in - before she shows us that she's able to do it.This is how she's done everything - crawling, sitting, walking, etc. - so I have no doubt she'll do the same with this.

Now we have to decide whether or not we deal with the jumping out of cribs, get them crib tents - and if we go that route, how long will they last?, or do we go straight to toddler/twin beds? 

I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

the nursery

I'm not sure that at two and a half years old, the triplet's bedroom can still be called a nursery, but for all intents and purposes, that's what we'll call it. Because we are so short on space in our apartment the kids have access to their bedroom only to nap (and I use that term losely) and to sleep at night. Most of the room is a storage room, with 3 cribs in the middle of the mess of *things*.

In the past 2 days the trips have made every attempt to destroy their room. Why? I'm not too sure. They seem to find amusement in finding new ways to deface their bedroom and they are never surprised by my reaction to their actions.

Yesterday and today are perfect examples of their behavior. Yesterday morning, when I opened their door in the morning (though I never close it completely) I was welcomed by the smiling faces of my three kids tearing apart a bunch of books. The books they decided to rip - from the binding AND shredding the pages - were mostly books my husband Luis and I brought home from Spain. Books that are no longer in print. Books I had hoped to save for them. Books that had been out of their reach until yesterday morning - though I'm still not sure HOW they got to the books, but that's a different story altogether. I was devastated by this loss of these books. I hope to one of these days get them to understand that it is NOT okay to do things like that. Luisito seems to have been the ringleader in this activity.

This morning I was greeted by a very different, but equally destructive site. My middle girl - Gracie - somehow managed to pick away at the stitching of the mattress in her crib,and she basically unstitched one fourth of her mattress. I have pictures because without them I'm not sure I would believe myself down the road. Although most families would find this to be more than enough excitement for the day - and this was in the first 5 minutes of the day - the afternoon brought on even more activity. Triplets go down for a "nap" every day around noon. They have to rest - or sleep! - until about 3pm.

When I went in to get them up today Serafina had somehow removed her diaper - though the rest of her clothes was still intact. She removed the contents of the diaper and spread them in her bed. At some point I think she peed in the poop and rolled around in it from the very wet heat she had and the fingerprints in the poop. Fun times here at home! I tossed everyone in the tub - Plus one was screaming the entire time trips were in the bath. He wanted in on the action, and just sitting in the bathroom did not seem to be enough.

In the end,everyone got a bath.had an early, dinner and went off to bed.

Definitely an exciting day.

A Long Time Coming

Writing about our antics as a family has been a long time coming for me. Our triplets were born in Septemebr of 2007. Their birth flipped our world completely upside down in ways we couldn't have imagined. Just when we thought we had the chaos of our life under control, along came our plus one. This is where the real fun begins. Plus one was born in July of 2009 - yes, we're dangerously close to his first birthday! Plus one joining our chaos made said chaos grow exponentially. One of these days I'll describe each kid,but for now suffice it say that they are a force to be reckoned with. Agreeing to babysit is a decision not to be taken lightly, as a few never-again available people have learned.

This blog is dedicated to my four, lovely kids and their daily antics. I'll definitely tell some of their past activities, but knowing what they do now, we definitely will NOT be bored reading about the things they do on a day to day basis!