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| N-B-S |
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| N-B-S |
Saturday, August 13, 2011
11 months old
Unbelievable...The babies are 11 months old today...That could only mean that they'll be a year old in less than a month...YIKES...that means I should be planning a party...OY...
Posing for pictures is getting more difficult now that they're mobile. They keep trying to scoot off on me...I know it's only going to get worse before it gets better...
Friday, August 12, 2011
Ben's Mouth...
With all the blogging I did yesterday, I can't believe I forgot to mention Ben's mouth...
Since he was born, there has been something different about his mouth. Not how it looks necessarily, but how it works. Even when he was learning to drink from a bottle, the NICU nurses mentioned he did a lot of non-nutritive sucking. We've had a feeding specialist come over and she saw that he had an immature suck-swallow-breathe- pattern.
Since the babes have been babbling, it's become even more noticeable. Nate and Sam have been making all the appropriate sounds, /b/, /d/, /m/. Ben...not so much. All the sounds he makes are more guttural and throaty. His only consonants are /g/, /k/, and /m/ but only when he growls it. Even his raspberries are weird. He only uses his lips and they're tight when he does it [go ahead...try that one...].
When he was teensy weensy he was the one who I felt really needed a binky but couldn't hold it in his mouth. I remember standing over his crib holding the binky in until he fell asleep. We would even use the swaddlers to help hold the binky in his mouth.
Since then, I've tried everything. We seriously have every single teething toy known to man. I went to BRU recently and stood in their teething toy aisle and looked around...Hmm...nothing new here...I've got it all. We've got vibrating ones, chewy ones, stiff ones, bumpy ones, textures of all shapes and sizes. You name it, we've got it. He's the reason why we got the WubbaNubs.
Since we've started feeding solids, he's the one who gags, gags, gags. He also sticks his fingers down his throat and gags himself. He seeks the most oral input. The PT said that because he was so averse to being on his belly for tummy time, he missed out on all that input from pressing his mouth into the floor [who knew that was important?].
Because his EI case worker is a bit of a flake, she hasn't sent over the Oral Motor Consult that he requires per his eval on 6/6. Hmmm...it's been 2 flippin' months!
So...being that I'm partially high strung special ed teacher and I have a PPO and don't need a referral, I went ahead and went over every body's heads. I called LGH and got a speech eval and I called the Oral Motor consultant from EI and had her come over.
The long and short of it, is there's nothing wrong...
UMM...my kid sounds like a creature from a Star Wars movie and there's nothing wrong??? Now I've never actually seen a Star Wars movie to know which character he sounds like, but I'm imagining a cross between a wookie and R2D2...
Since he was born, there has been something different about his mouth. Not how it looks necessarily, but how it works. Even when he was learning to drink from a bottle, the NICU nurses mentioned he did a lot of non-nutritive sucking. We've had a feeding specialist come over and she saw that he had an immature suck-swallow-breathe- pattern.
Since the babes have been babbling, it's become even more noticeable. Nate and Sam have been making all the appropriate sounds, /b/, /d/, /m/. Ben...not so much. All the sounds he makes are more guttural and throaty. His only consonants are /g/, /k/, and /m/ but only when he growls it. Even his raspberries are weird. He only uses his lips and they're tight when he does it [go ahead...try that one...].
When he was teensy weensy he was the one who I felt really needed a binky but couldn't hold it in his mouth. I remember standing over his crib holding the binky in until he fell asleep. We would even use the swaddlers to help hold the binky in his mouth.
Since then, I've tried everything. We seriously have every single teething toy known to man. I went to BRU recently and stood in their teething toy aisle and looked around...Hmm...nothing new here...I've got it all. We've got vibrating ones, chewy ones, stiff ones, bumpy ones, textures of all shapes and sizes. You name it, we've got it. He's the reason why we got the WubbaNubs.
Since we've started feeding solids, he's the one who gags, gags, gags. He also sticks his fingers down his throat and gags himself. He seeks the most oral input. The PT said that because he was so averse to being on his belly for tummy time, he missed out on all that input from pressing his mouth into the floor [who knew that was important?].
Because his EI case worker is a bit of a flake, she hasn't sent over the Oral Motor Consult that he requires per his eval on 6/6. Hmmm...it's been 2 flippin' months!
So...being that I'm partially high strung special ed teacher and I have a PPO and don't need a referral, I went ahead and went over every body's heads. I called LGH and got a speech eval and I called the Oral Motor consultant from EI and had her come over.
The long and short of it, is there's nothing wrong...
UMM...my kid sounds like a creature from a Star Wars movie and there's nothing wrong??? Now I've never actually seen a Star Wars movie to know which character he sounds like, but I'm imagining a cross between a wookie and R2D2...
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Misc Pix Upload
We decided to try some watermelon with the boys. Of course, they thought it would be fun to eat the green part so I eventually had to cut that off...
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| Nate |
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| Sammy |
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| Benji |
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| B-N-S in our new high chair formation |
Nate has decided that he's part monkey and like to play with his toys with his feet. He also reads books with his feet.
Ben had some serious funk going on in his hair so I tried to wash it out...
Since Sam's been sick, he's taken to stealing binkies out of his brothers' Pea Pods. We've since had to move the binkies because it was turning out to be a binkie war.
Standing Room Only
Sammy has been standing for a while now and he's Mr. Show Off when it comes to his gross motor skills. We joke that he's in the College Level Classes and that he's the TA when the PT is over.
Ben decided to pull up to a standing position on the couch the other day.
Ben decided to pull up to a standing position on the couch the other day.
Then Nate decided to try it out this morning.
So it's official, we have 3 stander uppers!
Contagious
So there's this funny little thing that happens when you give birth to multiples. When you're pregnant, everybody promises to come and help and clean and feed babies and baby sit and play with Eli, etc, etc, etc.
Once you give birth to the babies, people come over [often uninvited] to look at the babies and offer all kinds of unsolicited advice.
Once the babies are a little older, everybody disappears. Literally. It's like we're contagious or something. Do they think they'll instantly get pregnant with 3 babies upon entering our house? If that were the case, we could sell tickets...
So as I'm having my own little pity party about being ''contagious'' and how nobody calls us to hang out or come over or go out, Sammy gets a fever. He has it for about 4 days before the pedi lets him come in for a check up. They took blood and saliva and put a urine bag on him. Of course he wouldn't pee while we were in the office. Sooo...we had to go to a more relaxing place. I thought Kohl's would be good. After our impromptu shopping trip, I checked the bag and we had pee! I brought him back to the office to get the bag taken off. When I got there, they told me that his rapid strep test had come back negative and there was nothing in the urine to worry about...
Hmm...
So, why does my poor baby have a fever of 102...
Well, they called me the next day to say that his 24 hour strep test came back positive. Now onto the antibotics. At that point, there was no point in trying to quarantine the other boys, because he's been sick for 4 days and if he's got it, they've got it. Well, almost a week later, no sickies on the other 2...yay for that!
Then, Dave comes home from work on Tuesday with something in his eye. He runs over to the eye clinic to get it checked out. Guess what he's got?
Conjunctivitis...
Yay...
No wonder people don't want to hang out with us...
Once you give birth to the babies, people come over [often uninvited] to look at the babies and offer all kinds of unsolicited advice.
Once the babies are a little older, everybody disappears. Literally. It's like we're contagious or something. Do they think they'll instantly get pregnant with 3 babies upon entering our house? If that were the case, we could sell tickets...
So as I'm having my own little pity party about being ''contagious'' and how nobody calls us to hang out or come over or go out, Sammy gets a fever. He has it for about 4 days before the pedi lets him come in for a check up. They took blood and saliva and put a urine bag on him. Of course he wouldn't pee while we were in the office. Sooo...we had to go to a more relaxing place. I thought Kohl's would be good. After our impromptu shopping trip, I checked the bag and we had pee! I brought him back to the office to get the bag taken off. When I got there, they told me that his rapid strep test had come back negative and there was nothing in the urine to worry about...
Hmm...
So, why does my poor baby have a fever of 102...
Well, they called me the next day to say that his 24 hour strep test came back positive. Now onto the antibotics. At that point, there was no point in trying to quarantine the other boys, because he's been sick for 4 days and if he's got it, they've got it. Well, almost a week later, no sickies on the other 2...yay for that!
Then, Dave comes home from work on Tuesday with something in his eye. He runs over to the eye clinic to get it checked out. Guess what he's got?
Conjunctivitis...
Yay...
No wonder people don't want to hang out with us...
Balloons...and poop...
Multiple reasons for not posting for a whole week...1. I was taking 2 master's classes and needed to get all my homework done. 2. My laptop still has no shift keys regardless of my bro attempting to fix it for 3 days. 3. I'm freakin' busy people...insert exclamation points here...
So we went to the Pittsfield NH Balloon Festival over the weekend. On our way up, one of Dave's work friends had a pig roast. It was the 19th year of the pig roast. It was huge with lots of food and people fawning over the babies. We even got commemorative t-shirts [or tank tops since they had run out of t-shirts].
Next stop...BALLOON FESTIVAL...yay...
We searched around for a parking spot. The whole town shuts down and we could pretty much park anywhere we wanted...so we parked in a daycare parking lot [appropriate enough]. The first thing we see is helicopters flying all over and pretty low to the ground. As we cross the street to the fair grounds, we figure out that they're selling chopper rides...yay...not so much.
We got ourselves situated and spread out our blanket and got ready for the balloons. 15 minutes til balloon time. Okee dokee. Dave and Eli went and got some ice cream and fried dough while we waited. I fed the babies their solids and then we waited...and waited...and waited.
We heard an announcement that there was too much wind and they were delaying the launch. Okee dokee. Eli and Dave went around to go on some rides and play some carnival games.
Then another announcement...and another...and another...The babies were remarkably well behaved and there weren't too many lookie-loo's. Then we waited and waited and waited some more...
Finally the announcement came on that they couldn't launch balloons, but they could tether 2 of them.
We decided after both balloons were up in the air that we should get going because it's 1 1/2 hours to get home. We truck the babies over to the car and start unloading the wagon. Dave grabbed Nate first...
OMG...
We had Poop-a-looza part 2 on our hands...literally...
He had pooped up the back of his shorts and all over the wagon...YAY...
I spread the blanket out in the parking lot to get everything cleaned up. Now we've started attracting a crowd. I literally had to use bottled water and burp cloths to clean his whole body. There are not enough baby wipes on the planet to clean the amount of poop that boy had all over himself. The crowd loved to offer their hints as to how I should clean him up.
After we got everybody changed [and Dave changed his shirt...good thing he bought a tank top at the pig roast] we got loaded up and headed home...
So we went to the Pittsfield NH Balloon Festival over the weekend. On our way up, one of Dave's work friends had a pig roast. It was the 19th year of the pig roast. It was huge with lots of food and people fawning over the babies. We even got commemorative t-shirts [or tank tops since they had run out of t-shirts].
Next stop...BALLOON FESTIVAL...yay...
We searched around for a parking spot. The whole town shuts down and we could pretty much park anywhere we wanted...so we parked in a daycare parking lot [appropriate enough]. The first thing we see is helicopters flying all over and pretty low to the ground. As we cross the street to the fair grounds, we figure out that they're selling chopper rides...yay...not so much.
We got ourselves situated and spread out our blanket and got ready for the balloons. 15 minutes til balloon time. Okee dokee. Dave and Eli went and got some ice cream and fried dough while we waited. I fed the babies their solids and then we waited...and waited...and waited.
We heard an announcement that there was too much wind and they were delaying the launch. Okee dokee. Eli and Dave went around to go on some rides and play some carnival games.
Then another announcement...and another...and another...The babies were remarkably well behaved and there weren't too many lookie-loo's. Then we waited and waited and waited some more...
Finally the announcement came on that they couldn't launch balloons, but they could tether 2 of them.
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| Nate the Great |
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| trying to be artsy fartsy |
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| Sam the Man |
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| Ben aka Sven |
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| Artsy Fartsy again |
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| The Gang |
OMG...
We had Poop-a-looza part 2 on our hands...literally...
He had pooped up the back of his shorts and all over the wagon...YAY...
I spread the blanket out in the parking lot to get everything cleaned up. Now we've started attracting a crowd. I literally had to use bottled water and burp cloths to clean his whole body. There are not enough baby wipes on the planet to clean the amount of poop that boy had all over himself. The crowd loved to offer their hints as to how I should clean him up.
After we got everybody changed [and Dave changed his shirt...good thing he bought a tank top at the pig roast] we got loaded up and headed home...
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Oy Vey!
Yesterday, we made our annual trip to the Lowell Folk Festival. It's always got a lot of yummy food and it's right in our back yard so we try to go. We loaded the babies up in the Choo Choo Wagon and started our treck to find some Spanikopita and Grape Leaves.
I guess I know we sort of turn heads when we go places, but this was different. We couldn't do anything without comments (polite and rude), pointing, laughing, and people trying to take the babies' picture. We were constantly stopped and questioned (polite and rude). It does get old having to answer the same questions over and over again...
Are they triplets?
Do they keep you busy?
Do you get any sleep?
These were a few of my favorites from yesterday...
Are they 4 twins? (Eli included)
Did they give you that when you had the triplets? (pointing to the Choo Choo wagon)
Some people "get it" and say something nice and keep walking. Others we were able to joke with and understood our situation. Still others though, took it to a whole different level.
Many people whipped out their cameras to take pictures. This is what got my blood boiling.
Why is it OK to take our picture?
Are we a side show, spectacle, or some sort of tourist attraction?
Do we know you?
Would you walk up to a guy with one leg and take his picture?
How about a "little person"?
Or that lady with a huge birthmark on her face?
This is our life. We didn't ask for this...well I guess we did, didn't we? When I was 10 weeks pregnant and told to "reduce" aka terminate aka abort babies B & C (now known as Nate & Sam), and I didn't, I guess I did ask for this life. When I signed all the papers about my pregnancy and how risky is was, there was nothing in the small print about the lunacy of people in public.
I just don't understand. Some people were nice and asked first. When we told them "No thank you". They understood. Then there were the CRAZY people who yelled at us and told us it was their right to take our picture.
I'm all about the USA and our rights and all, but this is a bit fuzzy. How do I know what you're going to do with that picture? How do I know you're not a pedophile? How do I know if you're going to go home and post it on your Facebook page with some crazy comments about my (adorable) babies?
So what I decided to do, was take their pictures right back. Becuase my laptop is in the shop, the big upload will have to take place later. I think I'm going to start a new TAB of "Stupid People who Took our Picture without our Permission". One lady even smiled...Nice.
To allay the thoughts "Well it couldn't be that bad." Here are the (loose) stats: For every 1 person we asked not to take our picture, there were probably 2 or 3 that we didn't catch. We asked between 15 & 20 people to stop. That equals about 30-60 people running around with my boys' picture on their phone/camera/IPad/other device....so...not...cool...
Because I posted this whole episode to our FB, I figured I'd do a further explanation here. The questions get old. Maybe it's the SAME, STUPID QUESTIONS that get old. The people who say something new and creative "Wow, it must be a lot of fun at your house." get a conversation. The people who take their pictures without permission or who yell at us for blocking their view of the babies, are NUTS!
From what I hear, the whole excitement over triplets will fade out once the babies get older and I'll look back on it fondly. Well this blog post will definitely remind me of the "good ol' days".
I guess I know we sort of turn heads when we go places, but this was different. We couldn't do anything without comments (polite and rude), pointing, laughing, and people trying to take the babies' picture. We were constantly stopped and questioned (polite and rude). It does get old having to answer the same questions over and over again...
Are they triplets?
Do they keep you busy?
Do you get any sleep?
These were a few of my favorites from yesterday...
Are they 4 twins? (Eli included)
Did they give you that when you had the triplets? (pointing to the Choo Choo wagon)
Some people "get it" and say something nice and keep walking. Others we were able to joke with and understood our situation. Still others though, took it to a whole different level.
Many people whipped out their cameras to take pictures. This is what got my blood boiling.
Why is it OK to take our picture?
Are we a side show, spectacle, or some sort of tourist attraction?
Do we know you?
Would you walk up to a guy with one leg and take his picture?
How about a "little person"?
Or that lady with a huge birthmark on her face?
This is our life. We didn't ask for this...well I guess we did, didn't we? When I was 10 weeks pregnant and told to "reduce" aka terminate aka abort babies B & C (now known as Nate & Sam), and I didn't, I guess I did ask for this life. When I signed all the papers about my pregnancy and how risky is was, there was nothing in the small print about the lunacy of people in public.
I just don't understand. Some people were nice and asked first. When we told them "No thank you". They understood. Then there were the CRAZY people who yelled at us and told us it was their right to take our picture.
I'm all about the USA and our rights and all, but this is a bit fuzzy. How do I know what you're going to do with that picture? How do I know you're not a pedophile? How do I know if you're going to go home and post it on your Facebook page with some crazy comments about my (adorable) babies?
So what I decided to do, was take their pictures right back. Becuase my laptop is in the shop, the big upload will have to take place later. I think I'm going to start a new TAB of "Stupid People who Took our Picture without our Permission". One lady even smiled...Nice.
To allay the thoughts "Well it couldn't be that bad." Here are the (loose) stats: For every 1 person we asked not to take our picture, there were probably 2 or 3 that we didn't catch. We asked between 15 & 20 people to stop. That equals about 30-60 people running around with my boys' picture on their phone/camera/IPad/other device....so...not...cool...
Because I posted this whole episode to our FB, I figured I'd do a further explanation here. The questions get old. Maybe it's the SAME, STUPID QUESTIONS that get old. The people who say something new and creative "Wow, it must be a lot of fun at your house." get a conversation. The people who take their pictures without permission or who yell at us for blocking their view of the babies, are NUTS!
From what I hear, the whole excitement over triplets will fade out once the babies get older and I'll look back on it fondly. Well this blog post will definitely remind me of the "good ol' days".
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