The Moment Daddy Lost Control

Tonight I went to Pilates as usual. When I came home Jeff couldn't wait to show me this video. He was chuckling as he said, "This was the moment Daddy lost control of the kids."

Jeff turned everyone loose in the kitchen for a dance party. Of course, the boys started digging through the cupboards. Watch carefully and you'll see that when Sam brings the raisins out of the cupboard and opens them Alex is behind him opening a tub of cookies.

My favorite part is when Alex starts shoveling a fistful of cookies in his mouth.

As I watched the video, Jeff said, "Guess what the boys had for their bedtime snack?" Hmmm, I wonder. Cookies, perhaps?

Oh, well, it couldn't have been too bad. The boys were all in bed when I came home at 7:30, and clearly they got enough to eat.

© Trippin' Mama 2010

Wordful Wednesday: Bottoms Up!

This is one of the latest games in our house.

One boy puts his head on the ground, and pretty soon they are all doing it and giggling like mad.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term bottoms up!

Play along with Wordful Wednesday over at:



© Trippin' Mama 2010

Five Hours of Fun...

Today was a beautiful spring day. So we spent five hours outside playing.

FIVE.

Five hours of chasing down boys when they didn't listen. Five hours of giving high fives to them when they did listen. Five hours of pushing Amelia on the swing, of helping everyone go up and down the slide, of running around the driveway chasing ride-on toys and runaway balls, and five hours of playing tag, tackle and tickle.

We even ate lunch outside at the kids' picnic table. Although it was less of a lunch and more of a free-for-all. Alex ate the grapes off everyone's plates. Amelia gave away her cheese. Isaac hoarded the bread and butter and Sam devoured most of the chicken. I found a lot of carrots on the ground, so apparently veggies are for the squirrels.

Then Amelia taught her brothers how to do this:

Alex can climb all the way to the top of the slide by himself. I don't need that kind of help.

Somehow even with all that activity, the kids didn't have one of their best bedtimes. Their mommy, on the other hand, could have fallen asleep standing up in the middle of the L.A. freeway. But after a rough hour everyone was snoring deeply.

So now, if you'll excuse me, five hours of outside fun (and it was fun!) have caught up with me and I must fall exhausted into my bed so we can do it all again tomorrow.

Provided I can pry the top off the ibuprofen.

© Trippin' Mama 2010

Wordful Wednesday: Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time there lived a fairy princess named Amelia.

She had three loyal subjects.

A cowboy named Alex:

An angel named Sam:

And a very put-upon "lady-in-waiting" named Isaac:

They all lived happily together...

at least until the loyal subjects got old enough to protest!

Amelia (3), Alex, Sam and Isaac (8 mos.) ~ June 2009

Play along with Wordful Wednesday at:


Or you can go Way Back When at Twinsanity.

 

© Trippin' Mama 2010

Who Needs Toys Redux

Those jumbo boxes of diapers sure come in handy on rainy days!

Alex, Isaac and Sam: Ride 'em cowboys!

Sam, Isaac and Alex played with these cardboard boxes for about two hours the other day.

Of course, I spent the entire time telling them to sit down and not stand on the boxes, but it was worth it. They had a blast.

Look! Something new to stand on!

Sometimes it's the simplest things in life that bring us the most joy, isn't it?

© Trippin' Mama 2010

Wheels Are Wheels, Mom!

The other day one of Amelia's friends from the neighborhood came to play. She brought her Barbie Jeep, which Amelia loves to drive around our yard.

It wasn't long, though, before the boys ousted the girls and took over. They didn't drive it, of course, but they had a great time sitting in it and pretending to drive. Pink and purple wheels are still wheels, after all!

Alex, Isaac and Sam are stylin' in the Barbie Jeep!

© Trippin' Mama 2010

Bubble, Toil and Trouble

One of the best parts about being a multiple is having someone who shares your interests.

And yes, I did just post a one-minute video of my kids blowing spit bubbles on my blog. Why? Because I can! :-)

(Please keep reading despite my minor lapse in judgment in subjecting you to this video. Love you all!)

Christy

© Trippin' Mama 2010

Bouncing Boys and Girl

Aunt Allie (Jeff's sister) came to visit us for her spring break, but the weather hasn't been very spring-y, so today we took the kids for some fun indoors. We went to a place full of inflatable bounce houses and slides.

The boys enjoyed running around the place more than the bounce houses, but Amelia had a blast jumping and going down the slides.

Aunt Allie and Alex hang out.

Sam gives bouncing a try.

Isaac gets a lift from Daddy.

Amelia checks out the baby area with her brothers.

Amelia enjoys  the biggest slide in the place!

We were only there for about 90 minutes, but that was long enough. It really was about all I could take. The place was so noisy! Between all the blowers for the inflatables, the screaming kids and the arcade games it was overwhelming. I can't imagine going to work there every day.

Hard to believe, but it made my house seem downright peaceful by comparison.

That might be reason enough to go back sometime.

© Trippin' Mama 2010

Isaac the Adventurous

The other day we took the kids to play at the local Y. Thay have this great play tower (think McDonald's Playland, but without the half-eaten hamburgers and half-eaten french fries). All of the boys love it, but Isaac is usually the first to head for the top.

All of the kids can get their fill of climbing, running and chasing each other, and we can manage them pretty well since there's only one slide. It's a big twisting slide, so the boys can't go down alone, but it's also only one escape route for us to block, so it works pretty well.

We rarely dress the boys alike, but we've learned that when we take them out in public to run around and play it makes our job easier if we only have to keep track of one shirt times three, instead of trying to remember what all three are wearing. The downside of that is that it becomes pretty obvious that we have triplets. Inevitably we get questions.

That included a lady who said to me, "So all three of them are twins?"

Amelia was standing there and replied, very matter-of-factly, "When you have three they are called triplets."

Nothing like being corrected by a three year old, is there?

Thanks for taking that one, honey.

After we'd been there about a half hour, I was holding Isaac and chatting with a mom of one of the girls who was in Amelia's ballet class.

She gestured to Isaac and asked, "Now is he your most adventurous one?"

I said that yes, Isaac was pretty fearless. "Why do you ask?" I said.

She smiled. "It's just that 'Isaac' was the only name I heard for the first ten minutes you were here."

I just chuckled. There's no escaping the truth, is there Isaac?

© Trippin' Mama 2010

Finding Balance

My job as a stay-at-home mom is to take care of the kids and run the house. Who knew these two things could be so incompatible at times? And not just because the kids make messes faster than I can clean them up.

Here's the real dilemma: Do I play Ring Around the Rosie with my one year olds or tackle the bathtub rings? Do I join my daughter in rearranging her dollhouse, or do I clean my own house? Hopscotch or hot meals? Coloring or clean clothes? Dolls or dishes?

I thought I left the whole work-life balance issues behind when I left my career. Turns out I have the same struggles, but at least now I get to contend with these challenges while wearing comfortable shoes and my favorite pair of jeans.

Now clearly, some things have to be done. Kids must be diapered and fed. Dishes and highchair trays have to get cleaned. Food has to be swept up from the floor...at least once a day anyway. Necessary, but not nearly as much fun as giggling with the kids or as rewarding as teaching my boys where their noses are.

I try to do what chores I can during nap time, but there's no way I can get everything taken care of in a couple hours a day. The trick, as always, is deciding what HAS to be done and what can wait or get skipped now and then.

Just like magazine models give us an unrealistic expectation of what a woman should look like, home and family magazines do the same. Is it realistic to expect a perfectly clean, organized home, made-from-scratch meals and cute treats to boot when I've got four kids age 3 and under? No more realistic than being a six-foot tall size 0 with a flawless complexion.

Yes, I know that a clean home and good meals are part of raising my children in a good environment. But what kid wouldn't trade a kitchen floor that's mopped daily for 20 minutes of playtime with mom? Or a lunch plate that looks like a clown face for parental face time?

It's all about balance.

I try to keep that in mind as I look around my house. True, we're not making it into House Beautiful, or even Better Homes and Gardens anytime soon. Not with that pile of laundry to be folded, today's mail (and yesterday's too) lying on the kitchen table, and more than one toy not put away in its proper place.

I figure we're doing OK as long as we aren't in danger of being on one of those HGTV messy house shows.

And I’d say we’re a couple thousand rounds of Ring Around the Rosie away from that happening.

P.S.: After I first posted this a friend of mine sent me a comment by email. She said her mom had a sign in her house that said, "My home: Clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy." My new mantra!

Amelia's Beauty Parlor

The other night as the boys were eating supper Amelia decided to play beauty parlor.

Amelia and her beauty parlor clients: Isaac, Alex and Sam

I, of course, grabbed the camera instead of discouraging her. A couple bows in their hair won't hurt them. And, the boys will undoubtedly want Amelia to do a few things she doesn't much like down the road.

It seemed to me that Sam, Isaac and Alex enjoyed the attention, even if they will hate these pictures some day!

Sam shows his curly locks.

Isaac strikes a pose.

Alex takes it all in stride.

Someday when Amelia's brothers make her do something she doesn't want to do, we'll pull out these pictures and tell her that turnabout it fair play!

Who's In Charge Here?

I wish I had gotten this on video, but you'll have to settle for the telling of the tale.

As I was preparing supper this evening, Amelia was playing with her brothers. She brought out all three of their Bumbo seats and led each boy to his seat and helped him sit down. She did a pretty good job of talking them into going with her and was pretty gentle with her help.

Amelia wanted them to all sit down and pretend to be in the car with her.

But as soon as she got the last boy seated, one of the other two would get up and walk away. She would run after, pulling them back and "helping" them again.

I stood there laughing and watching this three-ring circus go on for a few minutes. When Amelia finally gave up I asked her if she knew who was in charge.

"I wanted to be in charge, Mom," she said.

I chuckled and thought to myself, "Yes, honey, I know you did. But we both know that you weren't!"

It's their world, Amelia. The rest of us just live in it.

Life on the Frontier

Today these three rapscallions hung out with Dad...

Isaac, Alex and Sam

...and Amelia and I went to a living history museum with some friends.

We had a blast. We milked a fake cow, petted a real calf, pretended to churn butter, played in the old-fashioned kitchen, had a little tea, recited our ABCs for the teacher in a one-room school house, learned how to spin wool into yarn, and shoveled and ground sand to make clay.

Amelia leads Bessie to the barn after the milking.

It was a busy day, and boy am I ever grateful that I don't have to haul water and firewood, throw my own pots, spin my own wool and take care of the cows and chickens, too. I'm quite busy enough as it is, thank you.

Amelia brushes (and brushes, and brushes!) the two-week-old calf in the petting barn.

I think I could deal with caring for the animals, making my own candles, tending a big garden and putting up food for the winter. I could handle the loss of electricity and running water, but what in the world would I do without disposable diapers? The very thought strikes fear in my heart.

(Yes, yes, I know. The environment. Landfills. But all the water and electricity to launder diapers times three, not to mention all the time and effort! Recycle something or plant a tree to offset our 24 diapers a day, would you?)

Nicole, Aiden and Amelia enjoy a cup of tea.

Amelia and I had a lot of fun visiting the past, but we decided that we didn't want to live there. No disposable diapers was my biggest reason, but Amelia had a different take on it.

When we were playing in the old-time kitchen she noticed that there was no refrigerator. She asked me where they kept their milk and eggs. I tried to explain that in the old days they could only keep things cool in the cellar or maybe in a cold spring. Ultimately we came around to the fact that they couldn't keep things really cold, which meant no ice cream.

"WHAT?" said Amelia. "No ice cream? I'm not living there."

Me either, Amelia. I don't have time to make my own wine.

Ready, Set, Swing!

Last weekend we bought three baby swings, and we tried them out for the first time Monday evening. Just looking at the swing set full of baby swings made me laugh.

Reactions were mixed. Alex was a little frightened, Sam LOVED the swing, and Isaac was just chillin' out. Amelia got a kick out of swinging with her brothers, and tried to help reassure Alex that it was fun to play on the swings.

A full swing set: Amelia, Alex, Sam and Isaac.

Isaac chills out.

Sam loving his new ride!

Alex tries to like it.

Sam was kicking his legs and moving the swing and laughing. The more it moved, the more he giggled.

It's too late tonight to be upload the video, but I promise I'll put it up soon. It's sure to make you laugh right along with Sam.

TAG! You're It!

Today I caught Isaac and Alex playing a little game of tag. They were having a great time while Sam and I looked on and laughed at them.

Isaac and Alex Play Tag from Christy on Vimeo.

I'm so glad they have each other to chase. Just watching them wears me out!

Amelia and Her Brothers

When we announced to everyone that we had three boys, more than one person said, "What is Amelia going to do with three brothers?"

I'm sure they were thinking well down the road when the boys want to play rough-and-tumble or when Amelia's dates come to the door to pick her up (poor girl!). They may give her trouble in the future, but for now, Amelia's definitely got the upper hand.

The other day the answer to the question "What is Amelia going to do with three brothers?" was ... play dress up!

I think everyone had fun, except maybe Isaac, who got dressed in the feather boa. Sorry buddy!

Alex, Isaac, Amelia and Sam

Fairy princess Amelia

Alex knows just how to wear that cowboy hat.

Isaac: "You can't be serious."

Sam shows off his angelic side.