Cranky Pants

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. It was one of those days as a triplet mama that makes you want to salt your children and eat them whole. Or at least eat a gallon of premium ice cream.

No one napped well and everyone had their cranky pants on all day. HA! That's an understatement. All of the boys power napped in about 30-minute increments. That doesn't sound too bad, right? Until you factor in the time it takes to get them all down and come up with 10 minutes at stretch without a crying baby.

Nothing made them happy. Not bottles, not bouncies, not peekaboo, not rocking, not walking, not being salted... (Just kidding! Had to make sure you were still paying attention!) Jeff, also known as World's Best Husband, came home early after we talked at noon and I was entering my fifth hour of non-stop crankiness. (The children's, not mine. Though come to think about it...)

A quick, hot soak in the tub to unwind muscles that had literally been holding two babies at once most of the day made things look a whole lot better to me. And while one or the other of us still spent much of the evening holding two babies at once, just having a second set of hands here cuts the stress level at least in half.

Perhaps the hardest part about yesterday wasn't the crying and fussing, but knowing the whole time that if I had just one baby and he/she was having a bad day I could have held and soothed that one baby much better than I could help my triplets. Sometimes it's very frustrating to do half a job or one-third of a job in comforting a child. When do you set down the one that's still crying in your arms to pick up ONE of the two children crying in the crib? Who do you pick up first? How do you soothe the babies you can't hold or even pat because your hands are already full? And then there's the gymnastics of holding two babies, setting one baby down while holding another, jiggling one on a hip while trying to pat two others in the crib.

When we had Amelia I remember someone telling me that nothing in this world could make you feel more inadequate than a crying baby. I found that to be very true. But THREE crying babies will make you feel even more inadequate. Trust me

Even though it was a challenging day, it was still a day that brought the occasional smiles and giggles in and amongst the fussing. And those things will make even the worst day seem pretty darn good.

Cold Coffee

When I was growing up, my mother was forever looking for her coffee cup. She'd set it down to tend a child or get busy doing something around the house and leave it somewhere. By the time she remembered and found the coffee, it was cold. So, into the microwave it would go. I'll bet there were days she reheated that cup fifty times.

Back then, I didn't understand how she could continually lose track of her cup and why it was always cold. I do now.

Sleep Deprivation

I completely understand why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. There are days when I would confess to harboring Osama Bin Laden in my basement as long as it would guarantee me a couple hours of sleep in one stretch.

Last night it was Isaac's turn to be the fussy one. Jeff stayed up with him after the 9:30 p.m. feeding and went straight through to the 1:30 a.m. feeding with little more than a quick snooze with a baby on his chest.

God bless Jeff though. He did the 1:30 a.m. feeding by himself and let me sleep. I heard nothing -- not my alarm clock and not three wailing babies. Of course, this is due in part to the nerve pain medicine I am still taking to try to get rid of the residual effects of the shingles. The problem is, the medicine makes me even more tired and groggy. But, I am now being very vigilant about taking it every 6 hours (how convenient that I'm up in the middle of the night to take doses round the clock) to prevent this pain from becoming chronic. Really, this has gone on long enough.

After the 5:30 a.m. feeding, which we did a half hour early, and with Amelia's "help" because the chorus was so loud, I had a fussy Isaac. I wound up "sleeping" on the bed in the basement with Isaac and later, with both Isaac and Alex. When it was time for the next feeding, about 8:30 a.m., Sam started wailing. At first I was very confused, because I had been dreaming I was doing a feeding, so I couldn't figure out why there was a baby crying.

I'm starting to feel like the Dunkin' Donuts guy, only it's: "Time to feed the babies." For those of you too young for the reference, it's past your bedtime. Go check out YouTube if you really care.

FUSSY!

I don't know what the problem was today, but the boys have been fussy all day long. My sister Judy was planning to leave after the 9:30 a.m. feeding, but all three boys put up a big stink. Perhaps they didn't want her to leave? :-)

Aunt Judy stayed until the boys went down after the 12:30 feeding. They were all down by 2 p.m., since they'd used up all their energy fussing! Sam didn't stay down for long, and ended up napping on Mom's chest for a little while. I needed a little shut-eye after a long night of fussing that just continued into today.

I had help for the 3:30 feeding, so that went pretty smoothly, but once again Sam didn't go down for a while. On the plus side, at least it was just one baby who needed extra help. That I have enough hands for! I'm hoping they all have it out of their system so they don't abuse the volunteers at 9:30 p.m. and our overnight helper tonight.

The boys are six weeks old today, and their weekly weigh-in showed some impressive gains:

Sam - 8 lb. 12 oz.
Isaac - 7 lb. 15 oz. (Almost 8 lbs. Grandma Alice! Isaac came home the smallest at 4 lb. 12 oz.)
Alex - 9 lb. 5 oz.

I'm enjoying a little peace and quiet now, but it's time to give Amelia her supper and get ready for the 6:30 feeding.