Tantruming, Toddling, and Tales of Fun
Abby has this adorable new behavior, she throws these cute little temper tantrums when she's not getting her way. She throws herself flat down on the ground, screams, pounds her little fists, looks up to see if you're watching her, and then goes back to screaming. If you're not watching her (or you don't appear to be), she sits back up, wimpers, and goes back to playing, but sulks about it. It is the cutest thing ever, though I'm sure when she's 5 it will seem less cute.
It's official - Sam is no longer just a baby - he's a toddler. But don't go trying to suggest to me that he's not a baby anymore, because he's still my baby, even if he is toddling. Yes, it's true, he's not just taking one or two steps at a time, he's not just cruising along furniture, he's actually walking 10-12 steps at a time. And it's not just a fluke, either. He does this several times a day, then loses his balance and falls on his butt and giggles. Fortunately, God made little boys with hard heads and soft bottoms for a reason. Also, diapers are conveniently padded to help in that area.
For that matter, Ellie's not far behind Sam in the toddling department. She also can take 8-10 steps at a time if she wants to. She just doesn't want to do it nearly as often as Sam. More often, she'll take 3-4 steps at a time, fall down and crawl after whatever she's after. Let's face it, my babies are smart, and crawling, for the moment, is more efficient. They are fast little crawlers, so they're going to get at whatever they have their eye on as fast as they can! Still, it won't be long before Ellie and Sam are walking, running, and jumping.
And climbing. Did I mention climbing? Oh yes. Sam is a climber. Abby, too. They both climb the gates, even the ones that have bars, not holes. And yesterday, Sam climbed his highchair. He wasn't in it at the time. Not good. The J-man was never a climber, you see. He was a bundle of energy. He never stopped moving. You had to keep moving to keep up with him, but ne never climbed, he never opened drawers, he never pulled things off of shelves or tables, so baby-proofing was a *snap*. But with these triplets? They are giving us a run for our money. Ellie is into EVERYTHING and EVERYTHING is into her mouth. Sam is climbing EVERYTHING. And Abby will open anything she can. And they are all super-fast and in three different directions at once. Still, it's fun. And cute. And not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. We just have a little more work ahead of us to be one step ahead of them!
We know this because yesterday we did something very brave. We opened up "the baby pit." We have a living room and dining room that are essentially connected and basically one room. But we've had the living room surrounded by a baby corral (the SuperYard XT, for those in the know), which has been a great way to contain the babies so that we can turn our backs to clean up after dinner, answer the phone, or even just play with them without worrying about which direction they're all running off into. It also contained the toys into one discreet space. The living room/dining room in combination is obviously a much larger space and is easily closed off because the kitchen has a gate, the basement stairwell has a door, the hall leading to the bedrooms has a door, and the doorway leading to the sunroom has both a baby gate and a door that can be closed. So it can be one big baby pit if we want it to be, which is what we tried yesterday. And much hilarity ensued. The babies were SO excited at their newfound freedom. They could hardly contain their enthusiasm. In fact, they didn't even try. They immediately put their minds to discovering all the little things we hadn't yet thought to baby proof. This was good for us, actually because it gave us a good lesson in what we needed to get done. No better trial than trial by fire, I say!
So, I think we may be done with the baby pit. I'm a little sad to see it go, actually. But the truth is, they're getting a little too big and a little too active to be contained in it. They fight over their toys and their space. My house is really too small to have them contained in there. And if I need to contain them somewhere, I DO have the sunroom where I can contain them (it's a nice child-friendly space with a foam floor and lots of baby toys, meant for child-containment purposes).
So, um, anyone need a SuperYard XT? Actually, I think it was 2 of them that we had - one of them wouldn't have been big enough. Sigh. We spend so much money on this stuff and it's all so temporary, isn't it? Maybe we'll use it again if I ever get to have that singleton I'm still dreaming of? But that seems silly. I mean, we never contained the J-man in a baby pit. Do people actually contain singletons in baby pits? Or are they just things that multiples parents use?
Finally, I love Sunday mornings because we get to be a little bit lazy with the timing on breakfast so I always (usually) make pancakes or omelettes or something yummy. This morning was omelettes, which the babies LOVE (the J-man does too, which is shocking, since he's such a picky eater). The babies ate TWO omelettes (total of 5 eggs), plus hash browns, plus three bananas. They are hungry little monsters!
Afterward, we gave them a bath, because, well, they needed it. Even though I'm letting them each eat with a fork these days, they still mostly eat with their fingers and there was egg and cheese everywhere. Sundays are also nice because Seth is home to help me, so I can give them a bath all together instead of three individual baths. The babies love this, but I have to ask the moms of older triplets - how on EARTH do you manage this?? Were you really able to handle giving a group bath to your one year old triplets regularly? Could you do it by yourself? Because my babies are toddling all over the bathtub, in an absolutely hazardous manner and it's nearly impossible to handle them. Even if I could manage them IN the tub (which I could ALMOST do), getting them all OUT of the tub safely would terrify me. Can it really be done? If so, can you tell me HOW? This is the one thing I've never really managed to figure out how to do. Are my kids just more excitable in the bathtub than most triplets? They get SO riled up in the bathtub and go absolutely bonkers. Is this normal?
Anywhozit, here endeth my Tales o' fun, because the babies are waking up from their nap. I hope you all are well - I'm off to snuggle with my precious babies until Seth and the J-man get home from soccer. Then we've promised to do something SPONTANEOUS today. I don't know what it's going to be (then it wouldn't be spontaneous, now would it??), but it's going to be SOMETHING, darnit!