Saturday, May 3, 2008

It's been a while - Here's a fantastic update

Zayne (middle), Tristan (upper left), Ethan (upper right)


Hi everyone - it's been too long. Sorry about not posting in recent past. So, going forward, we'll be sure to update our blog once a week. It's the least we can do --- your support has been amazing.

The boys had their two month doctor appointments this past week. All of them weigh over nine pounds! How cool is that! And, all are doing great on their growth curves. This means they're all showing up on the graph. The doctor said we have short babies with big heads. LOL. All are in third percentile for height and 10-15% for head size. That's hilarious.

Ethan, Zayne, and Tristan are a full time job 24 hours a day. They're eating about every three to five hours and if they eat by about 11 PM, they sleep until about 3 AM. That's very cool. Also..we find ourselves getting up between three and five times each night depending on dirty diapers, hungry babies, etc.

So what's a day like here? We get that question a lot. Jeff is back at work and Tanya is home caring for the triplets. We all get up about 5 AM for the first feeding. Brenden gets up about 6 - 6:30 AM and we start his routine simultaneously. Jeff gets ready for work while Brenden drinks chocolate milk and watches Diego or Sprout in mom and dad's bed. Then we get Brenden dressed for school and Jeff drops him off at the most fabulous place called Darcie's on his way to work. Now that the day is off and running - that marks the start of all 30 bottles! That's right - 30 bottles a day! 30 diapers a day too get changed. The boys get about two or three clothes changes each day due to spit-up usually. They're so cute. This means about one laundry load a day of just baby clothes and one dishwasher load a day of nothing but bottles and bottle parts. It's amazing.

How do we handle everything?

Lots of planning and organization. Also, we have a calendar on our kitchen counter top depicting one month at a glance. Jeff's mom comes every day at 3:30 PM and stays until about 6:00 PM. Jeff's sister, Kara, has spent many many hours at our house while recovering from ankle surgery. Kara has been instrumental in keeping sanity levels normal; she's a surpurb asset and we think that's got to be from her NICU nurse experience! Tanya's mom comes about four times each week; often about noon and stays until the early evening. Kerri and Jerrod Jenkins come every Monday about 6 PM and stay until about 9 PM. Jean Wiles comes about one to two times each week and stays throughout the day. We leverage Jean on days where we have no or limited help committed and she's wonderful. Also, our neighbors Donna, Christine, Shirene, Zora, and especially Lisa all help fill in gaps each week. We are so tremendously fortunate to have help. And, even though this sounds like a lot, each week we struggle to find help at the house. So, if you're ever interested in rocking babies please let us know.

Ok - that is all for now. Thanks for checking in on us and we'll write more soon.