A Sunday in New Orleans (in pictures)

Sunday was rainy, but I was determined to take the boys to the French Quarter for Family Day at my friend Teresa’s place of employment, a museum. Plus, I needed to get a “New Orleans-y” picture of the boys for something for work. So the rain eventually slacked off and we (me, the boys, and a few friends) headed over. We got caught in a few scattered showers, but overall it was a decent day.

Here are some pictures from the beginning…

At first we just had Linus,

but then George’s parents brought the other two home, so I had all my boys together. Here are my attempts at a group photo…

Oliver is crying. His brothers are wondering why.
Oliver, get up, man....

Okay, this is not meant to be.

Linus got a lot of mommy time this weekend

He was having a hard time letting go…

Love this kid…(my friend’s son Liam)

So anyway. We go to the museum. Right before we left, they gave us all the balloons they’d used to decorate. Because, you know, we’re not enough of a spectacle…

Finally, we stopped and I got a decent pic. Not sure if it’s really New Orleans-y, but whateverrrrr. Also, I had to photoshop three pictures together to get this one. Heh.

Still need to post about Saturday – me and Linus went and ran some errands. I was so delightfully normal with my one kid! And then we went to my friend Mandy’s house where he played with her daughter Annabel and I got to have girly chat with Mandy and our friend Melissa. But I need to retrieve the pictures off my camera still, so that will be a later post.

TGIF

So yesterday was George’s birthday (he has now embarked on the last year of his 30s mwah ha ha ha ha!) The boys and I (yeah, because they contributed financially!) got him a Flip Ultra video camera, so expect lots more videos of the boys in coming months.

Linus started wheezing again yesterday…sigh………..we gave him breathing treatments throughout the day and night (yeah, I also gave George the gift of sleep – I got up to give Linus his 1 am treatment last night) and I took him to the doctor this morning, fearing the worst…that I’d have to take him to the ER. Thank god he sounded better. Whew! Just a little congested. Another 24 hours of round-the-clock nebulizer treatments should do the trick, and then hopefully he’ll be good as new.

Okay, yeah. This is fascinating, isn’t it? Will post some pictures later…

We won! and Mother’s Day

It was a seriously close contest at the end, but I managed to beg for enough votes to beat the adorable Jack and Sumner and beautiful Katie and Charlotte in the Multiples…and More contest. The hard part about winning is that I know these other kids (well, their mamas), but at least I had fair competition, unlike in that radio station contest Oliver was in. Hmmph.

Now to recap our weekend and my lovely Mother’s Day…

(semi-)Nakey babies!

(sorry, just a random picture I wanted to include.)

Had a nice weekend. We brought the boys to their grandparents’ Friday afternoon because George was alllllll excited to see Star Trek. I mean, the man was shaking with excitement, I’m not kidding. I am not a Star Trek fan, but I agreed to go. After he begged me. Ha. And it wasn’t bad. Considering.

Saturday, I slept sooooo late, it was awesome. Did not much at all. Played some Super Mario Galaxy, went to the gym, did a little grocery shopping, a little organizing. But mostly lazed around. Then George took me to dinner for Mother’s Day. We went to a yummy Belgian place where I had steak + frites. Yummmmmmmmm. Then we went to the pub and stayed much later than we should have.

Got up Sunday morning, and went to get the boys. We all drove to the zoo, where my mom and Larry were meeting us. It was, pardon the pun, a zoo. I think it’s the busiest day of the year. It was insane. I was so glad we had a membership because the lines to get tickets were insane.

It was so freaking hot. The boys were good. Oliver would only let my mom or Larry hold him, which was so cute. He wouldn’t even let me hold him! Ha ha!

Zoo pics:

spoiled-rotten oliver…

After that, we went to IHOP for lunch. Fortunately, it was empty, so we didn’t have trouble getting a table. The boys were really good there. They were being really cute.

Lunch pics: (Linus in the background throwing a fit; Oliver being cute.)

Miles:

After lunch, we went home. I filled up a baby pool that I bought yesterday, put the boys in their bathing suits, squirted some J&J bubble bath in the pool, and let them go to town. I think I found a new way to bathe the boys! Heh.

Pool pics:
pre-filling

during

rub-a-dub-dub

Video of splashing in the pool:
Splashing in the pool

sleepy miles

And then I tried to get a decent picture of me with the boys. FAIL.

All in all, a very nice Mother’s Day. Hooray!

Oh dear.

I am a good wife. A v v v v v good wife. Not only did I go see some guitar dude in concert a couple of years back (my idea of hell – and I even bought the tickets!) with George, but tonight I’m going to see the new Star Trek movie. Oh man. I am a good wife.

At least there will be popcorn involved, right? And the theaters here do sell daiquiris, so I guess it won’t be all bad.

Ha ha, just giving George a hard time (though, honestly, I’d rather sit through Star Trek ten times than that concert again. And do you know what a good wife I am? I didn’t make him go see Morrissey with me.)

I would love to post some cute pictures of the boys, but alas. I haven’t taken any lately. Oh wait, how about this one? I took Linus shopping with me yesterday to go get a gift for my friend Laurie who just had a new baby girl. We stopped by Petco to get some food for the cat, and Linus got to giggle at the gerbils. He looks so old in this picture. Gaah!
Linus likes the gerbils

Mother’s Day is Sunday. We’re going to hit the zoo. And then maybe grill afterwards. We’ll see. I just want to go somewhere to eat with the boys. IHOP is the most likely place, since it’s okay if they yell there. And they do love pancakes. Hmm.

PS Did you vote? Don’t forget to vote! #4! LOM! You don’t have to register or anything, just click on #4 and “vote”. Easy!

17 months old! (And our weekend)

The boys are 17 months old today. How did the time go by so fast? No idea. Next month they’ll be 18 months old. Only a month older, but it seems like such a big milestone. Crikey.

Now, onto a recap of the weekend. Friday afternoon, while we’re getting ready to put the boys to bed, my friend Alicia calls. She’s the one with the quad girls who share a bday with the boys. She has two free tickets to the Zoo-to-do, a really fancy fundraiser at the zoo here. I think the tickets are $150 each or something. Free food, free booze, and it’s a lovely evening, so I agree. Even though it means I have to shave my legs for the first time in god knows how long.

I get dressed, go to her house, and we head to the zoo. Oh man! It was amazing. Tons of restaurants (I mean, maybe 100? or more?) had stations set up around the zoo with food and drinks. The good stuff, too. Alicia’s husband is the executive chef at the Ritz-Carlton here, and he was there at the Ritz’s table, so he got us the tickets. We ate our way around the zoo, and I had a few fancy drinks. (Alicia’s pregnant with her fifth girl, so I had to drink for three. I kid. Sorta.)

Anyway, even though I was tired and still slightly sick from my cold, I had a great time. That was fun.

Not fun was not sleeping well that night, having babies crying all.night.long, and getting up early on Saturday with them. Alas.

Saturday was okay. Nothing terribly exciting. After the boys took their morning nap, we took them to the park to run around. But it was hot and sunny and there are stinging caterpillars everywhere at this time of year, and they were cranky, cranky, cranky. So that was kind of a bust. Went home, put them down for a nap, and they wouldn’t sleep, even though they were exhausted. Miles just screamed. I went and got him after about 10 minutes, and the front of his shirt was soaked from tears and drool. (Did I mention they’re getting what appears to be all four molars at once? I just loooooooooove having identical triplets who get all their teeth simultaneously!!!!!!! Nooooo I’m not being sarcastic who meeeee??)

So we said, screw the nap, and went for a walk. They had fun running around outside at our friend’s pizza place, but there were still plenty of random tears. Sigh. Went home, put them to bed. Linus wouldn’t sleep. He was inconsolable. Finally, for the first time ever (maybe, I think), I rocked him to sleep. Okay, not rocked, but he went to sleep on me, and I put him to bed. This is what one misses out on by having triplets.

Oh yeah, I also trimmed the back of their hair. I did an okay job. At least it doesn’t look as scraggly now.

After they went to bed, I went grocery shopping. Man, I was just beat.

Had some crying babies again that night, so no good sleep for mama and daddy, either.

Sunday, the morning was fine. I made pancakes with applesauce and cinnamon in them, and the boys ate them up. I also gave them yogurt with blueberries, and I let them go to town with their spoons. It was a mess. After their nap, we walked to our friend’s pizza place (yes, again), and had “breakfast”. Really, it’s breakfast food at lunchtime. Lots of friends were there, and the boys had fun playing and eating lunch. We weren’t sure what to do for the rest of the day, and some of them were heading to an air show at a Navy base nearby, so we decided to take the boys.

Even though we literally parked at one end of a runway and had to walk the entire length of it (pulling the wagon) to get to the air show (and back) and the boys were terrified by the loud airplanes, and I didn’t have earplugs for anyone…it was pretty fun. At least we weren’t going stir-crazy inside the house.

Last night’s sleep was punctuated by more Linus crying. And of course, when I went in their room this morning to change them, Oliver and Miles (who slept fine) were crabby, and Linus was a little ray of freaking sunshine. Kids!

And now, some pictures!

We let them go in our room this morning. It’s normally off-limits. Can you tell they were excited?

We’re also teaching them how to go up the stairs. With us right behind, of course.

The wagon at the airshow with the sun umbrellas I got for it

At the park with Daddy

We saw a lot of this, this weekend. Sigh.

Cool dude with sunglasses

Last week at daycare, I dressed them alike one day. I never do that.

Ahhh, boys….

And so it begins…life with boys…

From an email I sent George yesterday, after getting a call from their teacher (Barbie) at daycare.

barbie called. linus and oliver got into fisticuffs at school over the cozy coupe. linus carjacked oliver, oliver got bump on head. linus was removed from car (as punishment), threw a hissy fit, and scratched forehead.

No doubt Miles was off to the side, orchestrating the whole thing.

To illustrate the story, here is a picture from St. Patrick’s Day at the park with a different Cozy Coupe.

Then and now

There’s not a whole lot exciting going on now, but I imagine Ren’s tired of looking at herself at the top of my blog, so I’d better post again. I thought I’d post some pictures from one year ago. I often think how much our life has changed in a year, so now I want to look at photographic evidence.

But why just go back one year? Let’s go back a few!

April 27, 2006…prom! (Okay, not really. I’m older than that! We had a prom at the pub. Hee hee! I got my dress at the thrift store. Dreamy!)

Hard to see here, but George had a powder-blue suit. Nice!

April 21, 2007 (the closest I have to two years ago): George holding Amelia! Little did he know that about eight months later, he’d be holding three of these…

Note the terror on his face. Ha ha ha!

(About three weeks later, I got a positive pregnancy test.)

April 21, 2008 – The boys, 4.5 months old. Ack! So tiny!

And here we are, in 2009:
(April 23, to be exact)

And just for funsies, here is the fun turkey-dog-spaghetti hybrid I made for the boys…

Oliver was not so sure about them:

Fun!

All about Ren

Today’s post is going to be a little different. It’s not going to be about the boys, it’s going to be about my dear friend Ren. She’s going through a little rough patch right now, and I want everyone to know how awesome she is. And I want her to realize it.

Do you know Ren? If not, meet Ren…

(That’s Ren on the right, by the way. Chloe, my future daughter-in-law, is on the left.)

I’ve known Ren since 1991. Or was is 1990? In any case, a long time. (Oh man, I feel old now.) I can remember the exact moment we met, too. It was Interview/Audition Weekend at Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts. We were both trying to get in, and we started talking while washing our hands in the bathroom.

I was so glad that a few months later, when school started, to see Ren around. Of course, then, she was Katherine. But I haven’t called her that in years. Renny is more like it.

Here are things I love about Renny:
– her beautiful golden curls. In class, I would sit behind her and pull on them and *bo-i-i-i-ng* they’d spring back. She claimed to covet my long, straight brown hair, but why? She was very dismayed when I got a perm senior year. Well, I was just trying to have hair like hers! Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out like that, so yeah, not a great decision on my part.

– her generosity. Okay, so I had this cat, right? Named Derkins (after Suzy Derkins from Calvin + Hobbes.) I got Derkins in about 1995. Ren and I were roommates in 1996-97, and when I went off to London for six months, she took care of Derkins for me.

Fast forward 12 years, and she still has Derkins. I’m pretty sure Derkins recognized who was the better mama.

She also brings us the most delicious food in times of need (when the boys were born, for instance. Never mind she had a baby only a month older than them!) Mmmm. Yum.

– her sense of humor. She threw me and our friend Kristie a surprise Armed Forces Day party one year. (It sucks that so much of our history is pre-digital-camera. I’m going to have to dig out some old pics and scan them.)

– she WROTE A BOOK! And got a fancy New York City agent because of that book! Life got in the way of it getting published, but I’ve read it, and I promise, it’s awesome. One day it will get published.

– she is an awesome mama. She doesn’t stress about things, and whenever I have baby questions, I always call her first. I want to be the kind of mom she is – goes with the flow, lets her kids be themselves and is just generally pretty zen about everything. This has resulted in two awesome little girls that are going to grow up to be amazing women. (And at least one of which, as mentioned before, will marry one of my boys. It’s GOT to happen! How cool would that be? Hee!)

(From the looks of this, it’ll probably be Miles.)

(or maybe Linus)

– she loves my boys. Whenever we go out with them, she likes to pretend they’re hers. (And let’s face it, they look more like her than me!) I’ve got to stop answering peoples’ questions for her, though. It ruins the game. Heh.

Oh, this is too hard. I keep remembering all of our stories. Like…

– Our time living together. That was fun. She put up with my messiness. I was so groggy in the mornings before class, I would make coffee but forget to put the coffee pot underneath. Oops! (I still get teased for that!)
– Visiting her (and some other friends) in London when she had her 6-month stint there.
– Visiting her in Natchitoches when she was in college there.
– Environmental Issues class in high school and the video we made. It involved an interpretive dance about billboards on the interstate, set to “Rump Shaker”. (No, I don’t remember what grade we got for that!)
– Working at Daiquiri Cafe together (which, unfortunately, ended badly for her, getting robbed and locked in the cooler. Hmm. And I got her that job. Hmm. I didn’t say they were all good memories!)
– Being pregnant together.

Here she is in the middle at 32 weeks pregnant, looking much tinier than I was at 24 weeks. Oh yeah. I had three. Ha.

Oh, there is so much more. Almost 20 years of memories. I was so happy when she moved back to Louisiana after being in Virginia for a few years.

Anyway, I could go on and on. But tomorrow is Ren’s birthday, so if you know Ren, leave her a birthday message!

Busy weekend!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve been busy! Kristina was visiting from Wednesday – yesterday, so there was lots of stuff to do, not much time to write about it. We went to the zoo and the park on Saturday, then French Quarter Fest on Sunday. All fun, all exhausting.

Other stuff…

– Got the boys harnesses so at some point in the far-off future, we can go places and they can walk. I just figured I would get them used to wearing them. They’re animal backpacks, and the (detachable) tail is the “leash” (ha ha!) They loooove the animals, but being on the leash part? Not so much. It’s pretty funny. 😛

Miles with his monkey. And you know what I love about this picture? I don’t know that it’s Miles because of what he’s wearing, but I just know it’s Miles! I’m getting really good at telling them apart. 🙂

Miles holding the tail while Linus wears it:

A few pictures…

At the park. We just let them run. Oliver had a little ball that he would throw…then run and pick up. Then throw…then run and pick up. Over and over and over again. It was v cute how single-minded he was in his task. In this picture, it looks like Miles (in orange) is about to intercept the ball. Uh oh!

At French Quarter Fest, someone kindly retrieved the ball for Linus. Hee!

And some cute videos…

Dang, they’re cute!

I can’t help it. The boys, they’re being so darn cute lately. Here are some pictures I took yesterday of them being all cute ‘n’ stuff.

Sitting at their new table for dinner. Hoping the high chairs are on their way out….

Easter weekend

Friday
My friend Erin and I took the boys across the river to the expo for the Crescent City Classic 10K race we were doing on Saturday. We brought them in the triple jogger, because I thought it’d be good practice. Yeah. Look, I know it’s a wide stroller, but turns out it’s just a little too wide for things like, oh, the ramp leaving the ferry terminal and most of the elevators at the Hilton. So we had some comical moments dealing with that.

But it all worked out okay and we got our numbers for the race.

After I got home, we loaded the boys in the van and I headed across the lake to hang out with my friend Ren.   Halfway across the Causeway (the 23 mile bridge that connects New Orleans to the North Shore area) I realized I forgot to bring any strollers or any sort of baby-transport device. Whoops!

So we took the boys to Chick-fil-a for lunch. It went pretty well. We ran into one of our RAs from high school, which was weird. But the boys behaved and ate pretty well. That place was packed. For a Friday in a very Catholic area, there were lots of people eating non-fish meals!

After lunch, we went to this new park that had recently opened. Clearly, though, it was not meant for little kids. There were tons of cool things to play on, but the whole playground was sand. Ick. And the baby swings were really weird. But we found a little gazebo that the boys could play in and we could stay out of the sun. (Left my camera at home, too bad. The boys were being pretty cute.)

Then we had to go to the Toyota dealership so I could pick up another key fob for the van. Fascinating stuff. At least the dealership had a cool play area for the kids. Best part is, they washed the van for me! Awesome. First time it’s been washed in…a really long time. Shiny!

After going back to Ren’s house, where she fed the boys (yay), we headed back home, and they went to bed.

Saturday
Up bright ‘n’ early for the race. Headed to the start line. Started. Walked. For 2 hours and 30 seconds. It was harder than I expected, being out of training. And we couldn’t go very fast. There were so many people (20k!) and the stroller would’ve bulldozed people down if we’d tried to run with it. Oh well, it was fun. Except that Linus and Miles were not happy. Oliver was fine, he just sat and watched. But the other two squirmed and whined and cried almost the whole time. Fun! Finally, I gave Linus my camera and Miles my cell phone, and that pretty much kept them quiet the rest of the time. (Too bad I only figured that out at about mile 4. Alas.)

But I got some pictures…

After the race:

And Linus took some too!

After the race, George picked us up, and we went home. Put the boys down for a loooong nap while I took a little one myself.

That evening, we took the boys for a walk around the neighborhood and to a friend’s crawfish boil. They weren’t thrilled with that, either, until I found some jambalaya and they did the baby bird thing while I fed them. I really wish I could have stayed longer, a lot of our friends were there. Such is the life of a parent, eh?

Sunday
Is it awful that I didn’t do anything for the boys for Easter? No baskets, no gifts, nothing? I didn’t even take them to get pictures with the Easter Bunny. Hmm. Next year.

We went to my mom’s house for lunch. Put the boys in the outfits my sister sent them. Plaid shorts absolutely kill me. Love them.

Note the classic Miles stance here (in orange)

This picture of Miles makes my heart melty:

Oliver has not let go of this tennis ball since he stole it from Ren’s on Friday:

Trying and failing to get a picture with Daddy

Oliver talking to the geese:

Even though their backs are turned, I love this picture

Had steak and asparagus and mashed potatoes. Yum.

Monday
Slept in (til 8!) and then started working. The house needs major decluttering, and I worked mostly on the living room and our bedroom. Made some good progress. It’s a good feeling. Put together the sand and water table, hosed off the Cozy Coupe and cleaned up the little chairs they’re going to use with the IKEA table, whenever that gets here. George mowed the lawn and set up their little outdoor play area. Aw!

George mowing the lawn. That area there is where the boys play.

I washed the car. Hee! Silly.

And now, my nice long 4 day weekend is over. But Kristina’s coming tomorrow, so I don’t mind!

A few edits

So after reading yesterday’s post, George said I made a few errors. Understandable.

– I didn’t get him to come into the u/s room, the tech did. That makes sense.
– He wasn’t sitting, he was standing during the ultrasound.
– When telling us the news, the tech said something more like “I don’t know how to tell you this…but you’re having triplets.” While I believe George, I feel like I’d remember if she said something like that. Because I know if I heard the words, “I don’t know how to tell you this…” I probably would have freaked out before hearing the rest of her sentence. But who knows.

Very minor things, but of course I want to have the most accurate story written down, right?