pa-jammy
You know what this means? Twelve months from today, we’ll be taking #100. Then, maybe I can consider stopping. (No, not really. As if.)
This month, we had a very special guest, all the way from Los Angeles! Give it up everyone, for COUSIN ELLIE!
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. š
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. š
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…
My sweet boys were 14 months old yesterday! Monthly pictures are getting harder and harder, though. My friend Teresa came over last night to help out with the boys since George had to work late, and she and I managed to get a cute picture of them.
My sweet boys! They’re doing so much now.
Linus:
– is sooooo close to walking. I keep saying that. Sigh.
– had an ear infection this month in spite of his tubes. Sigh again.
– is being somewhat unusually clingy to me. I don’t really mind.
Oliver:
– loves to say “Uh-oh!” which is painfully cute, and while I shouldn’t encourage him dropping things and saying “uh-oh!” it’s just too cute. So I do. I encourage it.
– also loves to say “cat”. Sometimes to the cat, sometimes not. But I’m pretty sure he knows that what a cat is.
– is a picky eater. my most picky. seems to be getting better, though.
– seems to be terrified of unfamiliar men right now. both Kristina’s husband and my uncle made him scream, just by being near him. It really was hilarious (and nothing personal, Mike and Uncle Bob!)
Miles:
– eats anything and everything
– cracks himself up when he makes silly sounds with his tongue
– loves his toothbrush! (okay, tonight was the first time we tried it, and he loved it. that’s why it’s in the picture.)
– loves to splash in the bathtub (ditto to above comment.)
– v close to walking. i’m sure of it.
They’re all:
– “talking” on the phone (or the rattle, or the car, or whatever is handy) which just kills me. So cute.
– dancing
– getting into little spats, mostly over toys. oh joy!
– making each other laugh. makes up for the fights.
– wearing size 4 diapers, size 5 at night
– rolling balls and throwing them
This is such a fun time. I’m really loving it. And I know people say I shouldn’t wish for this, I can’t wait for them to start walking. I’m ready. Anytime now, boys! š
And now for some outtakes from the photo shoots (yes, we had to try twice yesterday to get these pictures.)
It was just so hard to get this month’s picture. Some outtakes…hee hee!
From this morning’s attempt…
Linus and Oliver flanking a hissy-fit-throwing Oliver. He’s soooo dramatic!
Linus is camera-obsessed.
Then we tried it with me holding the boys. That didn’t quite work either. š
Okay, I’ll stop now. š
Busy weekend we had! Let me see if I can remember everything…
Friday
The boys had a doctor’s appointment on Friday to check on their ears (all good!) and afterwards, I took them to George’s school so everyone could ooh and ahh over them. They also got their pictures taken by one of George’s very talented colleagues, Christie. Look how cute my boys are!
Miles is in green “argh”, Linus is in the yellow lion, and Oliver is in the stripes.
(doesn’t Miles look like his cousin Emily here? aww!)
Okay, moving on…
Saturday
Yet another day of picture-taking of the boys! My wedding photographer, Sandra, came by to take pictures of the boys. I can’t wait to see how they come out!
After the photo shoot, I took the boys to Target and to my friend Mandy’s daughter’s first birthday party. The boys had so much fun playing with Annabel. Mandy made the babies blueberry muffins, and oh my gosh, they went crazy for them! I wish I’d brought my camera, because it was so funny. There were blueberry muffin crumbs EVERYWHERE after that. They were just shoving them into their mouths.
Sunday
More picture-related goings on. The boys are going to have their picture taken next weekend by another local photographer, and she wanted to meet them ahead of time to get an idea of their personality. She’s clearly made of tough stuff (or the boys were being particularly charming) because she didn’t run screaming from the park, AND she still wants to photograph them next weekend. Fun!
After a walk around the park, (my friend Erin came with us) we headed to the mall. Sephora is open! Heaven. Bought a few things (not for me) and did some more browsing. The boys ate their first pretzel. They seemed to enjoy them.
Meanwhile, while I was taking the boys on their adventures, George and his dad were building the door that’s going to create our new bedroom, so that the boys can take over our room as their playroom. Very exciting stuff!
Bathtime!
(oops, are the links not working? I can’t fix right now, but if you go to YouTube and search for “pyjammy”, maybe you can find them. dang.)
New jammies!
(yeah, another cute video here.)
We had a lovely weekend at my aunt Mary Beth’s house. I don’t call her Aunt Mary Beth, that would be very weird. She’s always been Mary Beth to me. Probably because she lived with us when I was little, so she is more like a big sister than an aunt. A cool big sister that would take us to the mall and honk at the speed bumps.
The boys and I had a lot of fun hanging out with Mary and Grady and Daisy and Sara and her fiance. Daisy’s a dog, by the way. The boys enjoyed getting licked by her. Really! At first, I think they were a little freaked out by the sheer size of her, but I’m glad they got used to her. I was beyond terrified of dogs when I was little, and I really don’t want them to be.
Mary and I took the boys to lunch. They were very good, eating their sweet potato fries and flirting with a two year old girl who would run her fingers through her hair whenever you praised her flaxen locks.
Here are two of my children pulling themselves up on the coffee table so they can read Southern Living and Cabela’s catalogs: (note they are naked, and therefore harder to identify. Am pretty sure Linus is on the left, and I’d bet a few dollars that Miles is on the right.)
Grady, my uncle, is a huge outdoorsman. When I put the boys in their camo sleepsacks, I was half afraid he might spirit them away in the middle of the night and take them hunting. While he didn’t do that, we did get to see some deer frolicking in their backyard.
Playing with a jug of water (best toy ever!) at Mary’s feet:
Oliver and Linus at the restaurant:
Miles eating a sweet potato fry:
Oliver eating one:
Not today, yesterday actually. Well, scratch that. It’s after midnight, so really it was two days ago. IĀ decided, while looking outside my office windows that it was too too gorgeous outside, and I couldn’t possibly stay inside for another gorgeous day, and decided to take Friday off. IĀ knew my triplet-mama-friend Steph was taking her trio to the zoo, so IĀ emailed her and asked if we could join them, and she said, “great!”
The boys are only going to be 9 months and three weeks old once, and I needed to just be with them, to soak in their 9-month-and-three-week-ness. It was just a perfect, lovely day. After I ran some errands, I picked up the boys from daycare and we headed to the zoo. I packed lunch for all of us. With Steph and her friend with two older kids, we wandered around the zoo. We got a few stares and comments (even a few “are those sextuplets??”) but mostly we were left alone. It was such a beautiful day, really.
We got there right before noon, so after a little while, we headed to a grassy area, spread out some blankets, and let the babies crawl around while we ate. The boys had never been on grass before, but they seemed to like it. Steph’s babies were reluctant to get on it. Pretty funny. They’d crawl to the edge of the blanket and tentatively brush the grass with their little hands. Eventually, they gave in, thanks to the undeniable tempations of dead leaves and sticks. Mmmm, leaves. Yum. (Why can’t I get them to eat finger foods, but they will eat leaves?Ā Why?) Post-lunch, we went and looked at some more animals.
After Steph and her friend took off, I decided to stay and go back to our picnic spot and let the boys crawl around some more. They were just so happy. God, it was a wonderful day. Just one of those perfect, perfect days that stay etched in your memory. (My last one was from London in 2000, drinking Pimms &Ā Lemonade in the beer garden of a pub in the East End with my best friends. Perfect day.)
Must share some pictures, of course…
Oliver and the flamingos:
Linus loved the gorillas
IĀ love this picture of all the babies. You can see Linus pulling on Steph’s nannie’s shirt, which makes me laugh. They will climb up anything, anyone, everything!
My sweet babies.
Random shot of Oliver and Miles:
Baby pileup!
After all of the fun at the zoo, I picked up George at the house and we headed to his grandpa’s, so he could see the boys. They were very sweet to their great-grandpa. But I know what Oliver’s thinking here. “Glasses! I want the glasses! Hand ’em over, Gramps!”
George and I got a lot done around the house yesterday, with the boys at George’s parents’ house. We put some stuff on craigslist for free, and it was like vultures swarming. Heh. But we’re now down two bookcases and a sofa. Whew! Room to breathe!
Fun weekend. Tiring.
Friday night, the boys spent the night at George’s parents’ house, while we went to the pub to see our friends’ band. George joked that I had to stay out til 3 am. I responded with an eye roll and “there’s no way in HELL I can stay up that late.” Well, the joke was on me, because we left the pub shortly after, yes, 3 a.m. Woo! Haven’t done that in a while! It was v fun. And all the better because I was able to sleep until noon on Saturday. Heh.
Went to the gym after that, and then we went to pick up the boys. Awww, I missed them after just 24 hours! They’re at such a fun age, I hate to miss any of it. Well, except the cranky parts. I don’t mind missing that too much. Hmm.
Saturday evening, we went and had sloppy joes with friends, and then brought the boys home. It was nice because it felt like Sunday, but we still had another weekend day left!
My mom came in yesterday, and we took the boys to the mall. Just like males everywhere, the mall made them pretty cranky. But also like men everywhere, we dragged them from store to store and shopped anyway. You think they’d be happy, they got most of the loot! Grandee bought them some clothes, some toys, and some foam mats to go in their new playroom. I got some new mugs (one of which I broke shortly after getting it home, arrrgh) and some hand soap. Hand soap may not sound exciting, but it’s the foaming stuff from Bath & Body Works which I love.
my mug. well, not MY mug. but one just like it. the unbroken one, anyway.
Okay, so here are some cute pictures of the boys…
Linus, upon waking:
Linus (foreground) and Oliver:
Miles is MAD. Very MAD.
The whole family. It’s hard to hold wiggling babies. Nice diaper, Miles.
And here’s a lil’ video, click here.
I don’t have much to post about, but I’ll post anyway. How about pictures?
The pose that strikes terror into my heart…Miles on all fours!
And, oh crap, he’s not the only one! Oliver…
Linus is getting so good at scootching on his belly. He was “chasing” George, trying to get a pacifier that Daddy was taunting him with.
Look how sweet they are, playing on the floor together:
And you can’t miss the best outtake from the monthly photoshoot, Miles using Oliver’s ear as a handle.
Oooh, and here’s something fun. Last weekend, I went on a swamp tour with some work people. It was really fun, I’m glad I went.
I held an alligator!
And you can watch a video of a crazy Cajun man feeding an alligator off the side of the boat.
Thursday
Dropped Miles and Linus off at George’s parents house. I was seriously teary and sad when I left them there. I wasn’t really expecting that, for some reason.
Friday
Got to the airport bright ‘n’ early with Oliver. Everything went smoothly, though I do wish I’d put him in the Bjorn to go through security. Folding the stroller was a pain, but some nice lady gave me a hand. Oliver was an angel on both flights. He cooed and smiled and charmed everyone. He ate on the takeoffs, so he didn’t seem to have any ear issues.
Kristina came to pick us up, and she got seriously misty-eyed when she first saw Oliver. Aw!
After leaving the airport, we stopped for lunch at a pizza place, and then headed to Woodbridge. We stopped at (her husband) Mike’s work, too. That night, we had barbecue for dinner. Deeeeelish! Jenny and Rob and Emily came over, and we made Emily do tricks…
Saturday
Went for a walk in the woods. It was nice and cool. Oliver enjoyed communing with nature.
Afterwards, we headed to Jenny’s house for a barbecue. Yum. There were lots of people there. Max and Monica; Chris and Alvaro; Anne and Whitman; and of course Jenny, Rob, and my Emmy.
Oliver and Whitman hung out on the deck.
That night, Anne and Whitman spent the night. After the babies went to sleep, Anne, Kristina and I destroyed several bottles of wine over Thai food and our favorite card game ever ever ever, Shithead. We used to play it with our friend Marianne when we lived in London. Ahh, good times!
Sunday
Sunday morning came way too fast, after our 1 am bedtime. But that was okay because we were on our way to a mall so I could meet up with some of my blog mom friends, Karen and Jess. That was awesome. I got to hold some more babies and talk with triplet moms. (And Jess also has twins. Twin girls after triplet boys. Hmm, twin girls after triplet boys…sounds fun!)
Then we went to Anne’s house, which I’d never seen before. And then we went to my sister’s house again so I could spend more quality time with Emily and Jenny and Oliver could bond some more.
That night we had some pizza for dinner (always good, pizza is) and played more cards, this time with Mike instead of Anne. It’s very satisfying to beat Mike at cards. I’m just saying.
Monday
Oliver slept for a loooong time, and so did I! That was nice. But it didn’t leave much time for getting ready and packing and going to the airport. But we made our flight just fine. Oliver was great on the first flight, but a little fussy on the second one. Some German guys thought he was cute, and took a picture of him. Now he will be famous like David Hasslehoff.
I missed my Miles and Linus terribly. I don’t think they shared the sentiment. š¦
Overall, a great trip, and it was so much easier to fly with an infant than I expected. Maybe partially because it was only one infant? Oliver drank up the attention, I’m afraid I may have spoiled him. But then again, Miles and Linus got a ton of attention over the weekend too, so I guess they’re all equally spoiled. Whew!
And because I am lazy, here is a gallery of the pics I took this weekend…
I’ve been asked quite a few times how I intend to pick RKT (Random Kocke Triplet) for this weekend’s trip to Virginia. I got some good suggestions.
Regan suggested a baby race. “Line them babies up and first one to scoot to you wins a free trip to DC.”
That definitely paints a hilarious mental picture, mostly of babies wriggling in circles and then giving up and just sucking on each other’s feet before falling asleep in puddles of drool. Unfortunately, since only Linus is an adept scooter, I think it would give him an unfair advantage.
Shannon suggests I “place each of them in a swing, bouncy seat, whatever…then blindfold yourself and have George spin you around in circles to disorient you…then turn you loose. Whichever swing/seat you touch first determines the RKT.”
Again, not a bad idea, except that I can see this ending in disaster. Blindfolded and dizzy, I trip and fall on top of one of the triplets, or fall down the stairs. I fear I am not coordinated enough for this method.
Instead, I think I will use Rachael‘s idea, and simply write their names down on pieces of paper, fold them and put them in a hat, and draw a name. I shall have Teresa video this so that you can see just how fair I’m being. Keep your eyes peeled for possibly the most boring video ever made!
In other news, look at these pictures that Chris took of the boys when he was here last week. Awww!
Linus, Oliver, Miles: (click to enlarge)
…until Random Kocke Triplet (RKT) and I venture forth on our journey to the suburbs of the nation’s capital. I have almost been swayed to choose an RKT, thus rendering RKT not random at all, but I don’t know if I can do that. Not that they care, because whoever doesn’t go with me is going to have a grand old time with Grandma and Grandpa (who apparently bought out the toy section of Babies R Us). In fact, they’re probably hoping they DON’T get picked, in which case I’m being unfair to RKT for making him come with me.
That was confusing, wasn’t it? Anyway. We’ll see. Really it’s more about how terribly I’ll miss the other two who don’t come with me. How can I leave behind my sweet Miles, with his huge grins, or my Oliver bear, with his quizzical faces and heart-melting thumb sucking, or my Linus bear, with his chuckles and giggles and chin zit? Sigh. I think I need to get over it. It’s only for a few days, and I’ll be having so much fun that the time will go by quickly. Too quickly.
Goodness knows how I’m going to deal with my Canada trip, away from ALL THREE for three days!
Some pictures from the weekend…
The last two pictures remind me – there are some amazing sales going on right now. Holy cow, I bought a ton of stuff at Old Navy for next summer. DIRT CHEAP. We’re talking $1.50 for shirts, $3 for pants, and I got that hoodie that Oliver is wearing for $2.50. For RKT to wear on the plane. It gets chilly on airplanes! The cowboy hat Linus is sporting didn’t get purchased, as it was some ridiculous price (not on sale) at Gymboree. But it’s pretty much the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
Had a pretty good weekend here. Let’s think…
Friday after work we walked down to the pizza place for dinner. I do love pizza.
Saturday afternoon, my friend Erin and I took the boys to run some errands. I think the reason they get crabby sometimes on weekends is they get bored of being at the house. So we went to Babies R Us and Sam’s, and they were so well behaved and in great moods. Oliver was in a particularly charming mood, later determined because he pooped his pants and was happily sitting in it, getting it all over his carseat. Boys.
That night, Dawn and her husband and daughter came by to visit, bringing…pizza. I do love pizza. Never turn it down.
On Sunday, we mostly hung around the house. I went to the gym while the boys were napping, which was awesome. I ran on the treadmill. People, it’s been over a year since I’ve run at all. Of course, I’m sure it wasn’t a pretty sight for the other gym-goers, but whatever. It felt great. I think I’m going to set a goal to run a whole 5K this fall. And faster than I used to do them.
For dinner last night, we walked down to the pizza place. Heh. But on Sundays they do barbecue. So not pizza again. However, my mom and Larry are coming to visit us this afternoon, and guess what we’re going to do for dinner?
Speaking of last night, I let Auntie Steph do something she’s been dying to do, and I promised her she could do first…give the boys a tiny taste of ice cream. Predictably, they loved it, even though it was only vanilla, and not Peanut Butter & Chocolate from Baskin-Robbins.
I think Oliver loved it best, but they all seemed to enjoy it. (Note, they only ate the ice cream part, not the chocolate)
Linus:
Oliver:
Miles:
I do love pizza. But having friends open a pizza place four blocks from my house might not be the greatest weight loss tool ever.
This week is going to be awesome, and go by so fast.
– Mom’s coming tonigh
– Dinner with A & S (quads and triplets moms – you know, the ones from the news) tomorrow night with margaritas, mmmmm!
– Triplet moms group on Wednesday
– Chris is coming in town this week, and Thursday he’s coming to meet the boys and hang out. Yippee!
And then a week from Friday, myself and as-yet-undetermined random triplet are heading to Virginia!
Too much excitment. Now I’ll stop talking and post some pictures I took this weekend…
Linus and Miles:
Miles cocks an eyebrow at me:
Love Oliver’s face (in red) in this. It’s his new expression:
All three:
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