7 days . . .

Well, we survived (maybe even thrived?!) this week even though Curt was gone. The boys have been SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good to mom and even though i'm pretty beat, it feels good knowing I can handle them (relatively) on my own. We can't thank our wonderful friends enough for their time as they came to come and help feed the boys in the evenings or Tess who came in over her weekend to help me out.

So what else has been new? Well, on Friday morning Tess and I decided to take the boys to the park and set out a blanket for some tummy time/practice sitting up. We brought the bumbo for the third boy and were just enjoying the nice weather while i took some photos when all of a sudden (dum da dumdum DUMMMMMMMMMM - scary music inserted here) THE SPRINKLERS WENT ON! Tess was holding Brady and she hopped up, I had the digital SLR so I hopped out of the way and moved the stroller - also in the line of water - leaving Gavin laying on the blanket looking around like "hey, what's happening?". Aidan was in the bumbo just getting A SHOWER and looking very confused. Gavin never got upset, even after i ran back in to get him, but Aidan did once he was OUT of the water. I think it took awhile to register. :) They were WET. good thign it was hot out. . . Is it bad I was more concerned about the digital camera than the boys?

A&G Chillin' @ the parkBrady sits tri-pod style!Brady post showerAidan post-shower

Gavin post-shower

They have also been getting their groove on with EATING! Sweet potatoes are YUMMY! so is BROCCOLI (i'm not lying - all three eat it up and no weird faces!). We have three styles of eating:

Brady: a little bit around his mouth, but he likes to actually swallow his food. and bang on the highchair with his hands.

Gavin: almost as much comes out as goes in. It takes about 3 tries to scoop up everything you had on the original spoonful from his chin to put back in his mouth. and he still grunts for more.

Aidan: he opens wide, takes all of the food and then proceeds to either grab the spoon and wipe any excess off with his fingers, or he sticks his whole hand in his mouth to feel the textures and then wipe it all over his face, eyes, hair, nose, whatever. He is a work of art by the end.

And one cute video - Brady does the running man - Go Brady, it's your birthday, go Brady, it's your birthday!

Mom and the Boys

Brady & Aidan sacked out before their bedtime!

Well, Curt has left for a week in Cambodia with a student group. To answer all of your questions, YES - he let me make the final decision about going; YES - he has lined up help for me in the evenings and weekend; YES - it was hard for him to leave me and the boys; YES - he is going to bring me back something nice from Cambodia; and YES - I'm a little scared about the week, but i know we will be fine. :)

Strong Mommy (Brady & Aidan)

Curt gave the boys a pep talk about what they needed to do this week. He told Gavin no "Baby Kong", he told Brady to take his naps, and he told Aidan no whining. Whatever he told them must have worked because I didn't hear a PEEP out of them when they went down for their evening nap. I'm going to knock on wood right now so I don't jinx myself for the next week. :) The hard thing is Brady has also gotten two teeth on the bottom. Now, Gavin has two teeth, but they really didn't seem to bother him. Unfortunately, Brady is having a rough time of it as they come in. He's much fussier, but it generally manifests itself by him saying "dadadadadadadadadadadadadadada" over and over and over. Of course Curt is convinced he is saying "Da Da/Daddy" so he always goes "Yes?!" and points at himself when Brady does this. To which Brady replies with a confused look, or a giggle. either way, pretty freaking cute. :) With Curt gone for the week, we will be working on "Mama". (insert evil laugh here)

Gavin & Daddy having some snuggle time!

In other news for the last 3 nights I have slept about 8 hours in a row. i feel like a new person. it is amazing - blues are blue-er, greens are greener - the sun shines brighter. This means that this is the first time since probably early July I have been able to sleep through the night. yes, that's eight and a half months of interrupted sleep. i'm kind of in shock just reading that myself. I've reduced my pumping breast milk to just twice a day and plan to be done by this Wednesday. In many ways I'm mourning this. Even though actually i nursed somewhat infrequently with the boys, i really liked being able to provide them with breast milk since it's so good for them. I know this will be the only time i get to do this, so I've been feeling a little emotional (yes, that does include random tears at weird things). Tomorrow is the first day they won't all wake up to a bottle of mom's milk - i'm going to have to get up to make them FORMULA! bleh! Don't get me wrong - I'm really enjoying sleeping through the night, I'm really proud I made it as long as I did, and I will be happy to get my body back. This is just a really difficult time for me to let go of.

Brady sees Daddy!

Aidan seeking a way out . . .

Aidan LOVES his satin rabbit - thanks Claireballs!

I Fart In Your General Direction

During our feeding this evening, while Aidan was taking his requisite 15 minute break, I had begun to feed Brady while Curt fed Gavin. Aidan was laying on the couch in between us and was BUSY. Playing with toys, throwing burp cloths around, whining for his pacifier, spitting it out - the usual. He was also putting his feet up on my leg as he grabbed at my t-shirt. Then he decided to kick at Brady's legs dangling over my thigh. I gently moved him away and Curt distracted him. Aidan then began touching Gavin's face and head while he ate - also not cool when he eventually will latch on with his freakishly strong hands (have you ever had an infant grab your lip? painful) and make Gavin cry, so we tried another re-direct.


He goes back to kicking at Brady and I said "stop messing with your brother while he's eating!" To which Brady sends Aidan a message and rips a HUGE fart - in his general direction. Aidan's eyes got really big - and he quit messing with Brady. Curt and I proceeded to laugh our heads off. . .


In other non-bodily function news - i used Baby Einstein as a baby watcher for the first time. I must say, it's weird. Like stuff the stoner's who lived across the hall from me in college would have watched after a few hits, weird. Curt had gone to take the car in Saturday morning and the boys are all sick - nice snotty sick! We had fed Brady and Gavin and I got Aidan up after Curt left. To make sure I wouldn't have to entertain the other two too much, i made a little slumber party on the floor and gave them pillows and other toys and then popped in BE. at least it was Mozart in the background! Brady seemed to really dig it - kicking his legs as the train went around the track, and when the water/ink things did their thing. Gavin on the other hand, was not so impressed. He did end up watching it once I had put him on his jungle gym - upside down. Apparently watching it the way you and I would was just too dang mundane, but looking at it upside down is the bomb . . . whatever kid. :)


Gavin is a big boy and has two teeth! He had pulled my finger in to his mouth the other day and proceeded to chomp right down on it! He doesn't seem much fussier than usual, nor does he seem to be drooling much more than usual, so hopefully this will be as bad as it gets! :) Gavin has also shown he is learning to use tools - as it relates to food. As the eat they get a lot of food on their bibs, of course (Curt thinks it's my feeding style - whatever:)). In the middle of the afternoon snack today, Gavin needed a big and bad diaper change. As he is laying on the changing table with his bib on, he realizes there is still rice cereal and bananas all over his bib so he brings the bib to his mouth and begins to suck it off!!! He also did this again after we were done and cleaning everybody up! HILARIOUS! He's like our little monkey with his new tool!

Some Yummy Pictures

Gavin hamming it up for the camera


Aidan being cute

Brady - it took about 6 tries to get this - I kept missing his super cute smile - i swear, it's about 10X better than this folks . . .


Hawkeye fans! (A, G, B)

Food, Glorious Food

So the boys have been given the green light to begin solid foods. Over the weekend we tried our first attempts at rice cereal and the results were all along the spectrum. Gavin (our biggest and best eater) definitely had the hang of "open mouth for spoon, close mouth and get the goodies off the spoon, swallow, open mouth again". Aidan, our smallest and arguably pickiest eater, tried it and preferred to put it on his fingers then to take it off the spoon. the look on his face was more "what is this stuff?" than yummy! And then dear Brady is already taking the initiative. While he was still getting the basics down to get the cereal off the spoon, he decided he wanted to do it HIMSELF. On day 1 he shoved the spoon so far down his throat he began gagging himself. On day 2 as he was attempting to get it in his mouth, the spoon made a detour and he was hitting himself in the eye with a spoonful of cereal. Needless to say, his was the biggest clean up.

While i'm excited about this new stage, I'm also a little sad. They are growing up so quickly that before long they will be walking and talking and making their own decisions even more forcefully than they do now. It also emphasizes how much more work three is than one. While we might have been more willing to try food more than once a day, it takes so darn long to clean up all three of them, and everyone is on their own pace for eating (or not) that at this point it really is too hard to try the new hobby of eating solids more than once a day. I'm also going to have to accept that our nannies will be getting into the fun as well - that is hard for me since part of me really feels like this privilege is OURS to do (but MAN is rice cereal a pain in the ass to clean up from clothing!).

Gavin - Up and . . .

. . .Over!!!

Annoying Habits, Adorableness

Annoying Habit #1: For several weeks now, the boys have developed this INCREDIBLY annoying habit of crying/whining like maniacs when you are burping them in the middle (and heck, sometimes even the end) of a bottle. Once, I was feeding Aidan, and someone began burping Brady and Aidan started doing his crying thing WHILE HIS BOTTLE WAS IN HIS MOUTH. HELLO?! you can't whine about having your bottle taken away when IT HASN'T BEEN!!!


You will be feeding them and everyone (when a third person is here helping) will be happily sucking along, when all of a sudden - it's time for a burp. then all hell breaks loose. Aidan's definitely sounds the most whiny. Brady sounds angry (and whiny). And Gavin is Baby Kong. Gavin is so strong that when he doesn't feel like he should burp yet, he will stiffen his body, stick both arms straight out to the side and turn bright red as he does a half growl/half whine yell. He will wave his body around as you desperately try to hold on to him so he doesn't face dive to the floor and he looks like a Baby Kong who is about to terrorize a small Japanese city. It is hilarious to watch - not so hilarious when you are the one to feed him. Of course the flip side of waiting to burp Gavin to avoid Baby Kong is that he will likely do one large Stealth Bomber spit up long after you have let your guard down. sweet.



Brady on the other hand (Annoying Habit #2) is a puker. i mean, SERIOUS puker, pretty much every time. I always grab two of the super thick burp cloths when I feed him, because i will usually go through both. After his whiny/angry crying spell (and he has burped a couple of good ones) he will sit there with this angelic look on his face . . . an promptly fill the burp cloth. sometimes i don't know how that kid is growing - he is a happy non-sleeper and he pukes up 1/4 of his bottle (it seems).


Annoying Habit #3 (because doesn't everything good come in threes?!): Aidan is a genius. It does not matter how much you give him in his bottle, he will stop drinking at the last two ounces. and you basically have to beg him to finish (which he will do in between whiny cries and smiling and giggling at me). He has been doing this since December and it is getting OLD. Again, another kid, I'm not sure how he's growing, except that he is our most steady "good sleeper". Now some might say "oh, he's probably not hungry" but the thing is, he will eat it (and not spit anything up) as long as you give him a 15 minute rest and you heat the bottle to the near boiling point he likes to eat at (he's his mom's son - i love food when it's HOT! give your tongue a blister hot . ..).


And on to adorableness. Is there anything cuter than Aidan laughing at a simple sneeze? over and over again? I guess cold season will be a riot in our house :)

Sleep - the elusive dream

Wakey, wakey! Eggs and Bakey!

OK, so since the night before i began work again, the boys have been pretty darn good sleepers. Except for the last week or so. Honestly, Curt has borne the brunt of this since I'm so tired from pumping in the middle of the night that I often don't hear the cries for pacifier returns, etc. He's noticed a pattern developing with the boys that they are waking up every couple of hours with short cries. once we go in and give a pacifier back or flip them over they fall asleep and we won't hear from them for a couple of hours. This usually happens between 3 and 4 am with one or all boys and can begin again between 5 and 6 am. ouch.

Because they share a room, of course, we have been MUCH more likely to check on them than to just ignore it since we don't want them to wake their brothers! man are they stubborn. It's 3:30 AM and Aidan has been crying with these caterwauling cries (one whiny one every few seconds) for nearly an hour now. we are pretty sure if we give a pacifier or flip him over he will go back to sleep - at least for a few hours, but we are reading a book that considers this "positive reinforcement", and most of the other stuff in this book has been completely accurate. As you can probably guess, curt and i are up in the middle of the night and at our wit's end. and then of course, Gavin was woken up and began crying too. double ouch. once Aidan finally fell asleep around 4 AM, Brady began a whiny cry. Even though the doors in this place muffle sound pretty well, for some reason our bedroom door will not close any longer and curt has had to put in ear plugs. this is by far one of our worst nights and i hope this "extinction crying" (shout out to all of you Dr. Weissbluth fans!) will work quickly - i don't think either of us can take it for too long!

The good part about last night's marathon crying session was 1) they were still very happy to see us in the morning and 2) they went down VERY easily for their naps. they were a little bit crankier the rest of the time (so were we), but they were pretty solid little sleepers when they were napping. Shock of all shocks, I re-read our sleep book and it talks about the naps being too long (guess I shouldn't read in the middle of the night while I'm exhausted and pumping) and how that can interfere with night sleep. hmmm . . . so we shortened the afternoon nap on saturday and tried to go out to dinner with the boys after some shopping. Let's just say, I think brady ACTUALLY melted down in the restaurant. thank goodness it was just an american chain and we were by ourselves near the window or we might have been thrown out. Me holding him and rocking him didn't get him to stop - little punk. HOWEVER - they have slept really well the last two nights . . . let's hope this pattern sticks . . .