Every day is an adventure, I know that's a bit of a cliche, but our little family is no different than a regular business that has staffing issues some times and other times plenty of help. Rianne and Teagan have been pretty good and are generally straightforward with their needs, either hold me, change me, feed me, let me sleep, burp me, etc. Brielle has taken Teagan's position as trouble maker. We are still not sure what causes Brielle to arch so badly and she has an upcoming appointment with the gastroenterologist where hopefully we can make some progress. This blog has some of the best and worst of the kiddo's.
I didn't mean to, but I dropped a bomb on Mindy. Generally guys don't talk about their feelings for a reason, it worries our wives. She asked the question innocuously enough, "how are you doing?" I said, "when Brielle cries, it makes me want to kill myself." S#$#. I did not mean to let that out. Now, her confidence with me alone with them has just been dissipated in one sentence. Before you start grabbing your DSM-IV TR's out (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th Edition, Text Revision) and calling for an intervention, I just wanted to talk about Serotonin...
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is involved in happiness and conversely, depression. When there is a lack of serotonin in the neural synapse then people get depressed, so SSRI's, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors stop the reuptake of serotonin, keeping it in the synapse, keeping people happy. However, that's artificial, the cause of the serotonin deficiency is not fixed...i.e. what's making a person unhappy. When Brielle cries, I just feel so bad for her, but I may have a bottle in each of Rianne's and Teagan's mouths and no third arm to comfort her. Sometimes she just won't be comforted, and that combined with all of their screaming together can make it really tough. It feels like someone just took a Dyson vacuum cleaner to my synapse and sucked out all my serotonin, then they smile and the serotonin is back, then they cry, serotonin gone, smile, serotonin back, cry, serotonin gone, sleep serotonin back and so forth. Here's the triplet sine wave of craziness in video and pictures.
Some of these are tough to watch, so I would wait until the next blog if you're a little squeamish.
This is kind of cute, Rianne is patting Brielle on the head when she started crying...
It's Okay Bri, look, my fly's undone, isn't that funny! Oh, C'mon Bri.
This clip is Brielle, 3 minutes after a GI episode. She's just fine, hanging out as if nothing happened. It's the weirdest thing.
Here's Brielle 3 minutes beforehand. It might be one you don't want to play. It's tough to listen to, maybe you understand why I wrote what I did above. To see your daughter like this and know we just have to wait for a specialist, it's just heartbreaking.
And here are Brielle and Teagan playing a little later...
And Teagan being Teagan...she was fine two seconds later.
And an oldie, but goodie, we remember how sick Brielle was, and how tiny, and that even as tough as it is for her now, she's still doing well...relatively.
I know that all moms get overwhelmed, and I assume that mothers of multiples experience this at a different level. Here are some thoughts that have entered my mind. Maybe this will make you feel more normal, or maybe you'll call me up and tell me I need help.
Having twins would have been so much easier.
Can we give one up for adoption? Which one?
Why can't all three of them have the demeanor of Rianne?
Is it okay to go cry in the corner for a little bit?
Everyone says it gets easier. When?
I know I should enjoy the baby stage but it's really hard to do with triplets.
I often tell Brielle she isn't an only child and can't be held all the time.
I sometimes count down the minutes till help arrives.
All that being said... I love them all very much and am thankful for the progress they have made. When they smile and talk to us it helps fill our hearts back up so we can keep going on. They are all unique and we are blessed to have three beautiful girls.
Tony's comments are after the pictures...
So we are trying to teach them baby sign language, and this is the correct signal for I'm hungry:
This is Rianne's sign for I'm hungry.
I've got my purple Ravens bow on
Should I eat, poop, sleep or poop, eat, sleep, or sleep, eat, poop?
Giddy Up, these doggies are going to the End Zone!
Buddhist Monk Posing
Teagan Dozing
We caught Teagan talking on the way to a trip to grandmom's house....
...Dad...obviously, as a husband it's tough to read that your wife is hurting...you wish you could hire full-time help so she never has to be alone with them...I also have my afternoons where things feel really hard and I know the cliche, "this too shall pass" but I think we've found some mechanisms of coping with the hardships that come from the three...I guess because multiples in the media have become so...well, have 19 children and you write a book...have 8 with Kate and you have time for marital drama...only three...piece of cake, right? There is no time for selfishness when it comes to taking care of three, and I'm just so happy we're in the Midwest where the culture is one of everyone does their share...it's not that I don't miss the East Coast, it's that there is no room for a 2 hour commute to DC in our lives, certainly not two-two hour commutes....there is no room for a doubled cost of living...
Having twins would have been easier, as would have having had one...but there was a time where we thought me might have none, two years of that time...Carnegie said, "success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get." It would have been tough for us to have another, if not impossible if we did have one, when things are good, when we have enough help....we couldn't imagine having only twins...
Can we give one up for adoption? Which one?...The very forensic answer is we could make another family very happy, but the second question makes the answer to question number one -- No. They are all so unique and have their own moments of ... that is ridiculously cute or she's just so close to ... Brielle ... rolling over and now talks to Teagan... Teagan ... talking to both of them, and keeping a watchful eye ... Rianne ... talking with us ...
Why can't all three of them have the demeanor of Rianne? ... because they are fraternal, not identical twins...forensic answer, but Rianne has her moments too, she has proven she can be louder than Teagan and is just as quick to let you know she is not ready to stop being held and needs additional holding time...
Can I go in the corner and cry for a little bit...I cried (Tony) at our wedding as I was trying to say, "I do", so crying because three other girls in our charge are crying seems okay...on my days when I have them for a number of hours on my own there are times when I get my a@# handed to me by girls that are combined 36 pounds, so I go upstairs, look at the picture boxes Megan made, am reminded of how sick they were and how they could not cry at all with the vent in and how happy I was when I would hear them cry to know that they were okay...then, one at a time, they are settled and it goes back to bliss...then hell...then bliss...I've mentioned this before, kind of the "what do women need men for now that everything can be done without them", I kind of like that with triplets, there is a definite need for the guy...
Everyone says it gets easier. When? I think I picture a time when they all sit quietly on the couch after having democratically voted for a Netflix movie, or they are busy helping each other with their math homework, or they are playing soccer where one kicks to the other, and just as she's about to shoot makes the extra pass that allows for the goal, or the same with basketball or the bump, set, spike in volleyball or three legs of a relay...I pictures these things, and hope they don't take me away to that place with the white walls (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)...but then again, maybe....?
I know I should enjoy the baby stage, but when? Really, as a father, I never expected to enjoy the baby stage...at no time in my childhood did I do anything that would prepare me to change diapers, calm a screaming baby, I've read that most fathers picture their children at 5 years and older where they can do cool stuff...so, I guess this part of their childhood has exceeded my expectations...because I had none...seeing myself in Rianne...seeing Mindy in Brielle (not the screaming part, well, maybe a little when I used to leave my stuff all over the floor)...seeing Teagan talk...while I know the song goes, "you're gonna miss this" I'm pretty sure I'm not...what I will miss is the occasional midnight/2 in the morning conversation Mindy and I have when we just burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it all...I also say some really funny, clever stuff...or it may be that we are so delirious with sleep, we think everything is funny....I think this part is something that our triplets have given us that few other parents can really share, that's each of us holding a child tight to our bodies, while rocking our chairs...comforting them, and having the conversations that we just seem too busy to have during the day...
I often tell Brielle she isn't an only child and can't be held all the time. ... Dad, "
I also often tell Brielle she isn't an only child and can't be held all the time." It's tough to remember that in our lives too, there was a time when all we did was take...take time from our parents, take resources from our parents and gave little back except the occasional smile that made it bearable...I expect that if the hardship is magnified, the reward will be too...attorneys and pre-law students, don't even go there with the fallacy of this argument...just let me ... have my thought that because of the magnitude of A in one direction, then B will be of an equal magnitude in the other direction....
I sometimes count down the minutes until help arrives...I don't count the minutes, I create things that will allow another bunch of minutes to pass...like I rented "Social Network" and the opening two scenes, some of the best ever written I think, take about 15 minutes. After I've seen it, then I know I'm 15 minutes closer to getting help...I watched it 8 times in a row to kill 2 hours...a rule of thumb is that we try not to have anyone alone with the kids for longer than 4 hours or the equivalent of two feedings...the average marathon time is around 4 hours 30 minutes...coincidence?
To say we couldn't have done it without the help of our families, our church community, our neighbors is not an exaggeration, just when it gets so bad we want to quit, someone walks in the door to help...today, this morning, on Sunday when the little prayer goes to heaven that Brady has his worst day ever, that he remembers the game when the Ravens beat them during the regular season a few years back...they say the tight ends are going to pick apart the Ravens secondary, but I think they forget that it's that linebacking core and secondary that keeps hitting you so hard, you don't want to catch the ball ... hopefully Reed will be okay, he got hurt at the end of the last game...sorry, back to the conversation...it's tough, and we appreciate you all helping us get through it...
To add some levity to today's blog, we wanted to mention we got another visit from the Ankeny fire department. Our smoke detectors are all connected, so if one goes off because it detects smoke, they all go off giving us a better chance to get out in time...yesterday morning all six detectors went off at 5:30 in the morning and it was insane...because if one of them goes bad, they all go off as well...so, we've got some of the detectors back up and I've ordered one to make sure it fits...not so easy to find a detector that was installed 10 years ago when the house was built...
It's tough to see with the glare, but that is a fire engine driving away from our house -- again.
The last three days have been a beat down, Brielle continues to do backward curls, Rianne has started screaming as loud or louder than Teagan and Teagan is ...Teagan...We're not sure they are teething because that happens at six months ... they are six months old, but adjusted, they are only 3 months old...so some things happen on time...and some don't...today I broke down and used the ear plugs...
Rianne was so loud, it was like she punched me in the right ear with a baseball bat, so I put them in. It's no different than lowering the volume when a customer is yelling at you...it allows you to use empathy and warmth in your interaction
Now I know there are teething remedies...we are using frozen little towels now...but this is on the shelf...
It works for both parent and child apparently...
I just don't get it, they weight about 36 pounds together, I'm 183 on a slim day, how can they kick my a@# so badly?
We got them some cute t-shirts to let others know...
Yup, when you hold them, they'll still cry...
I've been looking to the literature for help...
What are you crying about with your one kid?
Lord of the Rings is no help (an Ent is a tree that can walk and move)
Picture, thousand words and all that...
So, while I was looking at that literature I bought a couple of books to help me as a father and, well, they didn't help much...the first I recommend, the second I don't....
I bought the audio book, read by Samuel L. Jackson, and he says that his daughter asks, "go the f#@# to sleep daddy?" and he says, "yes, go the f#@# to sleep dear." It's pretty darn funny and the ending...well...I won't ruin it for you but the beep makes it ...
The other book, you know how Amazon does that...people who bought Go the F#@# to Sleep also bought ... If I give a kid a cookie will he shut the F#@# up and this wasn't as clever. The first book used animals, ecology and was well done, this was kind of ... eh
Funny title, lame book...
So I thought, what would I call my children's book, and as usual, I found a visual, it's about colors.
This "was" Dad's comfy La-Z-boy. First mommy drops daddy from her profile pic on facebook and now this. What's next? Are the Broncos going to beat the Steelers?
This picture shows the verdict on Teagan's oxygen. She is off of it! As long as she has a good weight gain this week and doesn't get air hungry (her sats drop, she takes longer to eat) we can keep her off. Teagan and I sat in the doctor's office for 3 and 1/2 hours and she had her vitals checked while she was awake, eating, and sleeping. Tony showed up to talk to the doctor at hour 3, ha, ha. All were good so the doctor felt comfortable letting her breathe room air. It was so freeing being able to carry her out of the office without an oxygen tank. We also decided that the girls are big enough now that they don't need to be on their monitors 24/7. We now only use them at bedtime and can actually carry the girls around the house! The girls now come downstairs every morning making life a bit easier.
Ya know Dad, I was thinking, if the Broncos beat the Steelers, then go on to New England with some of that Tebow magic
And then beat New England in Foxboro, Denver's a number 4 seed and would have to come to Baltimore, the number 2 seed. Silly Dad.
Daddy asked Elise, our super nanny, to help Teagan and Ri eat since they know so much about football now. She uses the one arm chair technique allowing for Rianne to be propped a little higher.
This week the girls turn six months which means more shots.
No, not those shots.
The girl's nursery is finally done thanks to my sister Megan and her husband Brian.
Don't mind the ice-cream cone and pickle hanging from the ceiling fan.
Right now they can't get out of their cribs, but don't worry, we have other cribs waiting for when they get a little bigger.
Might add a little to the electric bill, but it will be worth it.
I'm going to guess these parents don't have triplets.
Or this family
It's important to have a couch right there, you must be frickin' exhausted from taking care of one!
This is our humble triple dorm room. You may ask, why doesn't the chair match anything in the room. Well, once they've spit up enough formula on it, it will match perfectly.
His and hers. Notice his is right next to the diaper, throw away thing so that he doesn't forget to take out the "trash".
Megan created shadow boxes to keep the girls firsts. Their pictures as struggling preemies helps us to remain thankful in times of ... duress.
We sometimes forget how far they have come. 13.5 inches is smaller than two of those 5 x 7 photos side by side.
Even then Ri had to have her hands by her head when she slept.
Amazing designs by Megan again. These take a lot of time.
We still have lots of cords but only at night time now! Pickle the mascot is always up watching us from above.
Brielle sucks her thumb, but the cannula is in the way, so she found a way around it. Instead of curling her hand into a fist with thumb out, she makes like a claw to enclose the cannula and nose.
I don't know why but this is the image I got in my head from this picture. (Below)
Of course they would want matching Disney Princess Wing Suits.
The first of the year is a special day for us as the children were, according to the math, conceived on January 1st. Here's the answer to what did y'all do last year...
Tried to get pregnant in 2009 and 2010, succeeded in 2011, making up for 2 bad years with triplets, visited my family in May and just as I hit the tarmac Mindy called to say she would be lying down in the hospital for a bit as baby A (Rianne) tried to come out at week nineteen...nine weeks of bed rest...why do they call it bed rest if she never really gets to rest. It should be called bed prison. I read somewhere that a woman said she had to stay on bed rest for 50 minutes of each hour so she planned the ten minutes perfectly so she could get up and clean...WTH? (What the heck?, it's the Midwest) Then, it was a tough 14 weeks in the NICU.
There are days we cry because of the overwhelm.
There are days we can barely get up in the middle of the night to feed them.
But we are so happy, so lucky and so thankful to have three healthy, darn cute baby girls.
On Wednesday Mindy is bringing Teagan to the doctor's office for a four hour visit to determine if she can get off her oxygen or not. She has been doing really well at home without it. I mean, she has done well on the times she pulls it off, not on the times we throw our hands up in the air because she rips the oxygen off and we say, "fine."
Mindy has been doing spot pulse oxygen tests and she is always in the high 90's. Hopefully we will have one less cord in our house soon. We will only have an oxygen tube for Brielle and three monitors which should come off sometime in late February, early March.
As the pounds have melted off of Mindy, Tony has, according to the Wii downstairs, gained 14 pounds in the last 199 days (the last time he was on the scale). So basically, he has worked out at Farrell's Extreme Bodyshaping every other day for two years and lost exactly 0 pounds.
So, this year, instead of spending all of that money and time on the gym, he's just going to wear this Jack Black T-Shirt and grow facial hair to cover his second chin.
"Muscle Shirt"
Tony has shown some skills, however. With husbands, you never quite know what you're going to get. In romance novels the guy usually starts as a jerk and then ends up as a nice guy, hero type. In the real world, husbands usually start out as nice guys and then it's really a roll of the dice. Here's how he keeps the girls fed when Mindy really needs another bit of sleep.
I know this looks like a set up, but this is really how we have to feed them when they get fussy at the same time
Soon, soon they will be able to hold their own bottles!
Teagan, in this video, showing daddy that one should appreciate the belly. When she is old enough to see this, I'm pretty sure she will not forgive me.
Daddy, did you put the Buddha video up?
Brielle trying to suck her thumb...just a little lower, little lower...the oxygen cannula keeps her from getting in her nose...
Somebody push snooze, I just want an extra 5 minutes!
The shirts say, "I love Daddy", however, Rianne reminds us that they didn't put those shirts on...
Just kidding, of course we love Daddy, now where are our bottles?
Brielle is exhausted after another day at the office
Teagan again letting us know that she doesn't need this oxygen
Brian and Megan Pitz holding the babies for us, we tried to run, but Brian caught us. He's pretty speedy.
The girls are growing well and seem to change everyday. We are hoping that one of these days they sleep through the night.
The last weigh-in for the girls was last Thursday and Teagan was 11 pounds 8 ounces, Rianne was 11 pounds 14 ounces, and Brielle is gaining ground at 10 pounds 13 ounces.
