Birth Control Moment... (The Day I Washed the Floor Twice)

I will explain the title of this post a little further on....or maybe no explanation will be required!

So, just to set the scene...I had one baby with an ear infection. And one baby with croup. Thank goodness the three year old was at daycare or I may have ran away.

After getting back from the second trip to the walk-in clinic in two days, Garrett, who was on amoxicillin, decided to erase any doubt from my mind that he was intolerant to his medicine, by projectile vomitting all over the kitchen. And, I mean everywhere.  I actually slipped on a puddle of it and almost fell.

It wouldn't have been such a huge deal, and maybe wouldn't have nearly brought me to tears, except for the fact that I had literally just finished cleaning the remnants of his "Bumbo Poop" off the floor.

What is a "Bumbo Poop" you ask? Well, if you have a baby, and a Bumbo, your probably don't need an explanation.  But, for those of you who don't, a Bumbo is a plastic molded chair that looks space-agey and allows babies to sit up before they can actually do it on their own. Super cute, super fun.

Not so much fun when you poop while sitting in one.

You know when you take the garden hose and cover the end with your thumb and the water sprays everywhere under the high pressure??? Well, basically a "Bumbo Poop" is just that, except with poop, not water. Big explosion. Everywhere.

Garrett was literally dripping poop as I removed him from the Bumbo, hence why it got all over the floor.

Bathed him, washed the floor, and then he spews barf everywhere (think fire hydrant).

And, during all this, Rhys is alternately screaming and coughing up a lung.

That, my friends, is a birth control moment. In other words, anyone thinking of having a baby or in the age category where having a baby is possible, would think twice about it after viewing the scene at my house.

Mark and I often joke that things get so crazy around here, that we should really invite the high school over for a tour and then the teen pregnancy rate would plummet! Ha!

Anyways, as with all crazy moments, I survived. And even managed to have a good laugh about it afterwards. Garrett laughed too.

It's a good thing these guys are so cute!

May Long Weekend...Pseudo Camping

We love camping.

But we are terrified to do it this year with two babies. So far. Maybe as the summer progresses, we will gain the necessary courage to try and cram everyone and their stuff into our tent trailer.

But, for now, we will just pretend. Which is what we did today!

We drove to Adam Lake and visited friends who were camping there. Even though it was just a day trip, we still had to plan, organize and pack half the house up. On the list of items we brought: four changes of outfits for the babies (used two), three changes for Rylen (used all three), breast pump, bottles, and millions of burp cloths and blankets (we used all of them!)

But, it was totally worth it! We had such a great day. The weather was awesome and Rylen had a blast with his little friend. We had the convenience of our friends' super nice trailer, and the comfort of knowing that we were going to drive home and sleep in our own beds at night.

Garrett and Rhys did great despite both of them being sick. I think they enjoyed the fresh air and the new surroundings. Rylen loved the dirt, the bugs, and the beach.

 It totally reminded me of what is awesome about camping and why we love it so much.

I hope we get the courage to try this summer. Perhaps when Garrett and Rhys start sleeping longer stretches at night (waking up three times a night to feed babies in a tent trailer does not appeal to me).  But for now, I think we will stick to the day trips.

I am so excited for summer!

Wild One

Rylen is one of the most active little boys I've ever met. I know that everyone thinks their kid is busy, but I really do think Rylen is busier than most.

Even in his sleep, he is always going, his mind is always working.

He talks alot in his sleep, and even yells sometimes. It's not uncommon to hear outbursts like "Diggers!!!!" or "You go for time out!!!" while he is fast asleep in bed.  Or, he'll imitate a train whistle, or fire truck siren.

And, he moves around alot.  And he sleeps crooked. Mark says he gets this from me, but I've never woken up in this position before:

Honestly, sometimes I swear he's wrestling with someone in bed. All you hear is feet/legs/head hitting the walls!

But then, he does have his moments where all he wants to do is snuggle up close and settle down. Usually this is at night when he hops into our bed. I have to admit, I really enjoy those midnight snuggles when he is quiet, warm, and still.

Cute-ness

Just some recent pictures of my sweet little guys...

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Mother's Day 2012...The Great Mommy Escape.

My amazing husband gave me a pretty awesome Mother's Day present this year: a Mommy Escape!

Yes, for the first time in three years (not counting when I was hospitalized for the birth of the little guys), I spent a night away from home ALL BY MYSELF.  Well, not technically all by myself. But, without husband, kids, etc....

The family and I had to be in Winnipeg for a few days, and while we were there, Mark encouraged me to plan a quick trip down to Grand Forks.  A girlfriend agreed to come along for a little shopping and a little relaxing. She is nursing her super sweet 7 month old, so baby had to come along. But I got to leave my guys at home! Saint Mark successfully single-parented all three kids while I was gone, with the help of his good friend and my parents. (Thank you guys for helping make this mama getaway happen!)

I haven't been down to the States for awhile, so I was super excited, for many reasons. Reason number one: SLEEPING!!!! I was super pumped to sleep through the night.

Now, I have to say, I probably have not had an uninterrupted sleep since before Rylen was born. No joke. Rylen has never been a stellar sleeper, and then the triplet pregnancy pretty much ruined any chance of me sleeping more than an hour or two at a time. So, I was REALLY looking forward to getting to sleep, by myself, in a nice big soft bed, and not having to wake up. Our baby companion is a pretty good sleeper, so that was not a factor. Nothing was going to ruin my good sleep!

And, sleep I did! I passed out actually. Pretty sure a tornado could have ripped through the hotel and I would have been blissfully unaware. The bed was so nice and fluffy and I knew that I didn't have any kids to be responsible for, so I was able to get into a super deep sleep. I actually woke up on my own (ie: no kid jumping on me or baby crying to get my attention) feeling refreshed.

And then... guess what?

I had a HOT cup of coffee. (that's right: HOT. Not "sort of warm", or "made three hours ago but will drink it anyway cause I really need the caffeine"... this cup was HOT) 

Wow. I forgot what THAT was like!

So, that was pretty much the best part of the trip. That, and shopping at leisure without kids in the cart. That was pretty cool too.

One thing I couldn't escape, was my beloved breast pump. Still had to lug that sucker around (no pun intended) and have regular dates. But that was okay, because I just pumped when my friend fed her baby and it all worked out. Thankfully when crossing the border, nobody searched the vehicle to find a cooler full of breast milk. I wouldn't want to have to "prove" that it was milk and not some illegal substance!

Anyways, my friend and I had a great time. We laughed about how much times had changed: 5 years ago a similar shopping trip would have involved a lot more alcohol and a lot less breastfeeding and breast pumps! Ha ha!

Of course, I missed my boys like crazy, and I was super happy to see their smiling faces when I arrived home.

On actual Mother's Day, we had a pretty typical day. Fed babies, changed bums, wiped noses and got lots of cute baby/kid smiles, giggles, hugs and kisses.  Mark was tired from his experience of being Super Dad, but he let me sleep in late anyways! I'm so lucky to have such an awesome husband.  Rylen gave me a card he made.

Then we drove back to Brandon.  We stopped in Portage, as all three kids were needing various things and the van was becoming chaotic. Mark thought we should eat supper while we were there and he picked Aaltos for their dinner buffet.

We've done this before with the kids and it worked out pretty good. Last time, it was dead in there, so we could pretty much take over the place with all of our car seats and bags etc...

This time, I expressed my disagreement with the whole idea. Being Mother's Day, I figured the place would be super busy. Mark ran in to check it out and the ran back out to assure me that the place was dead and we would be fine to bring our cranky kids in there.

Ha! Well, shortly after we arrived, so did the entire city of Portage! The place filled up super fast and next thing you know we are crammed in a booth with two crying hungry babies and a three year old who was needing to burn off energy after being in the van for awhile. Given that we had to feed both babies, it took awhile before we were actually able to eat. We definitely exceeded the "Recommended Allowable Time That Young Children Should Be In a Restaurant".  I think the highlight was when Rylen decided that he was not a little boy anymore, he was a cow and started mooooo-ing for all the world to hear. I tried and tried to convince him to be a quiet bird or a little kitten, but NO. He had it in his mind to be a cow. As if we weren't attracting enough attention, now we had a moo-ing kid at our table! I actually burst out laughing when Mark took Rylen/The Cow to the buffet to pick out his desert and all of a sudden I hear Mark say "No! You're a cow that walks upright on two feet!!!!" I guess he started crawling on the floor. I have to hand it to him: when he plays "Pretend" he goes all out.

My family is crazy. And oh yeah, we are working on appropriate restaurant behaviour.

In my head I am probably exaggerating. I don't think we actually were causing that much of a disturbance. I don't recall getting any dirty looks. And a couple of people stopped by to tell us our kids were cute (but maybe that was code for "please leave", hahaha)

Anyways, once we were home, I gave my boys extra kisses and cuddles. Throughout the day I was thinking alot of Ben and how I wished I could have shared Mother's Day with him too. I can't change that he isn't here,  so all I could do was give his portion of the kisses and hugs to the kids that I have with me.

All in all, it was a great Mother's Day and I am so proud and happy to be a mama to three cute little men and one precious angel looking down on us.

Updated Look!

Thank you Cynthia Korman for my great new blog header!

Three!

My big boy is three!

Can't believe it. Time goes by so fast. I know everyone says it over and over, but really it's so true. When you have kids, time seems to speed up or something.

Anyways, Rylen is three and for everyone who told me that three is a harder age than two, well you were right!!!

But, along with the difficult moments, there are of course, the super cute and fun moments as well.

I love how I can have an actual conversation with Rylen now. I love that his vocabulary is expanding. He says the cutest things.

I love how he pluralizes stuff. Like "planes" is "planeses" and "trucks" are "truckses". So cute.

Speaking of airplanes. He LOVES them. They are by far his favorite thing ever, beating out garbage trucks and diggers.

So, for his birthday party, I made him an airplane cake.

Well, I tried to make him an airplane cake. I got directions online and followed them precisely. But, personally, I think it looks more like a cruise ship. Why is it so tall? I'm not sure. (The blue blob on the wing used to be the number three until someone decided to do a taste-test)

But, he loved it, so that's the important thing.

For our little family birthday party, he got his own personal cake. And he wanted to eat it like a puppy. Well, what the heck, it was his birthday! I think he was messier after this one than he was on his first birthday!

I also made him a t-shirt. One of those iron on thingies. Well, that was a bust. It was like having a piece of cardboard glued to the front. He looked like he was running in a marathon and was the number 3.

 Being the super loving mom that I am, I made him wear it for at least a minute so I could get a good picture.

Can't believe the little guy is three already. Doesn't seem like all that long ago he was just a tiny little baby.

Rylen, on his birth day