Knock Knock

 

This Mother's Day I was in my bedroom getting ready for the day when I overheard my husband trying to teach our three year olds a knock knock joke. I was amused that they did not quite get the concept but did enjoy hearing each of them mooing along with daddy as they tried to be the interrupting cow. 

Daddy:  "knock knock"
boys: "who's there?"
Daddy:  "interrupting cow"
boys:  "MOOOOOOO"

On Sunday morning, I felt like one of the luckiest people in the world. My house was filled with little boy giggles spending time with their daddy and mommy.  I could not have asked for a better gift.  My three little boys are growing into big boys and I could not be prouder of them. 

Going on a Space Adventure

I am not exactly sure how it all started, but all three of my little three and half year olds have become obsessed with the planets and outer space.  Just to add to the obsession, the Sid the Science Kid movie had a segment on planets, and both The Cat in the Hat and Super Why did a show on the planets.  Even the sensory gym I take the boys to has a Galaxy room displaying all the planets on the wall.  Before I knew it Caleb, Jake and Liam were reciting the planet names and were requesting to watch Sid in outer space almost every morning when they woke up. 

Since before they were born I have struggled with how to decorate the boys’ room.  Knowing the three of them had to share it, I wanted to pick something that they all enjoyed.  My guys are all so different so instead of picking something, I committed to nothing.  When the planet obsession surfaced I was doing some online shopping and stumbled across a planet area rug I could put in their room.  Finally a plan was set in motion.  The rug was perfect, it had a rocket ship, the stars and all the planets along with the name of each planet written underneath (this detail was an added bonus for my son Liam because he loves letters and spelling).    

 My husband happens to be a pretty talented artist and can draw free hand so we decided to head out to home depot and pick out paints so Daddy could paint three rocket ships on their bedroom walls, one for each boy.  I thought we would have three simple rocket ships with the boys’ names on them but once my husband started going there was no way to stop him.  He created one ship from Firefly, one ship from Star Trek and one Curious George Rocket Ship.  He did a fantastic job!  Even though the boys have no idea what Firefly or Star Trek is they love their spaceships.  I also ordered some planet decals to put around the space ships to add to the whole theme.   The boys finally have decorations on their walls!!!

 

 

Potty Time!!!

Potty training…this was one milestone I was not looking forward to.  I tried to read up on what to do.  I wanted to gauge if my boys were even ready to tackle the toilet monster.  It is definitely an ongoing process in my house.  Start too soon and you just get frustrated and need to clean up pee all over your house.  In my opinion, I don’t think that there is a magic age to start potty training.  As someone who has three kids exactly the same age I can tell you that they do not all wake up on the same day and start peeing in the potty.  They are all different and have reached their milestones at their own pace.  Liam crawled first, Caleb walked first, Jake is the tallest.  One other hurdle I face is that my boys are all (or were) language delayed.  They simply did not possess the vocabulary or the capacity to understand the concept of using the potty.

After reading things here and there and asking friends what they have done I decided to wait until the summer and try with my “oldest” by two minutes, Caleb.  He seemed to be the most ready.   I let him run around with no diaper.  I let him try pull-ups that got cool when he was wet.  I got a potty seat that fit onto our toilet.  He had minimal interest and just ended up peeing on the floor a lot.  After letting him have accidents for a week I put him back into diapers.  I do not think Caleb liked being in the bathroom and spending time on the potty.  I think he was too afraid of missing something.  Caleb is the type of kid who always likes to think he is in charge.  I could not just sit in the bathroom with him and wait for him to pee or poop while the other two wrecked the house.  Worse yet, all four of us would end up in the bathroom and then the real chaos would ensue. 

As we got closer and closer to September when the weather was getting cooler I finally broke down and got a little potty to move around the house.  I was reluctant to purchase yet another item I would have to clean, but it was inevitable.  Caleb felt more confident on the smaller potty where his feet could touch the floor and he could be around everyone else.  I could have the potty in the middle of my living room and he could still watch Curious George with his brothers.  I also would let him play games on my kindle.  Anything to keep him sitting down until he peed. 

I started with a step by step approach.  I put Caleb in underwear only at home and made him sit on the potty every hour.  When we weren’t at home I would have him wear a pull-up and ask about the potty but would not push the issue.  I found that Caleb did not (or would not) tell me he had to go potty.  Over the course of a few weeks Caleb was starting to develop a schedule of when he needed to pee.  He filled his sticker reward chart to capacity.  As he got better and better I asked the preschool if they could show him the potty at school and ask if he had to use it so when the time came when he would wear underwear to school he would be ready.  After a couple of successful weekends of wearing underwear out of the house, I went all in and let him wear underwear to school.  He did great and has been great ever since.  Don’t get me wrong, he has accidents from time to time and getting him poopy trained on the potty took a bit longer (and involved swedish fish and chocolate) but now he is a pro.  Accidents are scarce and usually involve him peeing on the back of his pants because he does not get them down quick enough.  He is also finally telling me he has to go potty, although when we are out doing fun things we do still have to force him to take potty breaks.  We also keep a travel potty in the car and a folddable potty seat for the diaper bag so we are always prepared.

My thoughts on potty training is that you cannot potty train your child in one or two days.  It is a process that takes time and there is no magic age or day to start.  For me I am taking it one toddler at a time!  We keep bringing up the potty to Jake and he will sit on it from time to time but mostly to use my kindle to play games.   Just last week he told me he wanted to use the potty so I waited to put a diaper on him after bath.  However, after a few minutes he ran into my dining room and proceeded to pee on the floor.  I tried to look at the bright side of things and took some comfort in the fact that he came and told me he peed on the floor.  One down, two to go!!

Nighty Night: Putting Three Toddlers into Beds

The day of reckoning was upon us. After going back and forth for months as to when we should transition our three boys into beds we recently took the plunge. I would like to say it was a well thought out plan where I researched the best tactics and implemented a strategy that would work best for us. Ultimately the decision was made on a whim after receiving notification in the mail that Toys R' Us was having a trade-in event and I could get 25% off of a toddler bed for trading in one of our old car seats. 

All three of our cribs are convertible to a toddler bed but only Jake’s required the purchase of additional pieces.  It was actually cheaper for us to take advantage of the trade in event and buy an entirely new bed than it was to buy the additional piece from the manufacturer. 



Sunday morning came and we told the boys we were going to the mall and we were going to buy a big boy bed.  They had no idea what was in store for them, they were just excited to go to the mall.  My husband and I had already made the decision not to nap the boys that day in the hopes that they would be so tired they would fall asleep and stay in bed. 

We got home to start the task of converting a baby room into a big boys room.  Of course, once Jake, Caleb and Liam saw the tools they insisted on helping Daddy “fix” all the beds.  I felt like it took 3 hours to do a 1 hour job. 

Everything was worth it when the boys walked into their “big boy” room and saw they were able to climb in and out of their beds.  Jake exclaimed “oh! I love my big boy bed!”  The BIG test was about to come.  Would the boys stay in their beds?  Would they keep each other up all night?  Would we walk in at 11pm and find all of them in one bed together? 

Marc and I brought them into their room promptly at 7pm.  They were so excited to climb into bed (although admittedly it took a few minutes for everyone to be tucked in and stay tucked in).  We did our regular bed time routine…we tucked each boy in tight, we read a story and did a bed time prayer.  Finally, we explained that they had to stay in their big boy beds until the owl turned green. 
 
A few months back I had purchased a plush owl that either turns orange or green when you squeeze it.  It has a clock that you can set for the time you would like your child to wake up.  If the child squeezes it before the time set to wake up it turns orange, plays music and quietly informs your child that it is not yet time to wake up.  At wake up time the owl turns green and says it is okay to wake up now.  I had originally used the owl to help my son Liam understand when it was time to get ready for preschool.  He has sensory modulation issues and visual cues often help him to understand and process what is going on around him.  Now I use the owl for its intended purpose and it has definitely lent a helping hand.

That night the boys went straight to sleep.  We checked on them later that night and found everyone in their own beds.  The next day came and my husband and I woke up without any children in our bed.  We couldn’t believe it!  We managed to transition the boys into beds without incident.  It has been three weeks now and they are doing great.  The only thing I am sad about is that they will not take a nap anymore now that they have the ability to get in and out of bed.  Truth be told they were already giving up the nap, it was really more Mommy who did not want to give that up! 

 

 

 

On Our Way to Sesame Place: A Story of Taking Three Toddlers on Vacation

Our boys LOVE Sesame Street.  They know all the characters, the songs, the episodes.  In fact, Sesame Street is responsible for me being able to get so much done around the house since the boys were about 18 months old (i.e. laundry, cooking dinner, emptying the dishwasher). 

This year for their 3rd birthday we finally decided to take them to Sesame Place.  This would be the boys' first trip to an amusement park.  What my husband and I liked is that the boys know and love all the characters and would be able to go on 95% of the rides.  What we worried about was being outnumbered in a crowded place and keeping everyone happy and patient when waiting on lines. 

Although the car trip is only about 2 hours for us we decided to stay overnight and break up the activities into two days.  Plan for Day 1: Water rides and birthday dinner with Elmo; Plan for Day 2 dry rides. 

We arrived at Sesame Place, changed the boys into bathing suits and headed right into the giant wading pool.  Immediately we got split into two different directions because Caleb loves the water and had to check out every nook and cranny.  We finally found eachother again on a playground and then I attempted to bring Caleb onto a waterslide.  Unfortunately waiting on the line was way too much for him and we had to abort the mission.  We decided to regroup at lunch and then attempt the lazy river.  Another failure because the boys were very uncomfortable in the tubes.  Finally we wandered over to Ernie's waterworks and they loved it.  It was like they had access to a ginormous water table and the best part (for me at least) NO LINES!

After some popcorn and ice cream we checked into the hotel, bathed and rested before our big birthday dinner with Elmo and the other Sesame Street characters.  The dinner was great!!! They got to meet Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Abby, and the Count.  They each got a balloon and birthday mug and Big Bird sang Happy Birthday to them.  The funny thing was they were so distracted by birthday candles that they did not even notice Big Bird standing at our table. 

After dinner we were able to enjoy some rides and not have to wait too long in the lines.  The boys really enjoyed the carousel (Jake got to sit next to Slimey) and the balloon ride.  We even let them stay up late and watch the parade at night.  They loved it!!

We were able to get in some sleep that night.  Jake and Caleb stay in their pack and plays while on vacation but we discovered on our last vacation that Liam needs a bed because he just climbs right out of the pack and play.  They are three after all and I am always amazed that 2 out of 3 stay in the portable crib. 

The next day we retruned to the park at opening and were able to get in quite a few rides before the lines got long.  I think most people go to the wet rides first.  We lasted until just after lunch and decided that the boys had no more patience for waiting in lines and were so tired from their adventures.  All in all it was a successful vacation and I am glad we took them at age 3, while they are big enough to enjoy most of the rides but not too big to still enjoy Sesame Street.  We of course left with souveniers, Jake picked out Big Bird, Caleb picked out Cookie Monster and Liam picked out Telly Monster (his favorite character).  Little did the kids know that, with the exception of Telly since he is not a super popular character, Mommy bought Big Bird and Cookie on Amazon so I would not have to pay park prices! 

Keeping the Pieces Together

Having three kids means having lots of puzzles which also means lots of puzzle pieces. One of my three year olds LOVES jig-saw puzzles.   In fact he can put together a fifty piece jig-saw puzzle all by himself.   However, my other two are still playing with their peg board puzzles. While there are not as many pieces as a jig-saw, I still found myself constantly looking for pieces.   We have an alphabet puzzle with twenty-six pieces, a numbers puzzle with ten pieces and a colors puzzles with another ten pieces, just to name a few.  A missing puzzle piece can be very disconcerting for the two to three year old set and I was finding myself (far too often) ransacking the house to find the letter R so that my boys could move on with their lives.

I didn't want to have to buy one of those wire racks for three reasons:
(1) they take up too much room
(2) they are not cheap and
(3) we had more puzzles than a wire rack could handle.

For a while I had all the puzzles in a bin and the respective pieces in ziploc bags. This was done at the suggestion of my son Jake's occupational therapist so he could work on strengthening his fingers by pulling open the individual bags to remove the puzzle pieces. However I still found myself searching through bags and bags looking for pieces to accompany the chosen puzzle of the moment.   Finally I had an epiphany.   I placed a Velcro strip on the bag of the puzzle board and a Velcro strip on the ziploc bag and eureka...each puzzle had the coordinating pieces without going on a scavenger hunt each time.

 Now when one of my sons wants to do a puzzle he simply removes the ziploc bag from the back of the puzzle and opens it up to access the multitude of pieces that were once scattered around my house!! 

Looking Back Over Three Years

I have only a few days let of having three toddlers under 3.  Each year I make a book of all the photos taken over the past year.  I started this tradition when my boys were approaching one and I realized how many pictures we had taken but could not possibly put in frames.  I thought about just getting pictures printed and putting them in a book myself but I found it a bit easier to just create a photo book online. 

As I was creating the book this year I realized how big my guys have really gotten.  I find being with the boys on a daily basis, I do not notice or realize they have gone through a growth spurt until I try to put a pair of pants on them.  Going through the older books and photos brings me back to the time of bottles and formula and going from zero babies to three in a weekend.




Liam, Jake and Caleb at one week old!



The day we all went home together



My refrigerator-bottles for the day

Now we have a refrigerator filled with snacks and juice boxes instead of formula and a living room full of toys, and a small table and chairs instead of a pack and play.  Instead of changing outfits five times a day we are venturing into potty training and preschool.  It is hard to believe the changes you go through in three years.  When you are in the moment and trying to feed and comfort three screaming babies at the same time it feels like it will never end.  Now I feel like I blinked and they have transformed from babies into three little boys who are ready for adventures.  Happy Birthday my little boys and thank you for making everyday with you a new adventure.  

 

Left to Right: Jake, Liam and Caleb today