So, as I have said before, Thursday morning is normally my opportunity to blog. So on Thursday morning the babies had got me up early, and all morning I was looking forward to putting them down for their morning nap and getting started!
Things did not go as planned.
Our current set up at the moment for sleeping triplets is their bedroom, where there are three cots. However, we also have 2 port-a-cots set up in the lounge room and the playroom. This is because the babies often wake each other up or cannot settle down on their own.
Generally if one baby sees another baby is awake, no matter how tired they are, they will stand up and start squeeling and talking to one another until they get over tired and then start howling and crying and cannot settle down.
Take for instance this morning.
Fed Jayden and put him into bed where he fell instantly asleep.
Fed and put a sleepy Baby Toby in bed.
Fed Imogen, opened door slightly ajar, saw that Toby was very nearly almost asleep. When he saw me he didn’t move a muscle. I knew that means he was really close to dozing off. Little Imogen was almost asleep in my arms, so I crept in and put her to bed also. Crept out.
Turned on the computer.
But wait, what is it I hear? Surely not babies?
Of course it was babies, standing up, bouncing up and down and looking pumped.
Laid Jayden back down. Tucked him in. Took Imogen out of the room. Placed her in the playroom.
Sat down. Logged onto blogger.
Is that giggling I hear?
Toby upon losing his first playmate, woke up the second playmate.
Banished Toby to the lounge room.
Sat in front of the computer. Listened to Jayden having a breakdown because he felt that the 15 minutes he was asleep was a full nap.
Got him out of bed. But because he was still tired, he sat pulling at my legs crying.
Which woke up Imogen.
Who started wandering around crying because she too was tired.
Which woke up Toby.
I shut the computer.
I thought I would try to do a focussed activity to take their minds off the unfairness of life and give them some extra stimulation. I often don’t do the same amount of things I did with my singletons. I had no Trent at home, so I decided to just do a babies and Mummy activity. I remembered seeing on pinterest a zip lock bag of paint that was no mess and they would be able to swish and swirl the colours around. So I sat them in their highchairs and started filling bags with paint and taping them onto their highchair trays.
They refused to let go of the toys that I had let them play with while they were waiting. If you are super Mum/Dad, you will automatically see my error.
And by the time I taped the last bag on, the first baby was crying already.
They weren’t very impressed with the whole brilliant paint in a bag scenario. They gave it a bit of a tap, but soon all three were crying again. Except while they were crying they started banging the toys. Who had sharp pointy tails. Can you see the problem?
So, little bits of paint started getting out and onto the toys. The real paint held their interest a bit more, so I threw caution to the wind and cut open the bags and let them do some finger painting for real.
This kept them quiet for a little while.
But not forever.
And then as they started crying, they began to rub their tired little eyes.
Oh yeah. You can see just how tired the little munchkin was.
While their hands were all covered in paint, I grabbed some paint and smeared hand prints onto a few pages. Some were better than others. There was babies crying and I’m grabbing hands and smacking them onto paper like a madwoman.
Then I plonked them all in the bath. It was hectic plus! Then when I was pulling them out, I didn’t have clothes ready I had naked babies running everywhere!
Once the babies were clothed, I then had to deal with the highchairs. A lot of scrubbing was involved. Especially since I hadn’t used child friendly paint. (Since I thought it was going to be confined to a bag.) There’s still traces of paint…
Anyway, I was trying to write a blog post for Thankful Thursday over at We Heart Life. But in the end, I’m just thankful I survived the combination of paint and triplets!
Have you made any rash/foolish moves lately?
11 Comments
What a super Mum to allow paint with triplets! Well Done on surviving!
Thanks!
Very colorful!
There had to have been a long nap after that! Right? ( not you, the babes! )
Sadly no. I can’t remember what exactly happened, but it was limited sleep in the afternoon also. 🙁
Oh my goodness! You are so brave to paint with triplets! Sometimes the most fun activities are the messiest and most exhausting for mom! I decided to let my boys paint pumpkins for fall this year, they ended up looking a lot like your three!
You are right. It is so much fun. Enough to do it again, just not soon!
you are amazing! i also turn into a madwomen when paint and my boys are combined. saying that, they love it so much that i keep doing it whenever i have forgetten how stressful & messy it was last time. I also had a fantastic failure of a pinterest suggestion on making an outdoor mud kitchen. it took the boys 5 minutes to digress from making mud pies to throwing the mud at eachother. i then spent the next 30 minutes cleaning up as well. i wonder if the memories will change from positive to negative with time?
Thanks Alison. A mud kitchen sound intriguing. I’m sure the mud pies and throwing was a heap of fun for them, and I’m sure it will be a positive before long. After all, it’s the negative experience that always make for the best stories in the future!
Chuckling the whole way through Caitlin…..and still chuckling!!
So glad to give you a chuckle Justine! Makes it more worthwhile!
You, my dear, are a mom after my own heart lol I would’ve done the same thing with the paper…gotta have something to prove the art time!
They look so absolutely exhausted…poor babies.