Now, in other news not relating to triplets. Yes, I know you are patiently waiting, and believe me, I’m trying to do something about it. All in due time.
In the meantime, I thought I’d write a post updating another milestone in our family. Toddler T is officially two, as of yesterday! And as you can see, this means his cuteness factor has double now that he has doubled his age. Even in his sticky, post cake condition.
I was just going to write: “On your child’s birthday as a mother you always pause and reflect on the day your child arrived in the world.” And then I was going to post a photo of the day Toddler T was born. Then I realised that yesterday was so busy, and I was so scatterbrained, that I didn’t reflect at all. Whoops. I’ll pause and remember now as I post a photo!
Oh yes. And that is why we do stop and remember these precious moments. There’s nothing like those first hours/days of life with your children. Don’t you love J Boy’s possessive hold? It says: “This is my new little brother and I will protect and defend him for the rest of my life. (Unless he messes with my things, touches my stuff or if I consider his behaviour annoying).”
So, two years later and what a pleasure it was to celebrate our little boy’s birthday. Toddler T is a simply gorgeous child who is guaranteed to melt the toughest of hearts. When he knows you, he is the best welcoming committee ever – even if your absence was a brief as a trip to the shops. He will see you return. Hi face lights up as he yells out your name, jump up and down with his clumsy toddler jump, (don’t tell him I said clumsy, he has worked very hard to accomplish two feet simultaneously jumping off the ground, it’s not easy, do you know?), come running to you and cuddle the first body part he can gain access to – normally your knees. These greetings are given generously to grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, even our cleaner!
Of course, first thing on children’s birthday agenda’s is of course presents.
Thomas is in vogue in our house now, so from Mummy and Daddy, an early engineers set.
From the triplets, a snapping crocodile.
But the absolute fav of the day, was a simple little Duplo motorbike from J Boy. (Hence why it appears in both of the above photos.) He told everyone he saw on his birthday about the bike! It was very cute, and a good indicator of future obsessions. Daddy is very proud.
The plan for the rest of the day was to keep it simple and end the day with a quiet birthday dinner with family only. Even though Daddy had a day off work, there were a couple of factors which prevented the simplicity and peacefulness factor.
1. Life with triplets is not simple.
2. Life with a large extended family is not quiet. Particularly when this includes 6 children 2 and under!
My day is now based according to the triplet’s feeding schedule in four hourly allotments. The block of time will begin with the first triplet’s feed. By the time all have been fed and burped and put back into their cots, 2 hours has passed. So then, all going well. I have two hours to do something.
Yesterday my day disappeared as such.
Session 1: Feed, breakfast, shower, general tidying up around house.
Session 2: Feed, make jelly with J Boy, grocery shop, You will be surprised how exciting this can be when you haven’t done if for a long time. Even if you are tearing up and down the aisles hoping that you won’t receive an emergency “Need triplet assistance” phone call. I felt almost normal again somewhere in between the fruit and vegie section and the cereal aisle.
Session 3: Feed, Tried to get a power nap. Unsuccessful. 15 minutes total thanks to being accompanied into the boudoir with the birthday boy. Emerge from boudoir, still with head spinning in that sleep deprived state resembling jet lag. (I had been up since 5 am. with only four hours sleep, which combined with similar sleep patterns from previous days, has an accumulative affect.) Start issuing instructions to my long suffering mother who had arrived to help out. Iced birthday cake. (Another simple creation, in order to save time.)
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| A Birthday Train, Track and Tunnel Cake. |
Ignored triplets because they were still sleeping, despite a feed being due. This allowed me to continue to rush around desperately as people arrive doing all last minute jobs.
Session 4: Issue any empty handed adult relative a bottle of expressed milk and a triplet to feed. Continue to rush around. (I’m not sure what I did) Breastfed a triplet. Eat The Accountant’s speciality – gourmet pizza, made from scratch! Mexican Pizza was delicious last night. I was disappointed I didn’t get to taste his supreme, because The Accountant claimed it to be his best ever supreme creation.
(Pizza production had occupied The Accountant the past two sessions, while also caring for the big boys.) Give children jelly to eat. Well received.
Did the birthday cake thing. Well received. Especially from Toddler T! He treated it like a toy, driving the train through the cake. Poor Thomas had very trying conditions, with his wheels getting a little bogged in green icing.
Afterwards Toddler T opened some more presents. He’s enjoys ripping the presents open, although he often needs to be convinced to open them in the first place, since he’s often got other things on his mind/agenda. Once the project is underway he embraces it fully and gets very excited by the new toy.
It’s unnecessary to continue explaining what occurred in the remaining two sessions of this 24 hour period. Pre-dominantly because once everyone left, it consisted of my daughter crying constantly from 9pm until 3am.
Toddler T loved his party with his most favourite people in the world. He is such a blessed child to be born into such a loving extended family.
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| A big 2 year old looked after by his big cousin! |
And so this next picture was the last picture of the day. In the contradictory world of childhood, it shows just how Toddler T has had a particularly brilliant day (or two!)
Because tears are easily evicted from your tear ducts when you’ve had a wonderful day keeping busy with your Daddy and big brother, and a previously active night celebrating your cousin’s birthday. And then after you’ve spent a few glorious hours running around in the pitch black backyard with your cousins and siblings at your own shin ding.
So when your brother takes your brand new dragon costume to look at first, tears signal that it is time for this particularly brilliant day to be closed by instantly falling into the satisfying deep slumber when Daddy carries off the birthday boy to bed.
Happy Birthday my little one. Welcome to the Terrific Two’s.
