Triplet's 3rd Birthday – 3rd Birthday Toys

Three year old triplets! It has happened! Yesterday was the triplet’s 3rd birthday so now there are three three year olds in our home. Can you believe it? It doesn’t seem like that long ago I was in labour and then giving birth to triplets by caesarian.

The triplet’s have been excited about the upcoming birthday. Imogen especially has been right onto it. The boys took a little bit longer to work out what a birthday was. While they were figuring that out, Immy was literally figuring out what she would wear on the special day. During a road trip last Friday night, I heard her musing aloud in the back, “On my birthday I’m going to wear a pretty pink dress.” She actually received a fairy dress from Target and was very excited to put it on yesterday. (Until she had a little accident in it.)

I was exhausted by the end of the evening last night. New toys are so exciting, but when there are three different sets of toys and three three year olds, fights are inevitable. Learning how to share and how to be gracious is such an important life skill, but oh my, it’s a wearying lesson to teach! Most of my morning talking through fights and meltdowns and building toys that kept falling down and apart,  (I’m sure The Accountant would not agree,  but I was wishing I had spent triple the price and bought some toys that were more sturdy. Honestly, quality can be such an issue these days!)

For their birthday they didn’t receive anything particularly extravagant. They each received two presents. I had bought a very large bucket of mobilo and split it into two boxes for Toby and Jayden. The older two boys have spent hours playing with mobilo at Kindy, so I thought the next two would probably love it too. The big boys were very excited that it was in the house and built all types of contraptions which the little boys played with happily. The little boys haven’t quite worked out how to clip it all together, and it is a bit hard for their little fingers, but I’m sure they will get the technique down very soon.

Triplet 3rd birthday present - mobilo
Playing with the mobilo.

Toby, who is mad about drumming, got a Wiggles drum kit. Hopefully he will stop emptying the Ikea buckets of toys and turning them all upside down and banging away with kitchen utensils now! It was a big hit yesterday and there were lots of fights over it. But every spare moment he could, Toby was clicking the sticks together in his intro and then banging away. I have to admit I had a headache at the end of the day, although I don’t think I can solely blame the drums.

3rd Birthday Drum Kit for Triplet
Drum away Toby!

Jayden got  a marble run. These are great for creativity, problem solving, science and, as it turns out, learning about gentleness and patience, because the silly thing was very easy to knock over and fall to pieces.

Triplet's Marble Run Third Birthday
Opps, over and out.

Once again, they were unable to construct it at this point, but I have no doubt that throughout their third year they will be able to piece it together to make runs. In the meantime, they loved being mesmerised by the marbles rolling down the various tracks.

Triplets third birthday marble run
Ready to go!

In addition to her dress, Imogen received two Lottie dolls. I had first seen these on Instagram and I loved Kelly’s review of the dolls on Be A Fun Mum. I really loved that they were dolls that would fit inside Imogen’s dolls house, yet the dolls looked like girls rather than adults, they had flat feet to walk in and no boobs! Plus their clothing and accessories were modest and super cute! I couldn’t get any in Toowoomba, but luckily I was able to pick two dolls up on a recent visit to Brisbane. Immy was thrilled with them and immediately wanted to undress them, it may take a little while for her to get used to putting such tiny clothing back on the dolls though!

triplet girls third birthday
Miss Im with her dolly.

Her other present was an ice-cream stacking game. They are having a small little ice-cream party on Sunday for lunch so I thought this game that I picked out of the Kindy Scholastic book club would be good to play then. I really liked playing it with the triplet’s yesterday. It comes with sounds and teaches following instructions and listening skills as you need to listen to the pre-recorded voice telling the player what colour or how many scoops to pile high. It also requires patience, motor skills, carefulness and turn taking.

triplets ice cream party
Stacking the ice creams

In the evening the triplet’s had chosen (influenced by their big brothers) pizza for dinner. I would have liked to let them make their own pizza again, but with such a busy day playing hard and having only arrived home the evening before, it was a relief that Daddy picked up pizza from the shop. I made some  wonky cupcakes so they could blow out some candles.

Triplets with birthday candles

Nanny and Uncle Peter had come over for dinner, I suspect they too went home with a headache. It was lots of fun, but oh so noisy. I think we need to do a little more work on demure table manners.

Triplets 3rd Birthday cake
I was taking a photo of Immy here, but hasn’t Toby done the cutest photo bomb?

So today, we are off to playgroup where they can share their marble cupcakes (I thought it was fitting to do three colours for the three children who are turning three) with their friends. When we come home again, I’m sure it will be more lessons in playing nicely. It’s hard work, but it is so worthwhile to learn multiple lessons through play. Buying gifts that the children can grow into also means that they will get a lot of value and use out of them. I look forward to seeing how they develop and get better at using them.

What type of games/toys do you like to give as birthday presents?

You may also like

9 Comments

  1. Happy Birthday to the triplets! Sounds like they had a great day! I am a big fan of buying toys that the girls will grow in to, especially Punky. With her birthday only a month earlier than Christmas, she has a long wait before she gets more toys, so I need to make sure that everything she gets for her birthday and Christmas will grow with her and last 11 months of development.

  2. Birthdays for one child can be headache inducing, so no wonder you were exhausted by the end of the day!
    Happy birthed to your beautiful little people. I can’t quite believe they are three already though!

  3. Such a sweet post to read Caitlin! Happy Birthday to your triplets. I love all the presents and pizza is the dinner of choice at birthdays in our house too. I’d love to know how you get organised for Christmas? My girls are into duplo and Esther more so recently loves the friends Lego which is too little for magdalene. They enjoy barbies but I might look into these Lottie dolls.

  4. Hi Rebecca – thanks so much for the request, preparing for Christmas sounds like a great post to write about. Basically a little bit spread out over several months and then a mad rush to the end! I won’t stop Immy getting Barbies, but since there are none in our house, since she’s the only girl with four brothers, I decided that while she doesn’t know about Barbie, I would prefer Lottie to be hanging out with her! They aren’t cheap but I wish I bought the horse now.

  5. Happy Birthday to your adorable triplets! I typically try to give books to younger kids for their birthdays. It seems they get overloaded with toys! While I don’t have kiddos yet myself, I’ve heard of a fantastic way to keep Christmas gifts under control: give each child something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *