Cheerios - good; Ice cream and cinnamon - bad

On Sunday we took the kids for their first trip to the ice cream store. We started with plain vanilla but it was not a hit

Alex does not like it and only tries a few bites before refusing to open his mouth

Ella is pretty sure she does not like it and does not risk trying any more

Helen starts to cry because she does not like it

So they got to sit and watch mommy and daddy eat their ice cream!

Alex is such a big boy - he's pulling up and standing all by himself

Helen wants to cuddle on the couch with daddy while he watches the Gators play

We tried a Veggie Tales video and everyone was enthralled

Flying Baby Alex!! And Helen stays close to supervise

Everyone is standing up by themselves

On Tuesday we tried Cheerios for the first time. Alex is a huge fan

Ella likes her Cheerios too

Even Helen will eat them (of course she picks around all the bananas and will only eat the Cheerios)

Alex loves to climb in, on, under, and over anything. So he decided to climb over the bouncy seat from the back and come out the front

Helen getting an up close look at the camera

Yet again, playing during nap time and not sleeping catches up with Ella

Alex getting tickled by daddy (what amazes me about this picture is that you can see all of his teeth - Teeth? When did my babies get teeth? - and he's wearing a 12-18 month shirt for the first time - and it fits!!)

Happy Alex

Never a dull moment in triplet land. It was disappointing that the kids did not like their ice cream as much as we thought they would. But I suppose it was a lot colder than they were used to. We'll try again though and I'm sure it will not be long before their genetically programmed sweet tooth emerges.

The Cheerios have been a huge hit though. I think they like being able to pick them up and feed them to themselves (as do I!) as much as they do the taste. It still gives me a little shock of surprise to hear Alex crunching his Cheerios between his teeth. When did he grow up so fast? It feels like just last month I was propping his bottle. Now he's feeding himself Cheerios and crunching them with his 6 teeth.

Tonight I tried mixing a little cinnamon in with their applesauce to expose them to some new tastes. Well, they loved it, and so did I until I went to take Helen out of her chair. Then I noticed that all of the skin around her mouth was red. Then I looked at Ella -same thing. Then Alex - the same. I panicked and pulled all of their food off of their trays and out of their mouths and tried to figure out what it was from. When I realized it was the cinnamon, all I could think of was cinnamon allergy and anaphalactic shock. After a frantic call to Grandma the Nurse Practitioner, I learned that it was not uncommon for some kids to get a rash around their mouths from cinnamon and that it goes away pretty quickly. I calmed down a little but still scrubbed their faces before they went to bed and put some cream on it to help clear it up. No more cinnamon for awhile!!

Today we took them to get their pictures taken. They cooperated pretty well. Hopefully I'll be able to post some of them here soon. We did not get a whole lot of smiles - more just stunned and confused looks. And Helen cried for awhile because as always - change is tough. She eventually settled down though. It was exhausting spending two hours singing Itsy Bitsy Spider and the Wheels on the Bus, and clapping, whistling, and snapping to try to get them to look in a certain direction or to smile. I think we took over 400 pictures so hopefully there are a few good ones in there.