Pictures from Cecil

My dad sent Cecil a bunch of king size Snickers bars. Here is a little girl enjoying one!

This is Faez, Cecil's interpreter.

Some ice frozen on the trees (I always thought the dessert was hot but I guess not in the winter and not in the mountains where Cecil is)

Care package day

Sharing care packages with the guys in his office

Some of the kids with candy at a Humanitarian drop

(that's not Cecil with them - he took all of these pictures so he is not in any of them. He promises me he will send me some with him actually in them)

More kids eating the candy and peanuts that everyone is sending

Cecil's bed

Cecil's "closet"

The rest of Cecil's room

3 months old!!

Alex "Trouble is my Middle Name" Cauley - he's practicing his mean look for when he has to fight off his sisters when he gets older

Ella in her ready to fight/ boxer mode

Helen asleep in her swing - she will sleep in this thing by the hour during the day. She'll only sleep for 3 hours at a time at night in her crib, but put her in the swing, and she's out like a light.


"Look Daddy, I'm going to be a surfer!"
Alex on his surfboard tummy mat.

A rare moment when Helen is asleep in something other than her swing.

How cute is Ella in her pretty red bow?

(Thanks Jean, this is one of Sarah's!)

Ella is fascinated with the birds going around the top of the swing (Helen shared her swing only under great protest)

Grandpa saves the day - he just finished feeding Hungry Helen while I fed Alex

It has been another great week in triplet land. Alex went to the doctor on Monday to get his weight checked to make sure he is doing OK with the thickener. He is doing great. He gained almost a pound in two weeks and is now 9 pounds 8 ounces. Everyone is getting bigger. We've started putting Helen in her 3-6 month clothes because the 0-3 months are getting a little snug. Ella is just transitioning from her newborn clothes into the 0-3 months. She is definitely going to be our little peanut. Looks like we may be able to do hand me downs from Helen to Ella after all.

Cecil is still doing well. He said it has warmed up a little - it's in the teens and twenties now! He's also spending his spare time trying to catch the mice in his office. Sometime during this year, he will get two weeks of leave. He requested to have his leave in April so hopefully we will get to see him soon. He won't know until a few days before he leaves when he will be home so we will just anxiously await his arrival whenever that is. Two weeks should be plenty of time for him to get his fill of changing diapers and midnight feedings!!

I've gotten bitten by the bug again - the triathlon bug. I saw an advertisement for a triathlon this summer here in Ohio. I thought I would be doing well just to survive this year but I saw the distances for the race and realized that there is no reason why I should not be able to do it. I have been getting to the gym almost every day (it is my hour of mommy time!) so I should be relatively in shape for it. And my good friend Freddy (good ole Freddy!) offered to pack up my bike and ship it to me. So as soon as the snow melts, I'll take it out and see if I can still remember how to ride with clips. It has been almost a year since I've been on it. The race in June is really short and should not be that hard. It's fun because it gives me something to work towards. The real question is whether I will be organized enough to get myself there and my three kids so that they can see mommy cross the finish line!

This weekend we are planning to go up to Cleveland to visit my brother and his family. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and the triplets will get to meet their cousins. There should be some good pictures there!

10 Good Things about Ohio in the Winter

You may not think there are ten good things about Ohio in the winter but here are a few that I've come up with while pondering life during the many hours of feeding babies:

1. When you run errands, you can go grocery shopping first and not worry about the ice cream melting in the car.

2. Because you have to wear so many layers to stay warm, no one can tell you have not lost all of your pregnancy weight - added bonus - no one asks you if you are pregnant anymore!

3. When you are up all night with the babies and want to go to bed early, it is easy to go to sleep at 6 PM because it is already dark out.

4. It is easy to find your black Labs in the snow.

5. The horrible itching is just from dry skin and not from some awful pregnancy induced condition that will only go away after the babies are born.

6. It is perfectly acceptable to wear your blue fleece lounge pants all day because they are warm.

7. A tank of gas lasts you a month because you either have no place to go or you are snowed in and can't go anywhere.

8. OK, I tried and tried but I could only think of 7.

Smiles

Alex is a smile machine :)

This has been the week of smiles! Alex is definitely leading the pack - he is laughing, smiling, and cooing now. It just melts my heart!!

Helen is a little more stingy with her smiles but you can get one out of her now and then

Ella will smile a little - she's saving hers for when we get used to Alex and Helen's smiles and need something new to entertain us. Here she is thinking seriously about smiling.

It is so cool that they are smiling now because they are actually ahead of schedule. While it is normal for an eleven week old baby to start smiling, the first six weeks of these babies' lives do not count towards that eleven weeks. Gestationally, the babies are only 5 weeks old because they were six weeks early. They say that premature babies catch up with their full term counterparts by two years of age if not sooner. So it is very comforting to me to know that they are already making up for those 6 six weeks (apparently all that ice cream they told mommy not to eat while she was pregnant did not hurt them too much.....)

I'm also reading a baby book (of course I am a good lawyer - I must read and research everything and now instead of researching law, I research babies :) that says babies typically start smiling around this age as a survival instinct - the parents are completely exhausted and if the baby does not do something to endear himself to his parents, his survival might be in jeopardy. Makes sense to me....

"Come on Grandpa, wake up and play with me!" - Ella

Mommy and Alex (on a day when I actually took a shower and changed out of my pajamas)

Play time on the quilt Nanny Kathy made for us

Helen, Alex, and Ella

Alex is giving Nanny Jane a break from feeding while he holds his own bottle.

Alex is doing much better with his eating - he is polishing off his whole bottle with no problem and usually accomplishing that in about half an hour. His ability to adapt has been very impressive.

We tried another Valentine's Day picture with our other outfits but everyone was either asleep or cranky - Ella, Helen, Alex

Major props to my husband for still managing to send flowers from half way around the world for Valentines Day!! We also got another flower delivery on Valentine's Day - Grandpa is a big softie and sent each of the babies a rose and a teddy bear :)

Week 10

Helen sitting up in her Bumbo

Ella is Daddy's Cupcake

"What do you people want from me???" -Helen

One set of their Valentine's Day outfits (I should have just said no to going into Old Navy...) Alex is a "Stud Muffin" - clearly he is thrilled by the prospect.

The girls' first jeans. "Do these make my butt look big?" - Ella and Helen

Ella and Helen hamming it up for the camera

Our other "babies" - Indi

and Jule

Helen has to really work to lift that big noggin of hers - but she does it!

Here she is looking quite smug after she just rolled herself over for the second time in her life

Everyone is looking cute and cuddly after their Saturday afternoon bath - Ella, Alex, and Helen

"Why is it so quiet all the sudden? Oh, my sisters are gone..." - Alex

It has been a bit of a long week. Two of the "regulars" who help out a lot were on vacation this week so mommy was flying solo for much of this week. I have a newfound appreciation for all the wonderful people who come and help out. There were several times that I found myself with one baby strapped to my chest in a sling, another on my lap, and the third within reaching distance to keep the pacifier in. We survived but there were definitely days where I felt like crying right along with them!

Alex is still struggling with his eating. The thickened milk keeps him from aspirating, but now he has to work so much harder and it takes him so much longer to eat that he gets very frustrated. Sometimes he will spend an hour sucking on that bottle and only get about two ounces - he should eating about 4 ounces every feeding. So it has been stressful trying to get him to eat and trying to calm him down when he screams with his frustration. Hopefully it will get better soon.

Cecil is doing well. He is able to call or email almost every day. He is still really busy and working very long days. He said the temperatures are in the single digits now. I can empathize! He also greatly appreciates everyone who has been sending packages. He wishes he could send everyone a personal thank you but just has not had the time. So thank you to everyone for your thoughtfulness and generosity!!!

I finally got the baptism scheduled - April 20 - the day after Daddy's birthday! Hopefully we will be out of the subzero temperatures by then and will have a nice day for the baptism. I am really looking forward to it because this is the church where my whole family has been baptized - aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins. Not surprisingly, the church agreed to let us do a private baptism so that our three ring circus would not hold up a regular weekend service.

Other good news is that the babies are sleeping longer at night. One night, Alex and Ella went six hours straight. God bless them! Of course Helen was still up every three hours because she would never miss a meal so I still did not get much sleep. I think Helen has a hollow leg.... But overall, it is still good news that they are getting their days and nights straight. And it looks like I have a good lead on another night nanny so hopefully soon we will have someone here 5 nights a week so we can all get some more sleep.

That's all for this week. Hopefully we will have more milestones to report next week!

Update on Alex

Ella looking out the window and fighting to stay awake

I don't know how she does it, but Helen sleeps with her arms straight up in the air.

Grandpa and Alex taking a snooze....

Alex in his "going to see the speech therapist" clothes

On Tuesday, we went to see the speech therapist Leah (who I went to high school with). She works with problems with the throat and swallowing. She watched Alex eat from his bottle and thought that he was probably aspirating some of his milk into his lungs when he ate. So she put some thickener (this clear thick gel) in his milk so it would slow down Alex when he ate and make it less likely that he would aspirate. It worked! It was the first time in several weeks I had seen him be calm and relaxed while he ate. He had to work a lot harder to get the milk out, but it was worth it to see him not be in pain or struggle for air while he ate. I did not realize how bad he had gotten until I saw him eat like he used to (calm and relaxed).

Mommy trying to get a burp out of post feeding coma Helen

Ella looking cute and wide awake

Alex in his "going for the swallow study" clothes (have I mentioned how much fun it is to torture my kids with these outfits???)

Sorry Cecil, you've been replaced as my Valentine this year! This cutie was an easy choice :) On Thursday, we went up to the Childrent's Hospital in Akron for a swallow study. Alex had to drink a barium solution and then they watched him through an x-ray machine as he swallowed it. They were able to determine what was going on inside when Alex eats. Sure enough, he was aspirating milk into his lungs when he swallowed. So they played around with different nipples on his bottle and different thicknesses of his milk until we found a combination that did not cause him to aspirate. They doubled his thickener so now his milk is incredibly thick and it is taking him awhile to adjust to the effort he has to make to eat. It will take about 15-18 months for him to outgrow this and for the cartilage in this throat to fully develop and harden so that aspiration is no longer a problem. Every time we make a change in his food (i.e. changing nipples, eating solid foods, etc) we will have to have this study done to make sure the food is the right thickness to prevent the aspiration. I think I might have to buy stock in the company that makes this thickener..... We were lucky that we caught this so early and that there are no side effects (i.e. pneumonia) from what he has already aspirated. Now he just needs to do some serious strength building to be able to eat!

On Friday, everyone went to the pediatrician for the two month check up. Everyone is doing great! Helen is 9 pounds 8 ounces, Alex is 8 pounds 10 ounces, and Ella is 8 pounds 2 ounces. Not only is it great that they are gaining weight, but these weights mean that we don't have to keep waking them up to feed which means more sleep for mommy at night! They also got their first round of immunizations which they did not particularly enjoy. It wore them out and they pretty much slept the whole day when we got home. Here's Helen in her swing looking a little worn out from her trip to the doctor.

Ella

Alex

How cute are we in our coordinating outfits!

Alex, Ella, Helen

Our Superheros - Skip and Sue - who have been an unbelievable amount of help. No one can have too many grandmas and grandpas helping out!

Grandpa and Grandma