Sinking Ship

I have a new sign on my board, Save the Girls First, Babies Second, Oh and do the Laundry.This is because there will always be a baby to feed, but I am losing my girls if I think I can keep putting them off and off any longer. And if I lose the older ones, my leaders, the younger ones may be lost eventually even though I have put more time into them. Doomy and gloomy, I know but not that bad really.

My older children are the leaders, if I take care of their needs, they will show love and concern for the younger ones. If I am always putting them off, getting to them later or whatever, their response will be resentment and discord in our family. I will show them they are loved and nourish them, even if it means a baby has to learn patience. Hopefully, I can manage the balance of caring for everyone equally but if there is a need, I am going to start choosing Hazel and CC first. The babies are 8 months old now, they can learn patience and they are defiantly not starving to death, Hazel and CC need mom time too.

Hazel has a word that she hates. "Nevertheless". It sends her up the wall. Because it boxes her in and she wants to call the shots. Oh and she hates, "However" too. Same thing.

Mom: Hazel please eat your dinner.
Hazel: Your food is yucky and I won't eat it. (She is getting really good at sticking her nose in the air after these statements, I wish she wouldn't say everything that pops into her head...)
Mom: (In a firm voice) Nevertheless, this is our dinner, if you choose not to eat it, there is no other option.

Nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless! Ha! It sends her around the bend, she goes berserk. (Revenge is only a little sweet) But she is beginning to realize I mean business when I use this word.

There, I Said It

I am not going to apologize for it. I struggle with anxiety.

I have struggled with anxiety off and on since the babies were born. I went to the Dr and they gave me a prescription for anxiety medication (super easy to get if you have triplets). I didn't feel totally good about taking it yet. I wasn't at the end of my rope, I think there is a quarter of an inch I am hanging to... I decided to look into counseling as a learning method to deal with it. It is not the easy way. I think the easy way for me would be to take the pill and sink into robot mode and get through it. But I want this. I want all of it, even the bad, so I am not going to turn it off. Not yet anyway.

I wanted to know how to calm myself and to identify  triggers before they become a blow up. I want to share with you some of the things I have been taught. I did this because I was looking at medicine as a last solution. If I felt like I was a danger to my family or out of control believe me I would do it, but I want to figure it out first.

When we see a bear, we feel threatened, our adrenal glands kick in and we go into fighting mode. I had been in fighting mode for far too long but I didn't know why. Who was threatening me? No one was holding a gun to my head telling me to do. Why was I threatened? It took a while for me to figure it out. I am threatening myself. Here are the things in my house that threaten me and send me into fighting mode:

When my peace is threatened, for example, when something I am looking forward to is in jeopardy like a nap or being alone for a while, when I have a list a mile long to do, my children threaten that I won't be able to complete it or I just want to be left alone to complete it, when I am worried about something or someone, when I feel sick and I do not recognize it (sometimes I get busy and I don't evaluate how I feel until it is too late, headache or tired stuff). Most of these threats come because I feel driven to accomplish or do things and I become frustrated when I can't get out under a pile of work to do them.

So, when I am in fighting mode, or having anxiety how do I get myself out?

I hold someone. Just having loving contact and being loved for a few minutes has brought me out of it. One rough day, I held James (he is my best baby hugger) and he put his cheek on mine soft skin and a floppy ear brushed my lips as we sat and hugged til I calmed myself down. One day, I let Hazel and CC crawl all over me and have a tickle fight for several minutes, after that it was gone.

I exercise, as a child, my parents kept me exercising because they saw that when I was working out, I was a milder person. It has been hard not to exercise while I have been recovering for the surgery, but I just got the okay from the Dr and am thrilled to sweat again.

Nature calms me but I have a hard time dropping everything and hitting the forest when I need to.

I sing. If I do not have a song in my heart or a tune in my mind something is bothering me.

Sometimes talking about it helps. Sometimes not, so I am careful with this one.

I have been taught breathing methods that work a bit, imagining I am in another more peaceful, warm place has worked hahha, sometimes putting on music or shaking up our routine helps and that is one everyone likes.

Sherry lovin' a diapered, shirtless Wils

Park Lovers

Not quite thrill seekers like their sisters Quinn and Hazel, they share a swing for emotional support 

Bring it on 

Hazel and CC have been able to swing since they were 2 and 3 years old.  They achieve great heights on their own

CC fair maiden swinging gal

These girls love "Rice-centennial"Park and ask to go there all the time, I don't bother correcting them, it is too funny. When N8 and I were engaged, we played capture the flag at Bicentennial park nighttime style with a group of friends, N8 tried to cheat by driving his Mustang through a muddy area and got it stuck. No one could find him after the game got over. Then we heard the sound of a car spinning its wheels in the muck, everyone had to push/pull and pry the car out. Quite humorous.

We found Sherwood forest and looking for Robin Hood with his band of merry men, followed a dry creek bed for a time

Hey wait a second...

No one takes pictures of the pictures taker

There, here I am in nature happy as a clam
These pictures really bug Hazel and CC as I write this they are hugging me and wondering why I was so sad, ummm, shouldn't they be more worried why their mother looks like a ghostly tired dead person?
I wasn't really sad at all. I loved it!

BBQ Enthusiast

This is an illicit picture of our neighbor, friend and BBQ enthusiast. All year long, mouth watering wafts of their dinner seep through our windows and aromatize our backyard as we play. He has to be one of the finest BBQsman I have ever known including our friend Ben and Nathan's dad. Someday our neighbor will come out to find his delicious dinner has been stolen...

A Job For Hazel

Hazels job is to make sure everyone is having fun. It may sound like busy work but she is learning to be good at it. She loves to be in charge and this is a way for her to learn other peoples happiness matters too. Sometimes it means I can run her on fun little errands for others, she loves that. She loves to color pictures for people. She cares deeply if someone is hurt or sad. When people are playing with her toys it is a good way to remind her to share.

Phantom

A spectral image. Perhaps something you imagined?  The phantom. This is the name of our limo. Blanca was a good name, it was feminine and crusty, we used it for a time, but it didn't embody the mystique of driving an old school limo in on the "south side" of town if you know what I mean. Did I really just see a limo drive by? Yes, the Phantom.

Are those movie starlets really washing their own car? On the trip back from Spokane, Haz and CC blow off
some stored-up energy.

Is that a limo? What are they doing washing the trunk? Who's kids are those anyway?
We had a wonderful trip, not that I want to do it again, ever. 27 hours in the car is enough for anyone.

A True Travel Vehicle

Man, we have been so blessed to have that limo. We just completed a trip to Spokane Washington, how long was it? I think 27 hours in the car. There was a double wedding- we had to be there. My uncle Ron was getting married to Mary and my sweet cousin Haley was getting married too!

Leah and her family caravaned with us, but after CC started throwing up- no one wanted to ride with us so we got the limo all to ourselves... all seven of us. I had to snake through that privacy screen more times than I wanted to, a cop pulled us over looking for guns and drugs but all he found were babies and bubble gum, then he thought it was so funny he called the sheriff and one of his buddy's to come check out the preschool limo party. So we sat there and waited for them all to get their laughs and in the end, they didn't give us a ticket.

One of the things I loved about the trip besides being with wonderful family members like my mom, aunts and Nana was the way we could spread out in the limo. Now don't judge me here. After an hour in the car the babies have usually had it. So usually every 2-3 hours I would snake through the privacy screen, nothing graceful about it and feed the babies, lay them out on the bench to change them, put a blanket on the floor and let them floor surf while I change the next and the next. I would put in a movie in the VCR for Haz and CC or we would read a story. Then I'd throw everyone back into their car seats and snake back up to be with N8. The babies would be satisfied for a few more hours. No one could see what was going on in the limo because the windows are tinted dark- so no one knew there was a family actually living in there while driving and it wasn't some washed up ol' movie star.

There were tense moments, but I was really proud of the girls. Sometimes they would bicker. We would call back, "work it out girls, I know you can." And then we would roll up the privacy screen and smile conspiratorially because we were rescuing ourselves. They disliked being shut out so they would work it out then call to us, "Momndad, we figured it out!" (Nothing unites sisters like a common enemy.) We would unroll the screen. A few times Hazel would knock on the screen, "Mom, do you have a bottle for James he is crying." Then she would sit by him and feed him for me and get back in her belt. She has such compassion for the babies. Like I said, don't judge me. Sometimes Hazel and CC would sleep on the floor for a good nap too. (Let's judge her.)  When you were a kid, you took trips laying on top of a pile of suitcases with a mattress on top in the family van too. Didn't you?

One of the babies sat next to H and CC and the other two are on the back bench as you see here, then I could feed and sit back there in the back corner without any trouble. We  actually  enjoyed this trip, a bit.

Now, while you are traveling this week for Thanksgiving. If you have children, think about the grace and ease of this fine traveling machine. Maybe you would like one too, no? You have to be gutsy to drive it and thick skinned to put up with the stares and comments but other than that, I think I will drive this car until I crash it. I think I like it.

Teething

Someone recently asked me how teething was with three babies. Quinn already has 2 teeth so I thought I knew it would be no problem. Someone Kill me now. Babies are whining and fussing all day. Diapers are horrendous and runny, odd fevers are rampant and everyone is looking at me like, "Mom, can you fix me? I feel sick."

No, I can't fix you. This is a bitter cup you need to drink all on your own. I want to fix it. I want to hold you all day with my nose canceling earphones, listening to Sergio Mendez, Paul Simon and Jack Black while you belly ache about the woe's of teething. For right now, I can hold you some but that is all.

Everyone is napping in separate rooms so they don't wake each other at all, Quinn in my room, James in the baby room and Wilson in our scary basement (I hope it won't have any effect on him, that he doesn't grow up to be an ax-murderer.)

More posts to come, let me get my feet under me.