All week I freaked out about getting ready for the move. Then on Thursday, three sturdy men came to the house and set about putting our entire life into a series of boxes. They arrived at just before ten in the morning and left at just before five in the evening, stopping for pizza in the middle. Twenty-one hours of packing and now everything that is not furniture or baby clothes is, essentially locked away.
Including a box labeled "Open First: Bread and Fruit". Seriously? We're here for two more days before this stuff gets unpacked! These guys are hard core!
Oh. Wait. I've got to go buy some plastic spoons for yogurt in the morning (the fridge has not been packed yet).
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The friend that wasn't...
Sorry for venting so much - I promise, more pictures of adorable babies once we get them into the house this weekend! But for now:
A few months ago, I wrote about my ex-best friend. A few days ago, a friend of mine (who doesn't read the blog...which, on a side note, is actually kind of nice because she's one of the few people who can listen to a story without saying, "oh yeah, you mentioned that on the blog..."...though I like when people read too...but back to the point) ... this friend asked me if the xbf had called or seen the babies since they were born, assuming, as many had, that once the babies were actually here, she would break through her resolution to not support my having them. Of course, these friends are unaware that Joe has forbidden me from ever letting the woman within 100 feet of the babies, arguing that if she didn't approve of them in utero, we don't want her around them now. Good point.
Anyway, the question got me thinking. Back when we were friends (or at least when I thought we were friends), I was a Mac person (as I always have been) and she was a PC. She would tease me about my Macs and say that she'd never switch. I got an iPhone 3 years ago and she complained that I sent her an email with the "-Sent from my iPhone" standard closing on it, saying that it was just my way of showing off and who needed an iPhone anyway, they were so pretentious.
Now she owns two MacBooks, two iPhones, an iPad and god-knows-how-many iPods in assorted colors. But never did she apologize for denigrating my tech choices over the years.
When she was still posting recipes and pictures to MySpace and the rest of us had migrated to FaceBook, she said she just "couldn't get into" Facebook and didn't see what the big deal was. Then one day she was all over FaceBook, and, as we know, she let me know our friendship was over by callously "defriending" me via the social network.
Throughout the first eight and a half years we were friends, I talked often of Broadway shows I was going to see, wanted to see, had enjoyed in the past. Her responses mostly centered around the time she'd spent seeing shows in New York as a child. During that time I'd only known her to go see one show, Beauty and the Beast, with her flower girl as a bonding activity during the planning stages of her wedding. So I sought other folks to accompany me to the shows I wanted to see.
Then Wicked came to town and she became obsessed and now she's friends with legions of theater geeks and buying up tickets to all sorts of shows.
And now, she has a blog!
Just think, if she ever realized that she was actually finding interests in things I've been enjoying for years, maybe she would've found a value to our friendship.
Or maybe she's just a self-centered narcissist (I know it's redundant...it needs to be said twice) - it's a possibility. Who knows, maybe she'll even read this post...but unlike Carly Simon's lost love, I bet she won't know it's about her...
A few months ago, I wrote about my ex-best friend. A few days ago, a friend of mine (who doesn't read the blog...which, on a side note, is actually kind of nice because she's one of the few people who can listen to a story without saying, "oh yeah, you mentioned that on the blog..."...though I like when people read too...but back to the point) ... this friend asked me if the xbf had called or seen the babies since they were born, assuming, as many had, that once the babies were actually here, she would break through her resolution to not support my having them. Of course, these friends are unaware that Joe has forbidden me from ever letting the woman within 100 feet of the babies, arguing that if she didn't approve of them in utero, we don't want her around them now. Good point.
Anyway, the question got me thinking. Back when we were friends (or at least when I thought we were friends), I was a Mac person (as I always have been) and she was a PC. She would tease me about my Macs and say that she'd never switch. I got an iPhone 3 years ago and she complained that I sent her an email with the "-Sent from my iPhone" standard closing on it, saying that it was just my way of showing off and who needed an iPhone anyway, they were so pretentious.
Now she owns two MacBooks, two iPhones, an iPad and god-knows-how-many iPods in assorted colors. But never did she apologize for denigrating my tech choices over the years.
When she was still posting recipes and pictures to MySpace and the rest of us had migrated to FaceBook, she said she just "couldn't get into" Facebook and didn't see what the big deal was. Then one day she was all over FaceBook, and, as we know, she let me know our friendship was over by callously "defriending" me via the social network.
Throughout the first eight and a half years we were friends, I talked often of Broadway shows I was going to see, wanted to see, had enjoyed in the past. Her responses mostly centered around the time she'd spent seeing shows in New York as a child. During that time I'd only known her to go see one show, Beauty and the Beast, with her flower girl as a bonding activity during the planning stages of her wedding. So I sought other folks to accompany me to the shows I wanted to see.
Then Wicked came to town and she became obsessed and now she's friends with legions of theater geeks and buying up tickets to all sorts of shows.
And now, she has a blog!
Just think, if she ever realized that she was actually finding interests in things I've been enjoying for years, maybe she would've found a value to our friendship.
Or maybe she's just a self-centered narcissist (I know it's redundant...it needs to be said twice) - it's a possibility. Who knows, maybe she'll even read this post...but unlike Carly Simon's lost love, I bet she won't know it's about her...
AT&T IS THE WORST!
When we were arranging to move all of our services over to the new address, we realized it had come time to break free of AT&T's DSL service. Good thing, too, as the moron on the first sales call informed us that "traditional DSL" (the oxymoronicness of that phrase boggles my mind) was not available at that address. Of course, the smarter gentleman we spoke with a week later begged to differ, but by that point we'd already decided to go with Cable Internet. We could've also chosen to move our phone service to the cable provider, but as children of earthquake country, we've bought into the need to have a landline that is independent of the power grid.
We arranged to have the phone service moved on Thursday, and set up a service call for 4-8pm to have someone check the jacks in the house to see which ones work and then to install at least one new jack. My brother agreed to go out to the house to wait for the service tech and supervise the visit, as he has agreed to do so much for us, because the 4-8 window encompassed one feeding and possibly butted up against another one.
So he dutifully waited, getting there early just in case. We ordered him a pizza and had it sent to him where he was sitting on the front steps reading a book and listening to satellite radio. At 8:15 I got a call from him saying the tech had never shown up. I tried to call to investigate. I say "tried" because I only had my cell phone, which is on AT&T's network and as such gets less than intermittent service here. The only folks who would answer the phone with an actual live person were the wireless division, and they tried mightily to help, but could only get me as far as the same voice mail hell I found, which told me I had two service calls scheduled, which should both be completed by now, and that the office was closed and I should call back tomorrow at 8am. And I had the call drop three times just to get that far!
I looked up my account online and sure enough there was a note on the service call details that read "delayed - please call" and listed the phone number for the customer we-don't-care department that closes at 5. I called my AT&T voice mail at this point and, wouldn't you know it, there's a message from Nicole Walker at AT&T, left at 8:21, saying that she was trying to contact me about my service call (though she fails to mention why) and that she'll try me on my other number. But she didn't try my cell phone, which is not only listed in my AT&T file as my alternate contact number, but also was on my voice mail outgoing message in case people tried to call during the move!
So now I'm wondering just how much an AT&T technician makes per hour so that I can charge them at that rate for the 5 hours my brother sat there and the two hours I've spent tonight trying to deal with it (not to mention the time I'll have to spend tomorrow dealing with it). The Cable company comes at 2 tomorrow to set up the tv and internet, and if they're punctual, they might just get a bonus phone order. And unless AT&T is really, really, REALLY apologetic, my iPhone will be jumping to Verizon as soon as it possibly can.
We arranged to have the phone service moved on Thursday, and set up a service call for 4-8pm to have someone check the jacks in the house to see which ones work and then to install at least one new jack. My brother agreed to go out to the house to wait for the service tech and supervise the visit, as he has agreed to do so much for us, because the 4-8 window encompassed one feeding and possibly butted up against another one.
So he dutifully waited, getting there early just in case. We ordered him a pizza and had it sent to him where he was sitting on the front steps reading a book and listening to satellite radio. At 8:15 I got a call from him saying the tech had never shown up. I tried to call to investigate. I say "tried" because I only had my cell phone, which is on AT&T's network and as such gets less than intermittent service here. The only folks who would answer the phone with an actual live person were the wireless division, and they tried mightily to help, but could only get me as far as the same voice mail hell I found, which told me I had two service calls scheduled, which should both be completed by now, and that the office was closed and I should call back tomorrow at 8am. And I had the call drop three times just to get that far!
I looked up my account online and sure enough there was a note on the service call details that read "delayed - please call" and listed the phone number for the customer we-don't-care department that closes at 5. I called my AT&T voice mail at this point and, wouldn't you know it, there's a message from Nicole Walker at AT&T, left at 8:21, saying that she was trying to contact me about my service call (though she fails to mention why) and that she'll try me on my other number. But she didn't try my cell phone, which is not only listed in my AT&T file as my alternate contact number, but also was on my voice mail outgoing message in case people tried to call during the move!
So now I'm wondering just how much an AT&T technician makes per hour so that I can charge them at that rate for the 5 hours my brother sat there and the two hours I've spent tonight trying to deal with it (not to mention the time I'll have to spend tomorrow dealing with it). The Cable company comes at 2 tomorrow to set up the tv and internet, and if they're punctual, they might just get a bonus phone order. And unless AT&T is really, really, REALLY apologetic, my iPhone will be jumping to Verizon as soon as it possibly can.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Packing
I need a break. And Joe really needs a break! Today we have to do all the last minute packing for the packers who are coming tomorrow. In a perfect world, we would have everything organized and labeled with its destination in the new house and all the trash would be trashed and all the surplus would have already been schlepped to some charity that wants it.
But this is not a perfect world, so I will be happy if I can get enough clothes and supplies packed away to last us four or five days so that I can put those out of the way of the packers. People keep telling me that with three babies at home I couldn't have been expected to get much more done. Which is true, I guess. But it's also true that from now on we're going to have three at home and we're going to have to get things done. When does the triplet excuse expire?
On top of that, I'm going to be out of school on Friday and Monday and just spent nearly an hour typing up lesson plans for my subs! An hour of time that could've been spent grading papers, entering scores, calling parents, whatever. But when you have 100 minutes to fill, curriculum to cover, and no guarantee your sub will speak Spanish (which is the subject I teach), it takes longer to spell every last possibility out. Ugh. And of course Friday is when I have my preparation period to get all the grading done I didn't get done today...but I'll be out. So I can't tackle that until next Wednesday, at which point I'll have a whole new pile of quizzes and papers to grade! AAARGH!
But back to the packing. I know childbirth is a major stressor, and new baby/ies is a major stressor, and moving is a major stressor, and new home ownership is a major stressor. So why is it that I'm freaking out more about the move than anything else?
But this is not a perfect world, so I will be happy if I can get enough clothes and supplies packed away to last us four or five days so that I can put those out of the way of the packers. People keep telling me that with three babies at home I couldn't have been expected to get much more done. Which is true, I guess. But it's also true that from now on we're going to have three at home and we're going to have to get things done. When does the triplet excuse expire?
On top of that, I'm going to be out of school on Friday and Monday and just spent nearly an hour typing up lesson plans for my subs! An hour of time that could've been spent grading papers, entering scores, calling parents, whatever. But when you have 100 minutes to fill, curriculum to cover, and no guarantee your sub will speak Spanish (which is the subject I teach), it takes longer to spell every last possibility out. Ugh. And of course Friday is when I have my preparation period to get all the grading done I didn't get done today...but I'll be out. So I can't tackle that until next Wednesday, at which point I'll have a whole new pile of quizzes and papers to grade! AAARGH!
But back to the packing. I know childbirth is a major stressor, and new baby/ies is a major stressor, and moving is a major stressor, and new home ownership is a major stressor. So why is it that I'm freaking out more about the move than anything else?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
18-week old Australia Day Celebrations!
At one point this week, I was juggling both boys. Joe thought it looked really cute, so he tried to snap a picture.
We must have different ideas of "cute".
Max decided to try to be cute, but Daniel wasn't going for it.
Which led Max to wonder why he'd tried...and Daniel to refuse to even acknowledge the camera.
A little ear-nibbling didn't even do the trick.
And when they both did finally look halfway amused, Caroline literally stole the focus of the picture!
By the time we were re-focused on the boys, they were re-focused on not caring.
Daniel, "Seriously, what are you looking at?"
Caroline and Carla were definitely feeling "in the pink" when this picture was taken!
On Saturday, Uncle Kelly and I took the 'teenies out to Brian & Beth's house for their annual Australia Day party (Brian is an Aussie/Ozzie?)
Beth volunteered to feed a baby and chose Miss Caroline Beth. :)
Caroline definitely enjoyed hanging out with her name-buddy!
The boys were much more photogenic on their uncle's lap than they had been on mine!
And now for the 18-week old pictures! We didn't take them on Wednesday because the babies were recuperating from their immunizations. The fussiness lasted through Friday night, but on Saturday they were adorable for the party. So we took advantage of Brian & Beth's daughter Michaela's exotic bedspread as a background. But, sadly, no Myrtle this time!
Get it? Sweet Caroline!
My brother and I sat next to each other at the party with all three babies on our laps and I did what everyone does...snapped some iPhone photos!
Caroline was munching down on her fist!
And reaching out to touch her brother, Daniel.
And I snapped these to email to Joe at work, but it didn't work! Oh well, it just meant we got extra cute pictures!
And Caroline decided to show off her cute pink dress.
And her pink panties to go with it!
Oh no...
We closed on our new house on November 18th. We knew we'd be moving the last weekend of January. So when did I start purging and packing? Today. That's right - two months of time wasted doing things like feeding babies and getting back to work when I should've been sorting crap into the "move to the new house", "give to Goodwill", and "what the hell is that and how long has it been in my house?" piles.
Today I tackled the hall coat closet, since we don't have one in the new place. Gotta purge a lot from that sucker. And do you know what I found? More than one hundred baseball caps. Do you know how often I've worn a baseball cap in the past year? Maybe twice. And Joe? Never! One friend suggested we open a museum. I also found more than twenty random tote-type bags from make-up gifts, conferences, and giveaway days at the ballparks. Oh, and 20 or so scarves, some with matching hats and or gloves. And every purse I've carried for the past ten years. I could actually be one of those women who changed her purse to match her outfit. Only I won't be...don't worry.
Luckily, the babies napped nearly the whole afternoon and let me pore over everything. But I did not get to my closet to purge the clothes I no longer wear. So perhaps that will happen as we unpack next week and on into February.
Want to come help with the unpacking? I've got a hat for you!
Today I tackled the hall coat closet, since we don't have one in the new place. Gotta purge a lot from that sucker. And do you know what I found? More than one hundred baseball caps. Do you know how often I've worn a baseball cap in the past year? Maybe twice. And Joe? Never! One friend suggested we open a museum. I also found more than twenty random tote-type bags from make-up gifts, conferences, and giveaway days at the ballparks. Oh, and 20 or so scarves, some with matching hats and or gloves. And every purse I've carried for the past ten years. I could actually be one of those women who changed her purse to match her outfit. Only I won't be...don't worry.
Luckily, the babies napped nearly the whole afternoon and let me pore over everything. But I did not get to my closet to purge the clothes I no longer wear. So perhaps that will happen as we unpack next week and on into February.
Want to come help with the unpacking? I've got a hat for you!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
And You Thought They Weren't Amazing...
Today the babies gave me a day off work - for their four month doctor's visit. While I'd want to go to the appointments no matter what, there's no way to get three babies through the visit without at least two adults.
In preparation for the appointment, everyone got a bath in the morning. The bathing routine has gotten a little easier now that the babies have decided they don't hate being wet. The transition into the warm water sometimes takes a little while (and a little screaming), but after that they settle in and seem to enjoy the soapy part and the rinsing off bit. After baths and new outfits, we were off to the hospital. We get there early to stake out a good spot in the waiting room for feeding. A pediatric waiting room is an excellent place to entertain people with your adorable triplet babies. And we only had to ask two children to please not touch the babies. While we were feeding Caroline and Daniel in the waiting room, a medical assistant came in to give us a survey (the same one we get every appointment, which basically asks if you're depressed or abusing your child) and to let us know we could go back into the exam room early to get settled if we wanted. So we packed everyone up and headed back there to feed Max.
At 1:30, the nurse came to start the tour of weights and measures. This involves stripping a baby down to his diaper, walking the nearly naked babe down the hall to the measuring room where his head is wrapped in a tape measure. Then I lay the baby down with his head touching a plastic plate at one end of a ruler while the nurse stretches the baby's leg out and slides another plastic plate up to the sole of his foot to measure his length. And then it's time to strip out of the diaper and deposit the baby into something that looks a little like it should be used to weigh bananas to find out just why these little guys seem so heavy.
Here are the pertinent statistics:
Daniel weighs 13 pounds, 8 ounces, putting him in the 20th percentile for 18-week old babies. This is up from the 10th percentile two months ago (and an increase of 3.5 pounds in that time). He is 24.5 inches (23rd percentile), up 2.75 inches and 19 percentile points. And for those of you who have met the babies (or Joe) it should come as no surprise that his 42.5cm noggin clocked in at the 55th percentile.
Max, who you may remember was the runt of the litter at birth, is now running a close second, weighing 13 pounds, 6 ounces which is the 18th percentile and up 4 full pounds from his two-month appointment. He's grown just two inches in that time (from 21.75" to 23.75"), which may be why it seems like he's gotten so much heavier than everyone else. And his head is the same size as Daniel's exactly (though the doctor seemed to question the accuracy of that particular measurement).
Caroline is still bringing up the rear in the growth department. She gained just over three pounds to weigh in at 11 pounds, 13 ounces (up from the 5th percentile to the 12th) and grew 2.25 inches (from 21 to 23.25), putting her height in the 14th percentile. Her head was a few centimeters smaller than her brothers', putting her in the 21st percentile. The doctor remarked that she is quite impressed that Caroline is so evenly proportioned. All three of them are right around the 50th percentile in their proportion of weight to height and all of them are making steady progress up the growth chart.
But proportions were not where the doctor's favorable impression of the babies ended. She could not believe they are sleeping through the night (she has a 10 month old who we take it is not sleeping through), though she cautioned that might change. She was amazed they eat seven ounces per feeding, and thought it seemed understandable that Caroline might be pulling back from feedings that big. The babies cooed through the visit and giggled and smiled and the doctor commented on how much they "talk", saying it was more than most four month olds she was used to seeing - and laughing at how loud our house is going to get as they learn to talk more. In summary she told us that they are right on target developmentally for four-month olds, which means they are actually advanced because their "adjusted age" puts them at only three months old.
In terms of the concerns from last visit, she wasn't able to hear a murmur in Caroline's heart this time, but we're supposed to remind her to check on it at future visits to be sure. She noticed that Max is still "fisting" and encouraged us to try to give him rattles or toys to hold onto to keep his hands open. This is a concern for all of them, but progress is being made that they only seem to ball up their little fists when they get worked up about something and at least they keep their thumbs outside the fists now. We're supposed to wait another month or so before we start trying to feed them any solid foods, even though they're advanced for their age, the doctor still thinks it's better to wait until they're "really" four months old.
After the check-up, it was time for shots. Everyone was asleep as we pulled into the second waiting room and were subsequently taken back to an exam room for the injections. Caroline was up first, turning her nose up at the oral vaccine, screeching at the three shots in her thighs, and then calming down in Daddy's arms as nurses from along the entire hall stopped by to see her and tell her how brave she was. This scene was repeated without variation for each of the boys and by the time we'd gotten them all tucked back into the stroller, they were out again. The nurse who gave them their injections warned that each time they remember a little more about what's coming and before we know it they'll get to the door of an exam room and just start screaming. But next door there was a Kindergarten-aged boy getting a shot or two who didn't seem fazed. In fact, we noticed him because he was talking to the nurse about "Buster Posey...THE Buster Posey!" and quickly followed his story by proclaiming, "wow, that didn't even hurt at all!" I'm sure Buster will be pleased to know he helped this young man through the trauma of his injection. :)
In preparation for the appointment, everyone got a bath in the morning. The bathing routine has gotten a little easier now that the babies have decided they don't hate being wet. The transition into the warm water sometimes takes a little while (and a little screaming), but after that they settle in and seem to enjoy the soapy part and the rinsing off bit. After baths and new outfits, we were off to the hospital. We get there early to stake out a good spot in the waiting room for feeding. A pediatric waiting room is an excellent place to entertain people with your adorable triplet babies. And we only had to ask two children to please not touch the babies. While we were feeding Caroline and Daniel in the waiting room, a medical assistant came in to give us a survey (the same one we get every appointment, which basically asks if you're depressed or abusing your child) and to let us know we could go back into the exam room early to get settled if we wanted. So we packed everyone up and headed back there to feed Max.
At 1:30, the nurse came to start the tour of weights and measures. This involves stripping a baby down to his diaper, walking the nearly naked babe down the hall to the measuring room where his head is wrapped in a tape measure. Then I lay the baby down with his head touching a plastic plate at one end of a ruler while the nurse stretches the baby's leg out and slides another plastic plate up to the sole of his foot to measure his length. And then it's time to strip out of the diaper and deposit the baby into something that looks a little like it should be used to weigh bananas to find out just why these little guys seem so heavy.
Here are the pertinent statistics:
Daniel weighs 13 pounds, 8 ounces, putting him in the 20th percentile for 18-week old babies. This is up from the 10th percentile two months ago (and an increase of 3.5 pounds in that time). He is 24.5 inches (23rd percentile), up 2.75 inches and 19 percentile points. And for those of you who have met the babies (or Joe) it should come as no surprise that his 42.5cm noggin clocked in at the 55th percentile.
Max, who you may remember was the runt of the litter at birth, is now running a close second, weighing 13 pounds, 6 ounces which is the 18th percentile and up 4 full pounds from his two-month appointment. He's grown just two inches in that time (from 21.75" to 23.75"), which may be why it seems like he's gotten so much heavier than everyone else. And his head is the same size as Daniel's exactly (though the doctor seemed to question the accuracy of that particular measurement).
Caroline is still bringing up the rear in the growth department. She gained just over three pounds to weigh in at 11 pounds, 13 ounces (up from the 5th percentile to the 12th) and grew 2.25 inches (from 21 to 23.25), putting her height in the 14th percentile. Her head was a few centimeters smaller than her brothers', putting her in the 21st percentile. The doctor remarked that she is quite impressed that Caroline is so evenly proportioned. All three of them are right around the 50th percentile in their proportion of weight to height and all of them are making steady progress up the growth chart.
But proportions were not where the doctor's favorable impression of the babies ended. She could not believe they are sleeping through the night (she has a 10 month old who we take it is not sleeping through), though she cautioned that might change. She was amazed they eat seven ounces per feeding, and thought it seemed understandable that Caroline might be pulling back from feedings that big. The babies cooed through the visit and giggled and smiled and the doctor commented on how much they "talk", saying it was more than most four month olds she was used to seeing - and laughing at how loud our house is going to get as they learn to talk more. In summary she told us that they are right on target developmentally for four-month olds, which means they are actually advanced because their "adjusted age" puts them at only three months old.
In terms of the concerns from last visit, she wasn't able to hear a murmur in Caroline's heart this time, but we're supposed to remind her to check on it at future visits to be sure. She noticed that Max is still "fisting" and encouraged us to try to give him rattles or toys to hold onto to keep his hands open. This is a concern for all of them, but progress is being made that they only seem to ball up their little fists when they get worked up about something and at least they keep their thumbs outside the fists now. We're supposed to wait another month or so before we start trying to feed them any solid foods, even though they're advanced for their age, the doctor still thinks it's better to wait until they're "really" four months old.
After the check-up, it was time for shots. Everyone was asleep as we pulled into the second waiting room and were subsequently taken back to an exam room for the injections. Caroline was up first, turning her nose up at the oral vaccine, screeching at the three shots in her thighs, and then calming down in Daddy's arms as nurses from along the entire hall stopped by to see her and tell her how brave she was. This scene was repeated without variation for each of the boys and by the time we'd gotten them all tucked back into the stroller, they were out again. The nurse who gave them their injections warned that each time they remember a little more about what's coming and before we know it they'll get to the door of an exam room and just start screaming. But next door there was a Kindergarten-aged boy getting a shot or two who didn't seem fazed. In fact, we noticed him because he was talking to the nurse about "Buster Posey...THE Buster Posey!" and quickly followed his story by proclaiming, "wow, that didn't even hurt at all!" I'm sure Buster will be pleased to know he helped this young man through the trauma of his injection. :)
Friday, January 14, 2011
It Takes a Village...um, an e-village...
Today I had a very bad day at work. Our district has adopted a new Student Information System/Grading Program, which everyone else learned to hate during the first semester, but with which I am just now being confronted. It is bad. This is not just a "change is hard" type reaction. This program is worse than bad. It is inefficient, unintuitive, user-unfriendly, and just plain annoying. It is a huge step backwards compared to what we used to have. I have colleagues who have urged me to abandon all hope of using it and go back to the tried-and-true. I have colleagues who commiserate that it takes 15 clicks to save one assignment in your gradebook that you cannot copy and paste into the gradebook for a different period's class, even though it is the same exact assignment. I have not had any colleagues tell me how much they appreciate this new tool that the district has dropped in their lap.
So at least I am not alone. And there are people who want to help me, and whose help I will gladly be accepting over the coming week. Because over the past four months, I have learned the value of accepting other people's help.
This has also been a struggle for Joe. Despite being a very friendly person, Joe is someone who is quite content to just hang out at home and never see anybody. He doesn't yearn to have guests over or get together for dinner and drinks. When he said that he knew that with the babies' arrival he would have to adjust to having people around the house, he wasn't talking about adjusting to the three new people we would be bringing in.
But he has adjusted quite well. In addition to taking the babies out to their multiples group and to visit their grandparents this week, Joe has welcomed some baby visitors into the house as well. On Tuesday, our friends Paulette and Denny stopped by to finally meet the babies (they'd been keeping their distance for a while as they nursed colds they didn't want to pass on). Paulette and I work together at the Giants - she's the PressBox Hostess (that's not the actual title, I don't think), so she's known Joe as long as she's known me. She watched me waddle around the ballpark all season and helped organize the little get-together they had for us, so we were eager for her to finally meet the babies in person. Paulette was able to manage the babies' craziness, keeping them calm and getting them to all go to sleep, giving Joe a brief rest.
Today, Joe was visited by three ladies who brought him lunch (with enough leftovers for dinner - THANK YOU!) and stayed to feed the babies. What made today's visit unique was that he did not actually know these ladies. They are sort of friends-of-friends, but are friends of his in a whole new media way and through the wonders of Facebook and Twitter they know all about the babies. I teased Joe that I was worried they might bonk him on the head and make off with the babies, but he assured me they were nice enough women, and besides one of them already had twins - what would she want with three more? So the Salvateenies were visited by Peggy Butler, Diane Fischler, and Hannah Goh, all of whom held and fed a baby so that Joe actually got to go through a mid-day without a bottle in his hands! He told me they were amazed at how calm the babies are - and how calm we are with them. Again, I really wish we could take the credit for it...but I think we just got good babies. Amid all the criticism that your online "friends" aren't real, it was great to have these women come by in person and become more than "virtual" friends. Joe has some 2,000 friends on Facebook and who knows how many Twitter followers - maybe a few of them will want to help us move in two weeks?
Oh, speaking of moving and thank yous ... Last post, I sent a shout out to friends who have been coming by to help with the babies and who have made our lives just so much easier. In that post, I did not mention my brother, whom I take for granted to an obscene degree. My brother has met with the contractor who is doing improvements on our new house all week. He has ferried information and contracts back and forth to me. He has taken out our garbage, including bags upon bags of dirty diapers, done our shopping and our laundry, fed and cuddled babies, moved boxes of books, and will be spending tomorrow with me schlepping small kitchen appliances to the new house and then setting about the babies' new nursery to build a crib. And in the future, no doubt, he will need to help me disassemble the two cribs we have set up in the back here, so they can be moved to the new house and reassembled there. He is amazing, and amazingly good natured about it, and we don't thank him nearly enough.
So at least I am not alone. And there are people who want to help me, and whose help I will gladly be accepting over the coming week. Because over the past four months, I have learned the value of accepting other people's help.
This has also been a struggle for Joe. Despite being a very friendly person, Joe is someone who is quite content to just hang out at home and never see anybody. He doesn't yearn to have guests over or get together for dinner and drinks. When he said that he knew that with the babies' arrival he would have to adjust to having people around the house, he wasn't talking about adjusting to the three new people we would be bringing in.
But he has adjusted quite well. In addition to taking the babies out to their multiples group and to visit their grandparents this week, Joe has welcomed some baby visitors into the house as well. On Tuesday, our friends Paulette and Denny stopped by to finally meet the babies (they'd been keeping their distance for a while as they nursed colds they didn't want to pass on). Paulette and I work together at the Giants - she's the PressBox Hostess (that's not the actual title, I don't think), so she's known Joe as long as she's known me. She watched me waddle around the ballpark all season and helped organize the little get-together they had for us, so we were eager for her to finally meet the babies in person. Paulette was able to manage the babies' craziness, keeping them calm and getting them to all go to sleep, giving Joe a brief rest.
Today, Joe was visited by three ladies who brought him lunch (with enough leftovers for dinner - THANK YOU!) and stayed to feed the babies. What made today's visit unique was that he did not actually know these ladies. They are sort of friends-of-friends, but are friends of his in a whole new media way and through the wonders of Facebook and Twitter they know all about the babies. I teased Joe that I was worried they might bonk him on the head and make off with the babies, but he assured me they were nice enough women, and besides one of them already had twins - what would she want with three more? So the Salvateenies were visited by Peggy Butler, Diane Fischler, and Hannah Goh, all of whom held and fed a baby so that Joe actually got to go through a mid-day without a bottle in his hands! He told me they were amazed at how calm the babies are - and how calm we are with them. Again, I really wish we could take the credit for it...but I think we just got good babies. Amid all the criticism that your online "friends" aren't real, it was great to have these women come by in person and become more than "virtual" friends. Joe has some 2,000 friends on Facebook and who knows how many Twitter followers - maybe a few of them will want to help us move in two weeks?
Oh, speaking of moving and thank yous ... Last post, I sent a shout out to friends who have been coming by to help with the babies and who have made our lives just so much easier. In that post, I did not mention my brother, whom I take for granted to an obscene degree. My brother has met with the contractor who is doing improvements on our new house all week. He has ferried information and contracts back and forth to me. He has taken out our garbage, including bags upon bags of dirty diapers, done our shopping and our laundry, fed and cuddled babies, moved boxes of books, and will be spending tomorrow with me schlepping small kitchen appliances to the new house and then setting about the babies' new nursery to build a crib. And in the future, no doubt, he will need to help me disassemble the two cribs we have set up in the back here, so they can be moved to the new house and reassembled there. He is amazing, and amazingly good natured about it, and we don't thank him nearly enough.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
With friends like these...
Tomorrow will mark two weeks that I have been back at work. I will celebrate by taking a three day weekend, going back for one day, and then taking Wednesday off for the babies' four-month doctor's appointment.
This also means that Joe has been home with the babies for the past two weeks. Did I mention the twins family my dental hygienist told me about at my last cleaning? She said she had a patient with two and a half year old twins whose father had never been alone with them. Can you imagine that? For two and a half years, this woman had never been able to leave the house to run an errand or even get her teeth cleaned and just leave her children home with their father.
Luckily, my situation is far different from hers. My husband actually enjoys being home with the babies. He diapers them and feeds them and chats with them all day long. AND, he vacuums! Which is not to say that it is easy for him to be home alone with three babies. It is not. They are on a good schedule now, which is great, but it also means that they all eat at the same time. Three babies, three bottles, two arms. Not a good scenario.
For the morning feeding, it's not so bad. Normally, there's a bit of Salvateenie staggering as they get up anywhere between 8:30 and ...what? I was supposed to get up? just five more minutes, Dad! That means that whoever is up first can get all of Daddy's attention for his diaper change and feeding (yes, it's almost always a "him"). Then on to the next one and then the third. But even when this staggering takes up to an hour and a half - meaning Caroline might not have finished eating until 10am - they are all still hungry at 1pm on the dot. Or sometimes a little earlier. Like 12:30. And you have to play with them and distract them WHILE changing their diapers and warming their bottles. Alone.
During the last month I was home, we started talking about hiring a mother's helper - someone who could come in for the middle of the day and help with a feeding or with little errands around the house. We figured we might be able to employ a college student with a mid-day hole in her schedule for $10-12 an hour. Of course, we didn't know where we would find this person, or the $80-$120 a week to pay her, but it was a little ray of hope that kept us thinking that maybe Joe could do it.
But we haven't needed to employ a mother's helper because we have amazing friends. Tom, the Master Baby Wrangler, has come by the house practically every day at 12:30 to help with the mid-day madness. He and Joe have tagteamed the 'teenies, exploring the world of propping up one child and holding the other two (I'm sure they keep detailed notes about who is propped to avoid scarring the sucker for life). On Thursday last week he came for the feeding and stayed to help Joe schlep the babies to their very first multiples play date, enduring the inevitable San Francisco assumptions of male partnership beyond the bonds of friendship that are immediate when you see two men and three babies walking down the street. This week he accompanied the brood to their multiples' support group meeting. And he's even come over early to help Joe bundle the babies into the car for their trips to Livermore to see the grandparents!
On Mondays, Tom's girlfriend Carla has come along with him to take a baby off their hands (or, rather, rescue one from the boppy), and the two of them regularly collect Joe and deposit him at work on the weekends, even obliging for the return trip. This past Monday, when I had an afterschool meeting that kept me on the Peninsula until after 5, Joe's sister and her friend Sabrina came to help handle the five o'clock feeding, and Lee Ann will be coming back this coming week when I've got another meeting, rearranging her work schedule so she can be here.
This evening we got a call from our friend and neighbor, Sherrie, asking Joe if he'd need any help tomorrow, but he's having visitors who are bringing him lunch and staying for the 1pm feeding. So she's offered to come Tuesday to help him out!
As soon as we found out we were having triplets, people told us we would need to accept all the offers of help we would get, and they told us that we'd find out who our real friends were when it came time to actually follow through on all those offers. I'd say they were right on both counts!
So, to all the people who brought us food, friendship, and an extra baby arm while I was home ... thank you! To all the folks who have pledged to help Joe out while I'm at work ... thank you even more!! And to Tom, an extra special heaping of THANKS!!!!!
This also means that Joe has been home with the babies for the past two weeks. Did I mention the twins family my dental hygienist told me about at my last cleaning? She said she had a patient with two and a half year old twins whose father had never been alone with them. Can you imagine that? For two and a half years, this woman had never been able to leave the house to run an errand or even get her teeth cleaned and just leave her children home with their father.
Luckily, my situation is far different from hers. My husband actually enjoys being home with the babies. He diapers them and feeds them and chats with them all day long. AND, he vacuums! Which is not to say that it is easy for him to be home alone with three babies. It is not. They are on a good schedule now, which is great, but it also means that they all eat at the same time. Three babies, three bottles, two arms. Not a good scenario.
For the morning feeding, it's not so bad. Normally, there's a bit of Salvateenie staggering as they get up anywhere between 8:30 and ...what? I was supposed to get up? just five more minutes, Dad! That means that whoever is up first can get all of Daddy's attention for his diaper change and feeding (yes, it's almost always a "him"). Then on to the next one and then the third. But even when this staggering takes up to an hour and a half - meaning Caroline might not have finished eating until 10am - they are all still hungry at 1pm on the dot. Or sometimes a little earlier. Like 12:30. And you have to play with them and distract them WHILE changing their diapers and warming their bottles. Alone.
During the last month I was home, we started talking about hiring a mother's helper - someone who could come in for the middle of the day and help with a feeding or with little errands around the house. We figured we might be able to employ a college student with a mid-day hole in her schedule for $10-12 an hour. Of course, we didn't know where we would find this person, or the $80-$120 a week to pay her, but it was a little ray of hope that kept us thinking that maybe Joe could do it.
But we haven't needed to employ a mother's helper because we have amazing friends. Tom, the Master Baby Wrangler, has come by the house practically every day at 12:30 to help with the mid-day madness. He and Joe have tagteamed the 'teenies, exploring the world of propping up one child and holding the other two (I'm sure they keep detailed notes about who is propped to avoid scarring the sucker for life). On Thursday last week he came for the feeding and stayed to help Joe schlep the babies to their very first multiples play date, enduring the inevitable San Francisco assumptions of male partnership beyond the bonds of friendship that are immediate when you see two men and three babies walking down the street. This week he accompanied the brood to their multiples' support group meeting. And he's even come over early to help Joe bundle the babies into the car for their trips to Livermore to see the grandparents!
On Mondays, Tom's girlfriend Carla has come along with him to take a baby off their hands (or, rather, rescue one from the boppy), and the two of them regularly collect Joe and deposit him at work on the weekends, even obliging for the return trip. This past Monday, when I had an afterschool meeting that kept me on the Peninsula until after 5, Joe's sister and her friend Sabrina came to help handle the five o'clock feeding, and Lee Ann will be coming back this coming week when I've got another meeting, rearranging her work schedule so she can be here.
This evening we got a call from our friend and neighbor, Sherrie, asking Joe if he'd need any help tomorrow, but he's having visitors who are bringing him lunch and staying for the 1pm feeding. So she's offered to come Tuesday to help him out!
As soon as we found out we were having triplets, people told us we would need to accept all the offers of help we would get, and they told us that we'd find out who our real friends were when it came time to actually follow through on all those offers. I'd say they were right on both counts!
So, to all the people who brought us food, friendship, and an extra baby arm while I was home ... thank you! To all the folks who have pledged to help Joe out while I'm at work ... thank you even more!! And to Tom, an extra special heaping of THANKS!!!!!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Too many to choose from...
Today the Salvateenies turn 17 weeks old. They haven't been weighed in a couple of weeks, but I'm beginning to suspect that Daniel, chunk that he is, probably weighs about as much as all three of them did combined 17 weeks ago.
In fact, they're getting so big that the weekly Myrtle pictures seem more and more ludicrous.
So, I focused on headshots of the three of them today. And they were all just so cute I couldn't decide. I apologize for the bazillion variations - but how could I choose just one or two?
After the photo shoot, Caroline was really interested in trying to figure out how the little music and lights machine worked.
And the boys decided to show off their mirror image drooling capabilities.
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