Wiped Out!

The plumber stopped by at a little after 9am today to say that he'd be cutting the drain line and would need to shut off the water (and drains) for 4-6 hours.  Ugh.

So, we hurried to get ready and piled the babies in the car with no real plan in mind.  We stopped at Starbucks to get Joe coffee and lined the babies up as a welcoming committee for the patrons who came in.  We had dressed Caroline in an adorable set of blue and white seersucker overalls and were worried that people would think she was a boy, but the folks who stopped all could tell she had girly curls!  We ran a few errands in the neighborhood, then headed down to buy tons of paper products for the babies' impending first birthday party.  After that, we met Sam and Junior at Target, had lunch (well, the babies did), and headed over to Carter's to see what they had on sale.

While we were wandering around, I noticed someone I recognized.  It was Pablo Sandoval's mom! And there was his dad...and his brother...and I think that's his daughter.  Oh! And there's Pablo!  So I forced Sam and Junior to take their picture with him.

After that we went back to Target to do a little shopping.  We bumped into some of my usher friends from the ballpark, and we felt pretty cool that we got "recognized" in the store the same way Pablo did!

Sam headed home, and we headed back to see how the plumbing work was progressing.  Water was back on, but still no drains! :(  We drove aimlessly down the coast and when we found a parking space on Sloat we decided to take the babies to the zoo!

It was cool and foggy and most of the visitors had left by the time we went in, which seems to have made the animals more friendly.  We saw tons of monkeys playing tag and climbing and jumping (and generally giving the babies terrible ideas of what to do!).

As we walked toward the penguins, I thought I saw a rhino sticking its head out of the door to his enclosure.  I wheeled Caroline over to see, and sure enough, he walked right out to greet her - all the way up to the edge of the railing!

Of course, we were also an attraction at the zoo - one family even asked if we'd pose for a picture for them!  That's right, we're going to be in some tourist's vacation slide show - right between the lemurs and the macaques!  A woman at the penguins asked if the babies were triplets, then asked all the intrusive sorts of questions we're used to - did you do that in vitro? how many tries did it take? are these your only children? are you all done? Then she let us know that she has nine children herself, four of whom are teenagers.  She added, apologetically, that hers had all been separate pregnancies, as if her NINE PREGNANCIES couldn't possibly compare with my one triplet pregnancy.  I was astonished!  Her tone of voice was completely sweet and without malice - she actually meant it!  She was amazed at me, after she'd had NINE SEPARATE PREGNANCIES - and she looked my age! (face it, I could have had nine babies at my age, but if I had, I wouldn't look this age!)

After the zoo, we met Auntie LeeAnn at the Beach Chalet where, for the first time, the babies were NOT on their best behavior.  Everyone was tired and hungry, they squealed and cried and threw things on the floor.  Caroline even threw up on me.  Fun day.

Again, the things I take for granted...

I've recently joined a few Facebook groups for mothers of multiples.  Tonight, a women in the "triplets" group posted that it was her "first night without the monitors" and she wondered if she'd be able to sleep.  I cavalierly posted that we'd never quite gotten around to putting the video baby monitors in since we've moved and yet I've been able to sleep straight through every night, and able to wake up when the babies scream, but not when they just sort of whimper in their sleep.

She posted back that it wasn't baby monitors but rather apnea monitors that she would be going without - her babies, now 5 months old, had needed monitors to make sure they didn't stop breathing every night since they've been home.

In another post I learned that the Salvateenies are what is called "take home babies" - they came straight home from the hospital.

In other news, Daniel has a rash. :(  Joe noticed it on his neck this morning and I assumed it was because I'd put him to bed wearing his likely wet bib (you know, because I'm mother of the year).  But then when Joe changed his diaper a bit later, he saw the same rash around his belly button.  I came over and stripped his little PJs off and found it was also in his armpits and around the outside of his diaper cover, including an ugly sort of welt on his right thigh.

We called the advice nurse, who thinks it might've been because of a switch in laundry detergent (though the detergent was still perfume- and dye-free).  Since he had no fever, was still eating, and was in good spirits (he tried to flirt with the nurse over the speaker phone - just imagine if he'd been on video chat!), we were advised to give him an oatmeal bath, put some cortisone on it, and watch it.  It hasn't seemed to get better, but it also hasn't gotten worse, so we'll watch it for now.

The boys have also been going through a poop frenzy.  Last night, I had book club and Uncle Kelly called to inform me that Max had pooped all the way up his back.  As if he worried I had missed out on this amazing feat, Max decided to repeat the trick today - of course, after Daddy had left for work!  Then, while my friends Jocelyn and Jill were visiting in the evening, BOTH boys pooped through their onesies!

I think you'll all be pleased to know there are no photos to go along with this blog entry!

Social July Continues!

The babies' social calendars have been jam-packed this month, and this weekend was no exception.  We were invited to attend the reception for Junior's baptism (we skipped the ceremony because it was right in the middle of lunchtime and with that and Caroline's teething tantrums we did not think that we would be good in church behavior).  Grandma came with us to help wrangle the babies and Junior's mom, Sam, arranged for there to be three high chairs waiting for us at the restaurant.

And you know how the Salvateenies LOVE sitting in high chairs at restaurants!

Caroline grabbed for a spoon

Max got to try some rice (this is his "new food" face)

Daniel refrained from putting his feet up on the table

Showing off his teeth

"Is there any rice in my teeth?"

Wiping his mouth after trying some rice

Junior got to have some sweet potatoes - lucky boy!

Daniel was leaning back, enjoying the conversation

Sam was a student of mine at Sequoia, so some of her guests at the party were also former students of mine.  This was not interesting to the babies.  What seemed to interest them (or at least Max and Daniel) is that they were very pretty young women.  Cue the relentless flirting!

Caroline finally got a chance to wear her pretty purple dress! (and barrettes)

After the reception, we repaired back to Junior's house to hang out some more.  The plan was to get a picture of the four babies together (Junior was born the day after the Salvateenies' original due date, so he is four weeks younger than they are).  Unfortunately, we waited a little too long and everyone was tired and cranky by the time we lined them all up.

Tahoe

Ever since I was a very tiny person I have spent time during the summer at Lake Tahoe.  I was incredibly lucky as a child to get to spend many weeks each summer enjoying the beach and mountains and basically being away from home.  Since Joe covers baseball, our summer getaway time is limited, but we have gone up for the All Star Break nearly every year for the past decade (we skipped last year, as my pregnancy made the altitude a less than appealing option).  

This year, the All Star Break happened to coincide with the beginning of construction on the bathroom downstairs, so we took the opportunity to get out of town while the demolition portion was taking place.  Normally, we pack up the car with a couple of suitcases, a bag of toiletry type items, and some snacks.  This year we had to take two cars, filling them with a total of nine bags, two playpens (should've brought three), three high chairs, two strollers, and a beach tent.  Oh, and three babies.  

We hit the road in the mid-morning and met up in Vacaville for lunch.  We chose a place called Country Waffles and we quickly became the center of attention.  This seemed to be a favorite among locals, as nearly everybody called out, "see you tomorrow" as they were leaving.  The waitress made sure everyone else in the restaurant, staff and customers alike, came by to visit with the babies and we got royal treatment as we schlepped them all out to the car.  Then it was back on the road.

The Salvateenies are good travellers - especially at highway speeds.  They fell asleep to the sounds of David Tennant reading one of the How to Train Your Dragon books (so adorable) and were happily snoring for most of the trip.  Except for Caroline.  She is teething to a painful degree.  Already the proud owner of two lower and one upper tooth, the second front tooth on top is pushing its way out.  It is looming so hugely beneath her gum that at one point I was worried she had a little baby abscess!  As we climbed the mountain, all the babies woke up.  I noticed Daniel and Max were up because they started smacking their tongues and lips, a new talent they've been practicing.  I noticed Caroline was awake because she started screeching at the top of her lungs and she didn't stop for the last twenty miles of the ride.  I even pulled over at one point to pull her out and check to see if it was a dirty diaper or something else obvious.  Because she seemed to stop once we got levelled out at Tahoe, I suspect that her ears were popping all the way up (and that, perhaps, her brothers had figured out that their lip smacking was keeping it from happening to them!)  Poor baby!

After a stop at the local 7-eleven for free slurpees, we arrived at the cabin and began the long process of unpacking, feeding the babies, setting up the play pens, and procuring something to eat.  That night, Max and Daniel slept fine in their playpens, but Caroline, who had spent the first five months of her life sharing a crib with Daniel, could not settle down to sleep in the same playpen with her brother.  So she came to sleep with us, waking wailing a few times and needing a combo of ibuprofen and orajel to get her to calm down enough to get a few hours of sleep.

On to Tuesday!  We lazed around in the morning, letting the babies take turns "napping" in the bedroom, since nobody seemed to want to coordinate their naptime.  Then we loaded up to head out to the beach.  When we parked, we noticed that there has been some sprucing up done - the parking lot is all nicely paved and the bathrooms have been fixed up.  Near where we parked there was a really nice paved path from the parking lot to the restroom at the edge of the beach (before you had to pick your way through pine-needly underbrush to get out to the beach area).  The beach is a lot smaller this year, thanks to a heavy winter snowfall that is still melting off.  So I went out first and staked out a spot to set up our brand new beach tent (which apparently isn't as brand new as I thought, since it already had a rip or two in the back where the tent poles go - but it still worked, and that's what's important).  

Then we dragged the babies out, without their car seats so we wouldn't get them covered in sand.  This is not easy as it involves one of us carrying two babies.  And the babies are around twenty pounds each now.  And they wriggle.  But eventually we all made it, unloaded, and started to soak up our surroundings.  Everyone was terrified of the water (which was NOT cold, I would like to point out, but seems to have been scary nonetheless) and yanked their feet up as soon as I touched them to the surface. I guess we really hadn't needed to buy everyone bathing suits and swim diapers! Oh well....

Highlights included the boys playing with sand and checking out the girls in bikinis, seeing a flock of Canadian geese, and making it through nearly two hours before someone said, "Boy, you've got your hands full" (though, in truth, I did have my hands full of tent and bags at that point).

After the beach, we stopped in to visit with our friends Paulette and Denny, who were up vacationing with their grandchildren.  On the way home we ordered a pizza and then settled in at the cabin to watch the end of the All Star Game.  Though she did wake up at 12:30 and need to come to bed with us, Caroline did sleep quite well Tuesday night.

Wednesday was another beautiful day.  We let babies nap through the morning, then set out for the Visitors' Center and took them in their strollers to the Rainbow Trail, which includes the very cool "stream profile chamber", an underground room that gives you a window on the stream so you can see the fish as they swim by.

The rest of the trails are not paved, and we weren't quite up to testing the strollers' "off road" capability, so we packed everyone back into the car and headed over to Camp Richardson to stop in at the stables.  The babies cannot actually ride the horses until they are 6 (though we may fudge a little if we're up there in August of 2016 when they're 5 years 11 months...), but we were invited to bring them around the side of the paddock to see the horses.  They were fine with the very calm horse we stood by, but when she moved her head, Daniel freaked out a little.  Luckily, there was a pretty teenage girl standing nearby and flirting with her seemed to calm his nerves.

Then it was a quick ride out to Stateline so that we could tell the babies they'd been out of state before they turned one, and back to the other side of town for dinner at Passaretti's Italian Restaurant, where we were given a table in our own little room and where the babies made themselves quite comfortable.

And then it was back down the mountain on Thursday without too many meltdowns!  All in all (and despite Caroline's fitful sleeping, constant crying, and curious lack of appetite), it was a good trip.  Next year we can do all sorts of other fun things!