Giggling Charlotte

Finally got some nice video of Charlotte giggling. I've heard Rebecca giggle a little bit recently, but it hasn't been the same kind of giggle fit we've seen with the other 2. One of these days I hope to have all 3 giggling away at the same time and hope to be lucky enough to catch it on video. Meanwhile, enjoy Charlotte:

A sign of good things

The above picture may not look like much of a sign, it is after all, just dinner. But to put into perspective I'll remind you of a few things:

• Dorothy is a mother of triplets. Triplets that are not quite 6 months old and not quite sleeping through the night.
• Dorothy and the 2 girls are just getting over colds.
• Dorothy was a professional pastry chef for a long time and was a bit burnt out when she first 'retired'.

The picture shows that Dorothy now has the energy to not only cook, but fiddle with slightly fancier plating.

That means, as far as signs go:

• Dorothy has gotten over her cold (mostly).
• The kids are sleeping more and more as time progresses.
• Most importantly, she is feeling more like herself after almost a year and a half (counting retiring, the pregnancy and birth of the kids).

Brief Update

Just a short update on the cold situation while I'm working at the International Lightning Detection Conference.

It looks like the girls are clearing up and are basically over the cold. Dorothy is feeling better but still has a bit of a cough.

I'm still hoping that Trevor and I don't get it next.

In other news, the kids have gotten their first tastes of the baby rice cereal. Once I get a chance, I'll edit the video of our first try and get it up on the net.

The Cold moves on

Well, Rebecca seems to be feeling better, but Charlotte and Dorothy have the cold now and Charlotte is dealing with it worse than Rebecca. Dorothy isn't feeling to well either.

So far, Trevor and I have been skipped which will hopefully continue.


I uploaded some pictures taken by Terry on the 12th. I'm still waiting to see at least one picture of Terry and Gurujot holding the kids.

To make things easier for people, I'm going to start including links in the post directly to whatever I've uploaded. Everything can still be reached by the links to the right.

Bath Time

I finally got the bath video to work. It seems like the free editing software that came with the camera can't create a fully compliant AVI file. I had to backtrack, produce it as an mpeg-2 file and convert it to AVI using Streamclip. One of these days I should just buy some good software or get a Mac.

Cold Shoulder

Rebecca has had some coughing lately, but it got noticeably worse over night. No fever or any other symptoms, but we were hounded so much in the NICU about possible respiratory problems that I decided to take her into the hospital. She most likely has a cold and I was told that all we could do is give her some Tylenol if she develops a fever.
A cute note...while there, she fell asleep on my shoulder which was a first for me.

Because we were there, we have a new weight for her : 12 lbs 1 oz.

In other news, in my last post, I mentioned the babies first bath. Today I got a note that Youtube was unable to process the video, but it didn't say why. I'll try again and wait till it's up and working before I post about it again.

Babies first bath

I finally found time to edit and upload a video of the triplets first bath. It's taken while we are in the NICU. I film some of it, and our favorite nurse films some of it.

It's my first attempt at a few things.

1. Some of the videos on Youtube look dark, so I've tried to brighten this one up a bit.
2. My first attempt at splicing several smaller clips together.
3. And I've added a music track as opposed to just using the recorded sound.

Enjoy.

Giggling Trevor

New video on Youtube of Trevor giggling.

I got home yesterday and had an opportunity to get Trevor and Rebecca on the floor for some tummy time and I happened to grab the camera at the same time. I got lucky and Trevor gave us the first real out-loud giggles I've heard from him. Nothing like hearing your child laugh.

Terms and Phrases

I realized last night that my wife and I had started using various terms and phrases as a short hand when talking about the kids. Some of them are kind of cute, so I thought I'd share them.

• squiggle or squigglet - This one started in the NICU and came from us watching the kids trying to move. It wasn't quite a wiggle but was more than an squirm. I'm not sure who, but one of us put the 2 together and ended up with squiggle. I think it refers to the child and not the motion.
• pants - As in making pants or pants face. It's exactly what it sounds like, and I think we adopted it because it was easier that saying "dirty diaper" at 2am. Pants face refers to the look the child gets as they try to make pants.
• squirrel - Ok, so you have your child swaddled in a Kiddopotamus ( or whatever) and they manage to get a hand free just loose enough to be moving around in the swaddle and maybe even poking out on top.... That's a squirrel because somehow it looked like something was running around in the swaddle. Versions of this include:
  
  • "this child has squirrels" - hands are just starting to break free and you can see it running around in the swaddle.
    
  • "squirrel attack" - one or both hands have broken free just enough to let the child get handsy with itself but not completely out of the swaddle.
  • "squirrels stole her binky" - hands have broken out of the swaddle and are stuffed in the childs face, usually resulting in a lost pacifier.
    

That's it for now....Oh, I've changed the way I do headers since the blog keeps track of the publish data anyway. Now the titles should speak to what I'm talking about in that post. - enjoy

How we ended up with a Ford Escape

So I haven't had much time to edit more videos, but I have uploaded more pictures and reorganized some of the other pictures.

Above is a shot of the kids lined up in our Ford Escape. We knew early on that neither of our cars would hold all 3 seats and we knew a new car was on the way. We got the seats (from friends, thank you) first and then spent a month looking for the right car. It seemed like everything we found was wrong. Mini vans didn't have room for the strollers or the dogs. Or if they did, the seating was bad and someone was going to end up trying to lift a baby over the middle seat with car seats in place to get one in the back seat. Bigger stuff like the Durango and Suburban had a different problem. Plenty of space, but we would have to stand on a thin step and lift babies up into the car and it didn't feel safe. The bigger stuff was also outside of our comfortable price range. We found a few cars that would fit the seats, but then the dogs would end up in the trunk.
The mid sized suvs had a weird problem. The car seats would not fit in them side by side. This might sound reasonable till you realize that the smaller Escape fits all 3 just fine. We discovered this as a fluke as I had gotten into the habit of trying the seats in every vehicle I came across. So the seats fit in the Escape very nicely, but not the larger Explorer. There's some genius design work going on there.

Terry's Slideshows

Too busy today for a real post.

I just got a link to a slideshow Terry did of the kids: http://www.photoshow.com/watch/zm5zN9JU

and another one of their first day in the NICU:
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/MR8kX6jV

Enjoy.

5 Months Old

The kids are 5 months old today.

Last night, Trevor and Rebecca both rolled to their sides, just a misplaced elbow away from rolling from their back to their tummy. They both have rolled from tummy to their back recently as well.

Charlotte, however still doesn't like tummy time. Her head drops down after just a few minutes and she hasn't rolled once. We are working with her doing as much tummy time as she will tolerate. We have also been using the Bumbo chair to help her work on her general balance and neck control.

If you haven't seen one, the Bumbo chair is great. It supports the baby down low as if you were holding her and helping her sit up on your own.

Look at those eyes

So my wife noticed that Trevor's left pupil was sometimes a bigger than the right one. A quick email to his doctor told us it was probably ok but she wanted to check him anyway if we had time.

I took him in today, and the doctor said it was probably nothing but we should keep an eye on it. If it changes then she will refer us to a specialist.

Since we were at the hospital, we have a new weight for Trevor = 10 lbs 9.5 oz