Dirty Hairy

Life goals generally have to do with getting finances in order, losing weight, making a great career move, blah blah blah.  My life goal for this year?  Shower at least twice a week.  I know lots of triplet mamas who have their children perfectly scheduled to eat, sleep and poop at the same time. I don't.  I don't really want to either.  I like that we are flexible.  BUT... it does mean that there is always someone awake from about 6am til after 9pm.  This doesn't leave much time for hygiene.

The other day a mother posted that it annoys her when moms say they don't have time to shower.  I'm sorry I annoy you.  I suppose that technically, you are correct.  I do have time to shower.  I could wake up early in the morning before 6 when the first kid is usually up.  I could also stay up a bit later and shower.  I could.  I don't want to.  I want to sleep or lay in bed and read a book for 10 minutes.  It means I'm dirty and hairy.  I'm also a little more easy going and a little less overwhelmed bc I had a few extra minutes of sleep, a few minutes engaging with the actual English language as opposed to the random grunts and sounds that my infants seem to think I should understand.  Sorry I annoy you.

The Mice Will Play...

I'm a little scared for the future.  I'm going to end up with those kids who make up their own triplet language and then go live in the hills or something.

Annecy was sleeping so that is where she is.  Also, of course they had been playing like this for a while but as SOON as they saw me watching they stopped.  They are never going to be commercial actresses who make me, um, I mean who make THEMSELVES, millions of dollars, if they don't learn to ignore the camera.

Hi...

A certain Eloisenstein has decided to buckle down and increase her vocabulary.   After months of study and expensive articulation tutors that tend to break into song about the rain in spain, it has all paid off.



Being the humble soul that she is, trained in the art of zen etc, she doesn't want to outshine her sisters so sometimes she just whispers it...

My Extensive Expertise in Plumbing and Electric Is Really Paying Off

Yesterday we had a walkthrough of the house before they put the drywall up.  Apparently, it's to look at all the wiring and plumbing and stuff.  Apparently people do this.  Why do people do this?  I know exactly...oh, right...NOTHING about wiring and plumbing.  There could be like major problems and I would be like, "Yep, looks great."  Eric doesn't know anything about plumbing or wiring either.  Regardless of this rather important detail we showed up with all three infants in hand.  Our realtor, who I assume is an expert on plumbing AND wiring, met us there.  We followed the boss man around while he showed us many fascinating wires and drains and pipes and insect-killing wires.  We faithfully nodded and touched things like we had any idea what was going on.  When it was over Eric took 25 pictures of the wiring and plumbing.  We are geniuses and knew to do this because I went through a Holmes on Homes phase.  (I love you Mike Holmes).  See, TV really can make you smarter.  Guess I should start the kids watching HGTV ASAP.  I wouldn't want them to fall behind in school.

But, I digress... Since I didn't think it was fair to make all those babies drive an hour, get in the stroller for 30 min and then drive an hour back I figured I would take them to the little park right there.  Glenda, the realtor, came with me and the girls.  Eric had to go back to work.  I have been to this park on a handful of occasions.  Nevertheless I still have zero idea as to where it is located.  I am missing some serious spatial intelligence or geographical intelligence or something.  So... I couldn't find it.  I know it's only a couple blocks away but I couldn't find it.  The babies HAD to eat so we found a large patch of very crusty dead grass and they all screamed bloody murder as soon as it touched them.  Awesome.  It took about 20 min for everyone to get a little milk and a little baby food in their bellies (thank you sweet heaven above for those Plum-esque packages of baby food).  They screamed and ate rocks and dead leaves the whole time but at least they had had some lunch.  I think we petrified poor Glenda.  What can I say? Triplets are not for the faint of heart, only for the faint of mind.

Best Part Of A New House? PINTEREST!!!

One of the reasons we moved cross country was because for the love of Pete we need SPACE.  SpaceSpaceSpaceSpaceSpaceSpace.  So, we bought a house.  It isn't built yet.  It should be done in April.  People usually say, "Oh, you're building a house.  That must be SO fun to get to pick everything out."  Alright, first of all, we are not building a house.  We did not meet with an architect and design the perfect layout for us and blah blah blah.  We bought a house that just hasn't been built.  Second, the experience of picking out all the accoutrements is not that thrilling.  We got an appointment at a design center and went through pages and pages and pages (and pages and pages and pages) of choices. First we had to spend money putting things in that aren't fun and some of which don't make sense to not be included (like tile in the bathroom- it comes carpeted...why??).  Soft water loops, radiant barrier on the roof, extra outlets, wiring for ceiling fans (not even actual ceiling fans), wiring for various different kinds of lighting and other seriously random crap.  When we were done with that and found out that we had already spent like $7,000 and hadn't made any real 'design' decisions, it hurt.  Lordy did it hurt.  Then comes the part that could be fun...if you are rollin' in dough (like the homies).  You would think that choosing things like carpet and cabinets and tile would be fun.  Well, it would be...if you budgeted an extra $10,000 for EACH of those choices.  What really happens when you pick cabinets and countertops, flooring and hardware?  Oh, you get to decide between the free choice (one type in one color) or you can spend ANOTHER $1,000 on each item to upgrade to the next "level" which contains something that you maybe, sorta like better but would still never choose.  Those cabinets you really want?  Yeah, those are like $6,000 so forget it.  It feels more like paying bills.  

When we left I was zombified and a little confused.  I was equal parts thrilled that the house was underway and scared that I had just spent $10,000 in like two hours.  Ivanka Trump's got nothin' on me.  Of course, above all I'm happy we even got a house.  The market is so weird right now we could have ended up with nothing.  Also, I'm pretty glad NYC is outlaaaandishly expensive and we couldn't buy anything there because we didn't end up completely killed by the collapse like many of our friends.  

Let me be clear I am beyond thrilled about getting a brand new house just maybe not about the proces...

PS- Best part of a new house?  PINTEREST!!!!!!!!!  

Well, wanna see the progress?  Here it is...

Ghost Baby

I have no idea if this is a side effect of having an entire litter of children all the same age or if it happens no matter how many infants reside with you but I have a ghost baby.  I swear I hear someone crying upstairs but I look around and there are three babies right here in front of me (I do only have three right? Tell me if I'm forgetting some).  I smell poop.  I always smell poop.  I check every diaper around me and there is no poop...but I still smell poop.  I swear I put a bottle in the fridge. There are no other adults here and I KNOW I put a bottle in the fridge.  There is no bottle in the fridge.  So now every time something confusing happens I chalk it up to Ghost Baby.

Call The Riot Police

Maybe you don't think I'm funny but Annecy the Silverbean thinks I'm a friggin' riot.

NACA, SchmACA.... You're A SLACKA'

Being somewhat financially responsible, the undertaking of getting a mortgage seemed a lofty one.  After spending every dime of our savings to move to AZ I wasn't sure how this was gonna happen.  Since we were being completely awesome and living with my parents (jealous?) I knew we could start saving some.  Soon after we started looking into it we came upon a national, non-profit organization that tooted it's horn as the best mortgage available.  They have the backing of a major bank so we decided to go to an introductory meeting.  It sounded great.  They swore their interest rate was 1% lower than the regular bank interest rate.  They preached about their lack of closing costs.  We signed on the dotted line and the next week sent in hundreds of pages of financial documents.  We went to two meetings with our “loan officer.”  He needed just a couple more documents before he could turn us over to underwriting.  I got him the documents within a couple of days and then we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I emailed him politely.  I emailed him less politely.  I asked questions.  I asked for updates.  The song was always the same, “I have it on the schedule for tomorrow/Thursday/the beginning of next week.”  We went on like that for about a month and a half.  He never even LOOKED at whether we needed anything else.  He never submitted it anywhere.  Of course.  Honestly, I didn’t know much about what you need, how much you need and what you don’t need for a mortgage so I assumed it would be a while before we could get one with a bank.  Happily, we had been in contact with a pretty sweet, awesome, cool housing counselor who told us we were fine and to just apply!  We did.  Within 2 days we had exactly what we needed and within a week we had signed papers to buy a house.  All while paying the same amount in closing costs and at a lower interest rate than the aforementioned non-profit was offering.  I emailed the loan officer at that non-profit and let him know that “we went with another lender.”  His profound and deeply touching response? “Thanks for the heads up.”  No, no.  Thank you, sir.  Thank.  You.

It's A Wonderful Life

This was our Holiday Card:

Dear Friends and Family,

It has been a ho hum year with little to report.  Truly, nothing much happened.  Oh, wait, maybe a couple things happened...  January was spent in and out of the hospital and before February started I had seen my last days outside for quite some time.  It was a pleasure to spend weeks and weeks (and weeks and weeks) in such high-class accommodations as Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.  Nothing says luxury like a bed pan.  Eric had a wonderful time (though he did a superb job) managing the house and visiting me as often as humanly possible.  Before February was out we got three new toys.  Santa himself couldn't have brought anything better.  Eloise, Marie-Pierre and Annecy were born the morning of February 23rd at 32 weeks.  Eric was as excited for the babies as I was to be able to walk again (I had been kindof large...).  

March was spent in the NICU at Columbia Presbyterian.  Eric and I got there at 6 in the morning, Eric went to work and came back afterward and we tried to leave around 8 or 9 each night.  We were the lucky ones as nothing was "wrong" with the babies.  They were just learning how to eat, breathe and keep themselves warm and generally being show-offs with how cute they were.  

At the end of March we brought everyone home and weirdly, our spacious New York apartment suddenly didn't seem so spacious and Eric's 13 hour work days suddenly seemed less realistic.  So, after months of wonderful helpers staying with us, Eric took a job with Pearson in the Phoenix, AZ area and we picked up and moved.  Taking 5 month triplets on a plane was not as bad as you would think and almost everyone arrived in one piece, even Fenway (though it was touch and go there for a while).  We overtook Kathy and Bradford's house while we searched for our own.  We finally found a home in Gilbert, AZ (a Phoenix suburb) but it won't be built until April so Bradford will have to put up with "Babies and dogs EVERYWHERE" for a few more months.  Secretly I think he kinda likes all those huge heads staring at him creepily everywhere he goes.

The babies are growing great and, unfortunately for mom, are all crawling like pros.  They are exactly as exhausting as having three infants sounds but they are so dang cute that we just can't bring ourselves to give any of them away.  Eric is enjoying his new role as Assessment Specialist at Pearson and Fenway is having a GREAT time hanging out with Timba all day and having a back yard to destroy.  Phoenix is treating us well and our only regret is that our east coast posse can't be here with us.  

Happy Holidays,

The Silversteins 

Jennifer, Eric, Eloise, Marie-Pierre, Annecy and Fenway

Rosemary's Babies

Months 3-6
WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH WWWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

That's all I remember clearly.  There are memory bursts of various doctors, "colic", "reflux", "dairy allergy", "gentle dairy formula", "hypoallergenic", "amino-acid based", "Zantac", "Prevacid" and on and on and on and on.

Fade to black.

WAAAAAAAAHHHHHH WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH WWWWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

My back (oh lord my poor innocent back) remembers Baby Bjorn and Snuglis worn simultaneously while holding the third.


SNAP back to reality (Oh, there goes Rabbit.  He don't give up that easy..hahaha)
We moved.  We hit six months.  Six months was sweet sweet heaven.  Six months.  Oh the sound of those words.  Six months.  At six months the babies figured out that ACTUALLY, there was no need to cry literally every waking hour.  ACTUALLY, playing and practicing skills was equally as fun as crying.  Fools.  It was truly night and day.  We actually got to just ENJOY having three ridiculous human beings living with us.  We got to breathe.  They slept way worse for a while and woke up 60,000 times but I chalk that up to moving across the country and eventually it got better.  Though at 10 months one wake-up per kid is still the norm with sporadic splashes of one sleeping through the night from time to time.  Here and there.  I mean, if they went to bed at 9 it would feel like they slept through the night but when you absolutely cannot deal with your life past 6 o'clock, you wake up for a snack in the middle of the night.
"Being a baby is like being in love, in Paris, for the first time after you've had three double espressos.  That's a fantastic way to be but it does tend to leave you waking up crying at three o'clock in the morning." -Alison Gopnik
*Totally random side-note:  Alison Gopnik's brother is Adam Gopnik, one of my favorite authors who wrote such gems as Through the Children's Gate and Paris to the Moon.  This familial connection made me think of Anna Wintour, American editor of Vogue, whose father was the editor of the London Evening Standard and whose brother is the political editor of The Guardian.  Can anyone think of other families like that?  I swear if you say the Kennedys I'll bang my head against the table.  Do you think wild success runs in families?  If so, my kids are so screwed.

Shhhhhhh, The Animals Are Sleeping

Month 2 (before their due date)

::silence:: Aah, the sweet sleepiness of pre-term babies.


True, it took an hour and a half to feed them and that had to be done every 3 hours, day and night, but they pretty much just slept.  Too bad I didn't enjoy it while it lasted...

Also, I Met THIS Lady

Also, I had this encounter in the NICU:

In our NICU at MSCHONY (don't you feel like that's faaaar too many

letters for an acronym?) you could pump out your boobs bedside or in a

little room. One of those little rooms had only one pump and one had

two. I never did get what the socially correct way was of finding out

if someone would be okay pumping together so if the door was closed I

just went away. Anyway, I was pumping and a lady came in. I seemed to

surprise her and she asked if I minded. I told her no and to go right

ahead. (I think we already covered my loss of dignity and modesty

pretty early on in this). She started pumping and we made small talk.

Sitting together topless is one of the exceptions to the "no chatting

with strangers" rule. How old is your kid? Boy or girl? Blah blah

blah.

"I have triplets. All girls"

"Triplets? Really?  Wow!  Triplets?"

"Yep. Three."

"And you're pumping?" I thought that seeing my boobs out being sucked

in and out of a loud machine would probably pre-empt this question.

Nope. Of course not.

"Yep. I am."

"Why?"

Alright, I'm going to stop you here and remind you that this woman is

also pumping. Like literally right this minute while having this

conversation.

"Uh, I mean, ya know, to give the babies some breast milk."

"But you have triplets."

"Yep. Yep. I do."

"So why are you pumping?"  Looking back on it, I should have said that

it was probably for the same reasons she was or some other comment to

make her understand that all babies need food. Even triplets. Alas, as

is my constant burden, I didn't think of that right then. My social

handicap took over.

"Oh, oh, looks like I'm done. Nicemeetingyoubye." I awkwardly throw

everything in my bin without washing it and exit as fast as possible.

From then on I was sure to only give her the nod.

NICU! NO, Nic-YOU, jerk.

Month 1: NICU

This is the weirdest place on Earth.  No joke. It is this weird

quasi-reality where you don't know how to speak to anyone because they

could be facing the worst day of their life or their best. You don't

want to make a hilarious joke (mine are always hilarious) about your

surroundings to someone whose baby is struggling to even live. That is

awkward. Trust me. I now know from experience. So you don't really

talk to people most of the time. At the same time, you see these

people everyday and feel like you are in this ship together and are

going to be stuck together for hours a day for quite some time. So,

you do the awkward acknowledgement nod. The nod that says, "Yeah, we

are here together and I recognize you because I see you thirty times a

day. No, I'm not going to actually speak to you because that might be

even more uncomfortable than this."

The other reason NICUs are so bizarre is because the way that the

everyday stuff is done depends completely on who is there for that 12

hour period.  Nurses, god love 'em, can NEVER seem to agree. Case in

point...

Day 1. I have no idea how this place works so I just tell the nurse I

need her to tell me what to do and when.  Throughout the day she

explains things to me, coaches me, "shows me the ropes", you might

say.

 Nurse A.  "Oh yes, touch them and talk to them as much as possible.

They can hear and feel you."

"When you change the diaper only use diaper cream if it's a bit red."

"You should start diaper changes and temperatures about 10 or 15

minutes before the hour since there are three of them."  Super. I feel

good going and doing stuff.  I'm not on edge. I know the basics. Blah

blah blah.

Day 2. I'm rarin' to go. I know what to do. They told me yesterday.

I feel confident.

Nurse B. I go over and touch a baby's hand.  "Don't touch the babies

while they are sleeping. It is far too stimulating to them and could

lengthen their NICU stay."

I change a diaper.  "You forgot the diaper cream. You need to put it

on no matter what to prevent diaper rash."

I start diapers and temps. "It's not the hour yet. We don't do changes

and temps until the hour."

Now, I have 3 children that I am supposed to be helping to care for. I am

recovering from major abdominal surgery. My hormones, though

stabilizing, are a far cry from stable.  Also, i am just

generally-speaking socially clueless.  Telling me I am doing

everything wrong is not helpful. Looking at me like I'm a

liar-liar-pants-on-fire when I tell you that someone else SAID to do

it like this is really really not helping.  Of course the only

rational thing to do at that point is communicate.  Use your words.

Tell the nurse you are getting conflicting information and calmly ask

her to walk you through what to do for the rest of the day.  Let me

tell ya what.  Since being pregnant, no one has EVER accused me of

being rational.  Thus, I took a somewhat different approach- smile,

walk to the pumping room, lock the door and cry like a first-grader

who finds out the teacher is calling his mom about what he did in the

bathroom. (You do not not not want to know what he did in the

bathroom.  Trust me.)

On every consecutive day you got someone new who did some things like

nurse A, some like nurse B and some in a completely new way. You then

have to remember who does what how or risk yet another, "Oh my god,

you are the stupidest person alive" look and tone as they show you the

"proper" way to do it.  Don't get me wrong. Every nurse we had was

fantastic and gave our children phenomenal care. I would even call

some of them my friends (like friends from summer camp where you don't

know their last name and never actually speak to or see them again-

that kind of friend).  I'm just elucidating the fact that they should

maybe warn a girl that none of them will agree and ya just gotta deal

with it.

Am I Alive? Edward, Is That You?

We survived the first six months.  Barely.

So I had all those babies, you might remember? Awhile back?  No,

doesn't ring a bell?  Well, anyhoo, I did. There are 3 of them. They

are weird and funny and cute ta-boot.  I'll tell you about those first few months, what I can remember of it anyway...

THE BLOG IS BACK!

Alright my people. The blog is back!  I wanted to stay away but how

could I with such loyal and adoring fans?  I kid. I kid. I make no

false promises of frequent updates or regularly scheduled posts. I'd

just be lying to you and we've been dating long enough to tell you

that I don't want that kind of relationship. You should know I'm not

someone you can count on. I want to keep seeing you though. Ya know,

'cause you've got a rockin' bod.

Also, I realize that I make zillions of grammatical errors and typos.

That's because I don't proof read. As soon as someone pays me to write

this I will absolutely proof read all of it. I double pinky swear.