KRISTEN's space

There was an art show at one of the wineries here in town this weekend, and yesterday Keith and I decided to take the kids to it (which means we really just wanted to get out of the house).  Of course, we caused a scene as soon as we got there.  People wanted to look at them, and to "bless our hearts."  This one lady in particular made this particular comment, "I'm glad they are your's and not mine!"  To which I quickly responded, "me too!"  I continued walking on past her, and apparently missed the best part.  Keith, who as bringing up the rear, said her expression was priceless.  She was laughing at her own comment and then my response, when she caught what I said.  Or perhaps, she realized what she said was probably the rudest comment EVER (well, she could have said stuff a lot worse)!  Anyway, her smile quickly stopped, and her face became one of DEEP THOUGHT.  I was proud of myself, though.  Usually, I am one of those people who ten minutes after a situation passes, finally comes up with something to say.  Not this time.  Woo hoo, me!!! 

 

Belle has finally joined the tooth club.  Her bottom two teeth are coming in.  As I had expected, she is letting the world know what kind of excruciating pain she is having to live through.  Seeing as these are her first two, I am hoping that the next 30 don't come with as much drama.  I have to give her a hand though.  The other night, I was trying to find my inner organic mother, and made some sweet potatoes.  They love sweet potatoes (that come from Gerber), and therefore, I figured that they would love these even more seeing that they didn't have any nasty preservatives (or whatever).  After Thomas produced his third gag, and Bishop was finished with his fifth full body shiver of disgust, I stopped trying to feed it to them.  Sweet little Belle ATE ALL OF IT!  I was so proud of her.  She ate her entire portion, and seemed to love it.  At least I know that one of my kids will appreciate my cooking.  It is funny thinking that she wouldn't hardly eat anything when she was a couple of months old.  We were so worried about her.  Now, she will always eat when no one else will.  Her little round face and leg rolls provide proof. :-)

 

Bishop has really gotten mobile!  He is crawling all over the place.  He has even started crawling straight to the entertainment center.  Little stinker wants to open up the doors so that he can chew on cables!  The other day I found him behind one of our 1990's MASSIVELY HUGE (and out of date) speakers pulling on a cord.  We keep having little discussions about it, but the look I keep getting is one of complete non-understanding.  I think I will reproduce that look when he wants to take the car out for his first date.  As you might guess, along with crawling comes another problem, ... I mean task.  The other day, I went into the nursery to check on everyone during nap time.  When I opened the door, this is the picture that greeted me:

 

  How could you be angry at that?

 

Thomas, I believe, is going to be the master at passive aggressive behavior.  For example, when he wants something he continually makes this unhappy noise until you CANNOT stand to hear it any longer.  (The only way to stop it, is, of course, to give him what he wants.)  He also has come up with a creative way to stop someone from putting him down.  You'll be holding him, and go to sit him on the floor.  Instead of folding at the waist, he becomes ridged, straight as a board.  Whatever you do, you cannot get him to bend.  Then you start laughing, as does he.  Some how he always ends back in your arms.  He is a sneaky little guy.  He has really started playing with the other two.  He will try to initiate a wrestling match with one of the other two, however it usually leads to crying.  Lately he has been getting a better response.  He and Belle wrestled today, and before that, he was sitting behind Bishop.  He would reach out to touch Bishop's shirt, and Bishop would just giggle.  It was too cute.

The other day, Keith and I were headed somewhere, when I asked him this: "We are about to take three nine month old babies camping.  What ARE we thinking????"  His reply was, "If we aren't crazy, we are surely gluttons for punishment." 

 

And then... we went.  Before we left though, I was struck by genius (or God felt sorry for his precious little half-wit and the adventure on which she was about to embark).  I asked Keith to bring his laptop, and I stuck in a few of their favorite videos.  Yes, I have let down the strict campers of America, and the good mothers union as well.  Let me say this before you send your evil thoughts my way, when they get a little older, we will ban all movies and movie players from our camping adventures.  For now, though, and for our sanity, BRING ON THE WIGGLES!!! 

 

I was so very happy we had their videos!  It turned out to be a very hot weekend, and during the hottest parts of the day, we loaded them back into the camper trailer (No, we weren't stupid enough to take them tent camping... yet) to watch a movie.  During the cooler periods, they sat playing on a blanket out doors, rode in their little bicycle trailers, and went for walks.  They weren't allowed to enjoy their first campfire this trip, due to the fact that we stuck with their normal bed times.  I imagine that they will be burning themselves on marshmellow roasters soon enough.  Is this a picture of rough camping or what?

 

 

We had to confine the kiddos as best we could with the refined space.  Break out the McGiver!  The kitchen table (which folds into a bed) was fashioned into a crib.  We used Pack n Play mats as an enclosure.  This meant they had to sleep together, which hasn't been accomplished since they were a few months old.  Mostly they slept pretty well.  Thomas and Belle cuddled one night, and Bishop tried to break out as often as he could.  When we needed the table, we strapped them into their chairs, placed them on the bed, and popped in a movie (as shown in the above picture). 

 

I'll have to confess that this trip was WAY harder than I had imagined in my small little brain, but it was fun.  We will do it again!  Soon, in fact.  Another way that we were saved, was the help of our friends who joined us on this trip.  They helped hold babies, feed babies, play with babies, ect.  They were sooooo helpful!!!  Thanks you guys!

 

 

(You can find more pictures of our trip in the Nine Month Album)

 

 

His name may not be Tony Montana, but Bishop definately fulfills the requirements for a nickname like Scarface.  He had a small catastrophic event.

 

 

 

As you can see for yourself, Bishop did NOT come out unscathed.  Keith was placing the boys on the couch for the last feeding of the day.  Belle was in my capable hands (unharmed) :-).  First, he placed Bishop on one end of the couch.  As he turned to get Thomas, Bishop decided to practice his diving form.  Luckily, Keith caught him before he hit the floor.  After some gasping and scolding (upon Keith, of course), he put Bishop on the floor, picked up Thomas, placed him on the couch, picked up Bishop once more, placed him on the couch, and turned to sit.  Being unsuccessful on his first attempt, Bishop tried his form again.  This time... EUREEKA!!! (such an odd word, isn't it?)  Bishop's poor little face hit Keith's tennis shoe.  The full effect of the wound didn't show up until the next day when we took these photos.  I am sure that this won't be the last war wound Bishop gets.

I'm thinking that I would like to have a paternity test performed on Thomas.  Perhaps we could appear on the Maury Povich show.  I simply cannot figure how MY child could ever dislike anything sweet.  Not only that, but to PREFER vegetables!  When I try to feed him fruits, I have to practically pry his mouth open.  When I feed him veggies, I cannot shovel them in fast enough!  Crazy little dude has everything mixed up.  The other night we were having a picnic in the backyard:

 

(this was the pre-dinner activity)

 

Rather than dragging out the high chairs, we elected to feed everyone sitting up on the blanket.  I was attempting to feed Bishop when Thomas started complaining.  I opened another food container, and fed Thomas a couple of bites, and then returned to finishing Bishop's meal.  In the mean time, Thomas started to attack me.  He would laugh this cute little crazy laugh, and then launch himself at me with his arms and mouth.  The mounting attack would end by him blowing out with his mouth still attached to my leg, thus blowing food particals all over me.  I would sit him up, laughing, give him another bite, turn to Bishop, and the attack would ensue again.  We were all laughing by the end of it.  He is the calmest of the three, yet when he cuts loose, he really does.  No one around could help from laughing at him.  Unless you're Belle

 

On Sunday morning, we were getting ready for church.  The kids had been fed, and were all sitting on a quilt playing while Keith and I got ready.  Keith came around to talk to me when we heard this ear piercing scream from Belle.  He went into the living room to save her.  Apparently, she had unfortunately bent down in front of Bishop.  He took the opportunity to grab two handfuls of her hair.  When Keith separated the two, he sat Belle back right, and she commenced to telling Bishop off!  She bent forward looking at him, and started yelling, "dah dah dah dah dah dah dah!"  If we were able to understand her, we would have probably had to do some punishing because I feel sure that her language was not befitting a lady.

 

That afternoon, everyone was down for a nap except for Bishop and me (because the former would not let me sleep).  I had plans to go the the grocery store that day, so I stuck him in a stroller (built for one baby), and we walked down to the store.  It felt VERY strange.  Although I seriously DO NOT like all the attention that the triplets bring in (because we cannot go anywhere without being noticed by everyone), it felt strange to NOT be stared at when I had a baby in hand.  It was as though I was expecting people to take notice of me and the handsome little man in my stroller, but instead we were just a normal pair doing some grocery shopping.  Just another face in the crowd. ... So, that's what normal feels like.  Bishop must have had a good time because I don't think he moved a muscle while we were in the store.  He sat up erect, looking around at everything.  Every once in a while I would peek around at him, and he would just smile at me, but then returned his attention back to the store.

 

We put their bathing suits on for the first time today.  They spent most of their time trying to eat the floating toys, but I THINK that they had a good time.  Here are a few photos, and you can find more in the "Seven Month" photo album. -Yes they are 8 months old, but I only create new albums on the odd months-

 

 

For the first time in my ENTIRE life, I ran three miles yesterday!  Yes, I realize that all of you Iron Man athletes and marathon runners (you know who you are!) blow smoke past me, but hey, this is good for me!  You see, my short-mileage past stems from another problem I exhibit.  I, it seems, made up things in my past that never really happened.  For years I'll go around thinking that something happened, and then one day I'll mention it (usually in the presence of family).  They then inform me that I am an idiot, and that the event never took place.  Not only that, but that nothing even close to it came about.  For example, in the HUGE town of Big Lake there is this particular electrical box (darn little thing probably runs the whole town).  Until I was about 10, I believed that my aunt burned her nose on the box. -If you didn't already know me as a half-wit, welcome to the REAL me-  What she would have been doing in the middle of down town Big Lake, sticking her nose to an electrical box, I don't really know.  Yet, I went on believing it.  Then one day, inspiration struck.  I asked my mom to tell me more.  She looked at me with that look in her eyes, and asked, "Have you been licking the windows on the short bus?"  :-)  No, she really didn't say that, however, I am pretty sure she was thinking it.  She quickly let me know, that the incedent in question, never occured, and why would it.  Yes, silly things like that have occured to me more than once.  I like to tell my parents that I had such a horrible childhood that I had to make stuff up in my mind to deal with it.  Really, though, I know that they, in fact, did tell me these things, simply to screw with my head later on in life.  Boy is it working!  To bring this revealing information to my point of topic, it was one of these made up facts, that kept me back from running miles and miles and miles.  (That and well, I run like and imbecile.)  I whole-heartedly believed that my dad told me when I was running to control my breathing.  That may not sound outlandish to you, wait.  I could still swear, even though he swears he didn't say such things, that he told me to count my steps, and to coincide them with my breathing.  For example, four steps on the inhalations and four steps to the exhalations.  Needless to say, I always got tired very quickly... VERY quickly.  I was always awe-inspired by those people who were able to run so far, and here I was breathless at a mile.  Finally, two years ago,... yes, it took that long (if you must know, I also deal with OCD tendencies that make it hard to break small habits) I decided, while out on an afternoon jog, to just breath.  As I am sure you can probably imagine, it was THE most freeing experience I have,... well ... experienced.  I just ran and ran (probably 1.2 miles).  When Keith got home that evening, I began telling him about this monumental event in my life.  He looked at me with that oh so familiar look, "Did you eat paint chips as a child?"  Then I KNEW it must be my dad's fault!  How could he give me such misleading information?  HOW DARE HE???  The next time we were together, I brought it up.  There was that look again.  (My self esteem shrinking all the while) He, of course, never said any such thing.  This make me wonder what other made up things have been holding me back?  Is swimming is a pool during an electrical storm a good idea?  I may have to check it out. ...