Heavy Drinkers

This week we have been working on modifying our feeding routine. We added two more ounces to the triplets' last bottle of the day, hoping that eight ounces of milk will be enough for them to start sleeping through the night. Also, we foolishly realized that we had not yet started using the fast flow nipples on their bottles. We tried this back when they were just three months old, but it was too much for them and they choked on the change in drinking speed. Somehow though, we completely forgot to try it again. So now at almost 6 months old, we are finally letting them drink faster. And what a change it makes! Instead of having the girls drink for 30 minutes, take a break to play, and then return to finish off most of their bottle, with the new nipples the girls can down a six ounce bottle in just 10 minutes! As they are now emptying their bottles more often, we are going to try feeding them eight ounces every four hours, instead of every three. The final change to their feeding routine will be this weekend, when we finally try to feed them rice cereal.

Rolling and Crawling

Today was a work day for Betty and Coraline. Betty put a lot of effort into practicing rolling over. She has now gotten as good at this as Coraline, and enjoys flipping over. With enough of a runway, she can roll over a distance of six feet! Coraline has decided to put her effort into learning how to crawl. She is starting to figure out the mechanics of it, and has managed to scoot herself almost a foot in both directions.

What is Arthur doing meanwhile? Well, he took a nice nap during today's walk. We think though, that perhaps he has ridden the laurels of his early developmental milestones a bit too long.

And while Arthur was napping, Coraline grew her other tooth.

Tooth count: 4

The Tooth Fairy Visits

This morning we woke up to find that Betty and Coraline each had a new tooth. This is Betty's second tooth, and we can see that Coraline's second will be arriving shortly as well. Once again, the girls are setting their own pace apart from Arthur. We're hoping for money under their pillows soon.

Tooth count: 3

Rub A Dub Dub...

...the triplets are in the tub. We finally graduated all three to the bathtub, after Arthur had soaked Nana the other day while being bathed in the sink. He loves kicking and flailing, two things that do not help a confined bath in the kitchen sink. They seemed to take to the new arrangement well, and we had the other two playing in the hall outside the bathroom while the third was being bathed.

Over the past few weeks, their screaming bouts have lessened, and they have slowly grown accustomed to bath time. These days, they are only upset when they get too much water in their face, or if they aren't dried off and warmed up fast enough upon leaving the bath water. We still have yet to incorporate it into their bedtime routine, but that day might come soon now that bath time has become a less stressful activity.

In Triplicate...

We finally broke down over the weekend and bought the triplets babybooks. We don't quite know why we put it off for so long, but figure it was either because of the cost of purchasing three books, or because of the time involved in filling them out. I am quickly realizing that it must have been the latter.

I did not know that there would be so much to fill in, and for each page I enter, I also have two other copies to do as well. Since it has been six months, there is a lot to fill in. We have had to work hard to remember everything, and when it all happened, but thanks to this blog's archive, and Erin's half-filled in diary, we seem to have enough recorded to make this recent endeavor possible.

Double Vision?

Ever since they were born, we have wondered if our girls were actually twins. They looked so similar that for the first few weeks, we alternated between drawing magic marker earrings on Coraline, and writing their initials on their heels. Were it not for the development of Coraline's hemangiomas, we still would be relying on artificial means of telling our daughters apart. Still though, we do temporarily confuse them, including the classic example where Nana went all morning thinking she had the other girl. .
But on the other hand, we don't think our girls are identical, for they had separate placentas, and as similar as they look to each other, they also look similar to our son. Since he can't be identical to the girls, why should they be identical to each other. And furthermore, which is a more likely scenario after two eggs were released - that a third egg was also released, or that after that rare event, an even rarer event occurred and one of the eggs split.

Then again, Betty and Coraline are developing at the same pace (Arthur is always ahead), they have the same preferences, same behavior characteristics, and we still do mix them up all the time. So finally we decided to figure it out. We ordered a DNA test from ProActive Genetics. The girls each got four cheek swabs tonight, and they'll get another four tomorrow morning. Once we mail them back to the company, we just have to wait the two weeks to finally get an answer to this perplexing question.

Helping Hands

One of the great things about being a triplet is that there is always a brother or sister willing to help you out. Recently, the triplets have been dealing with teething issues. Today we caught Betty sucking on Arthur's thumb, and later saw Coraline sucking on Betty's fingers. We are most concerned about Arthur's digits though, as Betty is the only one with actual teeth :)

And in fact, it was only a short time later, that Coraline started crying, and when we checked her hand, there was a tiny indentation on one finger from Betty's chomper. Perhaps this is the start of sibling fighting - "She bit me!" "He was licking me!" "Stop sucking on my hand!" - but for now, they are all still good friends.