Happy Halloween!

Luckily a few weeks back we posed the triplets in their outfits for their Halloween pictures, as the weather has turned and it is quite chilly here. We spent the day organizing junk for our grand garage sale this weekend. Sadly though, because of the weather we won't be able to set up the kids's first lemonade stand (I was picturing sitting them in their carseats next to a "Lemonade - 50 cents" sign....)

(Coraline, once again, knows how to pose for a picture)

Bad Outing

So after a number of successful outings with the triplets, today's trek into campus was by far the worst. It started off well, with the less-than-ambitious plan of showing off the triplets to some of my old professors, and doing a little research at the library while Erin walked the babies around on this nice fall day. The problem came when we ended up chatting in the history department far longer than we thought, and violated the number one rule for outings - FEED THE BABIES ON TIME!!

I had one more stop on my list in the department when the babies started fussing. As there were classes going on, I quickly told Erin I would meet her downstairs, and helped push her and the stroller into the elevator. Less than five minutes later, I got a phone call from her on my cell to meet her *NOW* by the women's bathroom on the first floor. Needless to say, as the elevator had not returned yet to the floor, I had to run down the four flights of stairs to meet her. Hearing cries from one of the triplets, I arrived at the women's bathroom at the same time as another professor, who certainly must have thought that one of the freshman girls had just given birth to a baby in the bathroom!

Flash backwards a few minutes for Erin's side of the story. After squeezing herself into the elevator with the triplet stroller (and Arthur in a sling because he was fussy), Coraline decided to spit her pacifier out onto the floor. So once on the first floor, Erin had to extricate herself and the stroller from the elevator, and go in to retrieve the lost pacifier before the doors shut, trapping her from the other two babies. Luckily, she managed this feat, but was brought down by her desire to wash off the pacifier before giving it back to Coraline.

So the professor and I open up the bathroom doors, to find Erin and the stroller trapped neatly between the two double doors of the bathroom, unable to go into the bathroom, and unable to leave. After we rescued everyone, we headed over to the library where I ran in to pick up a book and quickly look at some microfilm, while Erin took the babies for a walk. Not five minutes later, I got a call again. Running to meet her, I found Erin holding two wailing babies, and a third crying in her carseat. At that point, we glanced at the time, and realized that we were overdue for their feeding. Choosing not to stay out a minute longer, we quickly ran everyone to the car and fed them at home.

Lessons learned:
1) Set a timer so we don't lose track of time again.
2) Make sure bathrooms are stroller accessable.
3) When you see someone holding three crying babies, don't say "Gee, those babies sure are loud!" (Oh wait, that was a lesson learned by some poor undergraduate who faced Erin's wrath before I came from the library to her rescue)

Chopsticks

So tonight was a scene straight out of the movie BIG. The kick-and-play piano has been a huge hit, and Arthur and Betty have been working on their duet. When we tried to pick Betty up, she screamed, so we had to put her back down in front of the piano, where she played for a full 45 minutes.

Grandma and Grandpa drove back today, but not before picking out a pattern from the fabric store for the triplets' christening gowns. The date for their baptism is set for December 30th in Richmond, and we are excited to see if Grandma is able to make them outfits from Nana's old satin wedding dress.

Free Hands

Grandma and Grandpa drove over for the weekend in order to give my parents a break. With all the extra hands in the house, today we managed to cook huge batches of Turkey/Bean soup, chex mix, a spagetti dinner, and apple dumplings, along with repotting all the outdoor plants, mowing the lawn, sorting a large bin of size 3-6month clothing, and a bit of outdoor gardening and shopping. I got a few research projects of my own finished too, while Grandma and Erin went shoe-shopping with Arthur. Phew! It is amazing what can be accomplished when all of our hands are not full of babies!

(Arthur decided he needed to look cool before shopping for women's shoes with his mom)

Coordinated Attack

We've started noticing that the triplets are becoming more coordinated as they explore their world. The other day Arthur grabbed a rattle and shook it in front of him for a while. Tonight, Betty decided she had had enough of the dangling bell taunting her, and chose to fight back.


Sounding off with her battle cry, she got in a couple dozen kicks with her right leg, and when we slid her over, she finished it off with a dozen kicks with her left leg. Take that, Mr. Bell!
(Please note the moral support that Arthur gives his sister...he'll get there one day...)

Baby Shock

Today we left the triplets with Nana and Pop Pop for three hours, while we went and reapplied for our old teaching jobs. While Erin was on disability/maternity leave, the school was bought out and moved - instead of being within walking distance, it is now a 30-minute drive. The interview went great, and the school looks like it will function more smoothly under the new management. Erin will be starting up again at the beginning of November, as a 12-week substitute for another science teacher who is having a baby (just one though). We're not quite sure how we'll handle the triplet situation with Erin away during the day, but we guess someone should probably be earning something in this family.

Some of the kids at the school asked Erin if she was pregnant, and proceeded to ask some follow up questions - "You had three babies in your belly?" "*He* put three babies in there?" "Did it hurt like hell when they came out your $#%@?" (Ah, the emotionally disturbed, at-risk teenagers of Virginia sure know how to turn a phrase).

We returned though from this outing to find my parents in baby shock. This is a condition that arises when you are outnumbered by babies, and is usually preceded by all three triplets crying at once. Luckily we were able to relieve them in time before the condition became permanant.

In other news, we're hoping the triplets' cousins don't have to be evacuated from the fires in California.

Overheard in Virginia

Some workmen came to Nana and Pop Pop's house today to fix the garage door and some other random things in the house. We took the triplets out, as usual, to avoid any germs the men might be carrying in. We did our usual circuit of the mall, and tried to find Erin a new pair of shoes, as her feet have grown from a size 9 to a size 9.5W. Not feeling up to a mall feeding, we headed home after a few hours, only to find the workmen were still in the house.

The men certainly got an impression of the triplets as we quickly brought in three wailing babies who were a few minutes past their feeding time. (It gets ugly if we push them too long) Once we got the babies calmed down, and sucking on their bottles, we realized that we could clearly hear the workmen upstairs talking about us. The conversation went:

Work Man #1: "Did you see those babies downstairs?"
Work Man #2: "I'd never choose to have triplets."
Work Man #1: "Did you see the mother and father? They look normal."
Work Man #2: "I can't imagine telling my momma and daddy I was bringing home triplets."

So, yes, evidently having triplets is a choice, but one abnormal parents make.


(Arthur was mesmerized by the ceiling fan last night...and yes, we had to dress him in his Halloween outfit because everything else was in the wash!)

3 Apple Dumplings

Today we took the triplets to the 6th Annual Apple Dumpling Festival in the small town of Stuart. The festival was only 40 miles south of us, but the drive ended up being 70 minutes in length, due to the fact that the roads wound around the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. The drive was very scenic, with the leaves just starting to change around us. However, we were interested in seeing how Stuart’s festival compared to our more local town fairs in Blacksburg and Christiansburg.

Was the highlight the variety of crafts and home-made goods? Not if you didn’t truly appreciate crocheted Dale Earnhardt pillows. Was it the local country music? Not if you didn’t bring earmuffs to muffle the speakers. Was it surely the apple dumplings, which must have drawn the moderate crowd out of their homes? It might have been, but the ice cream had run out, and the dumplings soon followed, so we couldn’t tell. In fact, it was none of these. The highlight of the town festival was a set of triplets brought in by some out-of-towners.

We couldn’t make it two feet with the stroller before a crowd formed around us. We’d answer questions, give them a peek at the babies, and try to move forward away from them, only to get ambushed a few feet later. This was nothing like we had ever experienced before. Sure, we got attention at home, but it was more respectful, courteous, and from a distance. Perhaps it was because we live in one of the largest towns in Virginia. Here in tiny Stuart, population 964, we were an attraction people would talk about for years to come.

We had women bringing their children over to see the triplets, men counting out loud as they passed us (“One,” “Two,” “Three,” attesting to the strong school system in the area), old ladies sneaking up unannounced to peer their heads into one of the carseats. Another woman started clapping as we passed by. Was she really applauding my ability to procreate? Is that rude? Should I be proud? Unsure of what to say, we kept going.

One elderly woman came by at least a half dozen times, each time adding another comment or anecdote. Nana and Erin thought she was senile, and kept forgetting she had seen us before. Needless to say, we were all quite exhausted from the outing, and looked forward to the serpentine drive home.

The Other Triplets

We recently were cleaning up the house, and found this picture that we had forgotten about. Little Sabine (and her brother Turner), were part of a litter of triplets. This was a picture we took on the day we picked out Sabine. In other pictures, we were surprised at how much Sabine looks like her mother. But, what impressed us the most was that this clearly means that Erin had a litter of children.

On Tuesday we took Arthur into the doctor to check out some dry skin spots on him, and to have him recheck Arthur’s flat spot and possible torticollis (favoring one side of his neck). The doctor wasn’t worried about either condition, and recommended a lotion for his skin. Arthur weighed 11 lbs, 10 oz.

Today we took them into Virginia Tech for the day, and I managed to get a bit of research done in the library. They seemed to like the outing, and as it was overcast, Coraline got to actually look out at the world from her front seat (rather than being under a sun-shade blanket).

New Blog

Welcome to the new blog. The previous private, "family only" blog had defeated the purpose of its creation, as we had given out the details and passwords to anyone and everyone we met. However, that private setting did block us from the larger community of triplet bloggers, which we are eager to now join. Hopefully this site will be easier to read, and easier to update than the old one.