Last of the Jump Jump Days

There are so many things about having triplets that you just don't think about. We had one pop up recently, and I'm embarrassed to say that this scenario hadn't really occurred to me. I was working in the studio the other day and Carrie was home with the boys. There was a prescription for Zane we needed to pick up. There was a lull in the action where I was, so I had some time to run and get Zane's medicine. On the way home I got a call from Carrie. Someone had rang the doorbell and then ran off. The reason that this was alarming is because of the recent smash and grab robberies that have been happening in and around Austin. These people ring your doorbell, wait for you to answer, and if you don't, they kick the door in, grab whatever they can and leave as quickly as they came. We do have a sign on our door that says, "Please do not ring the doorbell." This is because our dog Tess is very protective and barks if anyone rings the doorbell, which in turn wakes up three boys who are horrible at napping during the day. While this behavior is annoying at times, I have always appreciated how protective she is. If someone is in the front yard Tess goes nuts. I figured that a salesperson or whatever had rang the doorbell before they saw the sign, got freaked out and ran. I came up the street and saw a guy walking with a clip board. He looked like a door to door guy to me, so I stopped to talk to him.

Me: Hey, I see you are going door to door, did you ring the doorbell on that house up there with the Tahoe in the driveway?

Him: Umm....No, I didn't.

Me: Are you sure? My wife is home with our kids, and it freaked her out a bit.

Him: I didn't do anything.

Me: Well, who are you with?

Him: I'm with G.E.

Me: Can I see some identification or something?

Him: I don't have to show you anything.

Me: Fine, you can talk to the Police.

The areas around our neighborhood aren't the best, and I don't even mess around anymore. I just call the Police. The Austin Police are very quick to respond, and I have spoken to them at length about the problems in our neighborhood. They tell me to call when I see anything out of the ordinary. The Police came and dealt with him. Why he wouldn't show me any ID is pretty strange.

This whole little scenario brings up two things about the reality of having triplets. First of all, picking up a prescription wouldn't be a big deal for a lot of people. However, with three it becomes a real chore. How convenient is it to load up three babies in this contraption and go to a pharmacy?



It's not convenient at all. This is the boys' new stroller. The stroller itself weighs 70 pounds. Add around 65 pounds of triplet to the thing and it's pretty heavy. It makes what normally would be a quick trip to the pharmacy into something that could quite possibly turn into an Olympic Event. I can hear the play by play announcer now:

Announcer: We are here at the Triplet Moving Event at the Summer Olympics. Carrie has to get the stroller out of the back of the Tahoe, unfold it, and set the parking brake. Next, she has to get all three boys into the stroller. After that, it's into the pharmacy to get the prescription and back out to load everyone up again. Let's see if she can beat the four minute and 36 second record she set during the preliminaries. Hopefully this time she won't get into a fist fight with another customer in the pharmacy. That got her disqualified the last time and really cut into her time.


This whole day got me thinking about a lot of things. What if someone did attack the house when I wasn't at home? It would be impossible to pick up the three boys and run to the neighbors. What do you do in this situation? Call 911 for sure, but then what? I realize that a full frontal assault on our house is unlikely, but it gets you thinking about how absolutely helpless and venerable you are with three kids all at the same stage of helplessness.

In other news, the days of the Jump Jumps are over. We were down to using two, with one boy in a walker. Zane is our resident master of the walker. He goes everywhere with it. The other two are pretty good themselves, so we made the decision to get two more walkers and sell the jump jumps. No more Jumperoos. It's the end of an era.

That's right sports fans, these boys are now mobile. I'll look down and one of the boys will have crawled into the kitchen. One second they are in the middle of the living room, and the next second they are doing this:

Yep, checking out the outside world. We have taken some steps in child proofing the house, and more will be needed. We have already figured out how to get into the dog water. They also find each other very interesting.


Here are some various crawling around pictures. This one happens to be of Cade.


Here is Zane:

Zane again:


Here is one of Cash under a Jump Jump.



These next pictures are of the boys taking a nap. Top to bottom are Cade, Zane, and Cash.

Needless to say, they don't look very tired.

They would rather be moving around and destroying things than taking a nap. Makes sense to me. I was never much of a nap guy myself. We have passed a lot of milestones recently, and we will pass many more in the next six months. Walking comes to mind. A friend of mine recently told me this:

"You spend the two years teaching them how to walk and talk. After that you try to get them to sit down and shut up."

No matter the trials and tribulations, one things is true:

Having triplets is a blast.

Here is a video of Cade and Cash in their Jump Jumps. Oh the memories.

Cinco De Mayo

The boys celebrated their first Cinco De Mayo this past week. I find it amusing that in the United States, we take any excuse to drink that another culture may have, and adopt it as our own. I had to look it up, but Cinco De Mayo is mainly celebrated in the state of Puebla, in Mexico. The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. Yes, I copied that from Wikipedia. In the U.S., we use it as a day to celebrate Mexican culture, but mainly to get hammered. However, there is no "hammered" when you have triplets. The boys have no sympathy for a father who may have had one too many the night before. They still get up at 7:00 a.m., and they are very hungry and impatient. No matter what, you had better be on your game. They like their bottles, and they like their oatmeal, and the service better be snappy.

The boys have started doing quite a few things since the last blog. First of all, they are all holding up their own bottles. They can also hold themselves up while standing. Personally, I can not believe how big they are and how much they have grown. Here is a picture of Cash. We are happy to report that we had our second appointment with the neurosurgeon, and he thinks that Cash is just fine.

They thought he might have hydrocephalus, but after further examination, he just has a big head. The Doctor thinks he is going to be a rather large boy. Below you have Mr. Zane standing up in Cade's crib waiting for his turn to be taken to the chow line.

Carrie and I have been trying to give the boys individual attention whenever possible. Usually this entails taking just one baby to the store. Cash and Zane have both been taken to the store by themselves, but Cade's first solo trip to Wal-Mart was captured on video on my phone. As you will be able to hear if you turn up the audio, the cart had a messed up wheel. I know, that's odd for Wal-Mart. However, Cade thought this was the best thing in the world. The faster we went, the better he liked it. Don't worry, he is strapped into the cart using the Wal-Mart child safety strapping system that I'm sure was developed in a highly sophisticated lab in Arkansas after much research. As you can see, Cade is having a blast with the old man.



At the top of the page, you will notice that the boys have their Red Sox gear on. This is because they are really big Red Sox Fans. They love the Red Sox. We submitted this photo to the Red Sox "Fan of the Week" contest. I think we have a chance at winning. My good buddy Scott from Houston, Texas got the boys these shirts. Here is a shot of the back;


Here are some individual shots. This is Cash. He has something in his hand, which happens to be grass, but he must put it in his mouth. Doesn't matter what it is. Hey, he has no idea. It might taste good.

Next we have Cade. Here he is doing angry pouty lips. I wonder where he gets that.

Finally, we have Mr. Zane. It's amazing how different the three boys are. They are alike in many ways, but they each have their own way of going about things. It's going to be exciting to watch as they progress.

A couple weeks ago, we decided that we would take the boys out to dinner with us. This has been something that have avoided doing for reasons that should be obvious. For whatever reason, we decided that an excursion to the Austin Pizza Garden would be a good idea. We took Grandma along for an extra set of hands. We decided to leave the stroller in the car, so we just carried their car seats into the restaurant. The place was pretty full, and it's pretty loud, so we felt safe bringing our merry band in for some pizza. It's interesting to watch people as they realize that there are three of them. We each held a boy while we ordered and ate pizza. They boys like to slap whatever is in front of them and yell. Don't get me wrong, it's a joyful noise, but they get really excited and love to hear themselves. They get into contests in which they each try to slap the table and make more noise than their brother. All in all they did extremely well and we have to thank the staff at Austin Pizza Garden. They didn't even bat an eye when we walked in. Carrie grabbed my phone in order to take a picture of Cash taking his first bite of pizza. I didn't know that my phone had video capability. Carrie figured it out, and took this quick video of Cash and Cade trying pizza for the first time. The video isn't very good, but I thought it would be cool to show them the first time they ever tasted pizza. If they are like me, it will be a love affair that will continue throughout their lives. So here it is. It's really short and Cade gets mad, but whatever.



In other news, the boys love to take baths. They graduated to the big bath tub and they think it's pretty awesome to splash around. Giving baths is obviously a big production. They have more toys than they can possibly play with.

Oh yes, and as always....Tess was there too.

Things are pretty normal around here. The boys will turn 1 year old on June 2nd. On June 1st, Carrie and I will have been married for 2 years. Wow. What an amazing year it has been. The boys have grown out of their stroller and their car seats. It won't be long and they will be walking. I can't believe it. I often find myself just watching them, as they are crawling around on the floor trying to figure out how to break things, and I think how amazing it is that they are my kids. The list of different ways I can screw their lives up is endless.

Finally, here is a field of bluebonnets. In Texas, bluebonnets are big deal this time of year. Why? Because Texas is the best place on earth. This is God's Country and he kissed the landscape with bluebonnets. Every year, the bluebonnets bloom in the Texas Hill Country. The weather is perfect and all is right with the world. Here is a field of bluebonnets;


Here is a picture of some triplet boys who are not cooperating with Mom who is trying to take a picture of them in the field of bluebonnets.


That's it for now. Thanks for following along. The boys 1 year birthday will be quite an event I am sure.