Six Graddaughters, and Counting

I know they say that the probability of a baby being a girl is .5, but I honestly believe that this is not the case in all families.  My proof lies in the picture above, which portrays the sum total of all my mother-in-law's grand children.  In comparison to their male peers, I've found my daughters and nieces to be well-behaved little angels, a characteristic which I'm sure will be applicable for the remainder of their childhood and adolescent years...it better be anyway.  This picture was taken during a rare quiet moment on Christmas Day.  How in the world did we get Annie, Zoe and Olivia to stop playing with the new toys long enough to hold Katelyn, Makayla and Lily?  It was truly a Christmas miracle!   

Sleepy Sisters in the Sun

The Late Shift

If there were an international competition in taking care of babies through the night, Sara and I would win the gold medal.  We'd fall asleep while they played our National Anthem, but we would definitely show up for the award ceremony.  Sara's keen ears and motherly instincts shoot her right out of bed at the tiniest peep from a wee little mouth.  My great contribution is that once the baby is all fed and sleeping I can fall back to sleep instantaneously on whatever sleeping surface is available.  Honestly, I could get to full R.E.M. about one minute after lying down on the back of an angry bear.  Given that we're champion night sitters, it only made sense that we enlist for several shifts over the Christmas break.

As you might expect, these little girls don't allow their nocturnal care takers to spend a lot of time sleeping, but they are smart enough to maintain a very high cuteness level so that the insomnia isn't as irritating.  Unbeknownst to Nathen and Jennifer, an hour-long photo shoot broke out the instant they closed their door the first night.  We discovered that you can stack 'em up in all sorts of neat ways to get some very cool pictures.  As a result of the stacking we totally lost track of which one was Makayla and which one was Lily.  Nathen was able to sort them back out in the morning, but only after a night of referring to either twin as "punkin" and "peanut" rather than their real names. 

I really like this picture of me with my precious little nieces.  That's Makayla, or perhaps Lily, looking at me, while Katelyn smiles for the camera and Lily looks on.  Yes, that's John Lennon peering over Lily's head.  We learned that the only way to survive the night is to keep all the babies on the same schedule.  When the first little girl wakes up and starts eating, the co-sitter has to wake up another one and get her fed and back to sleep.  The sitter that gets his or her baby to sleep first has to wake up the third baby and get her all fed and happy.  After all three are back to sleep you get a good 2 hours or so of sleep before the process starts again.  The night shift wasn't too bad if you do it every 4th night...I'm not sure how Jennifer and Nathen can do it nightly.  It's possible for them because they're super parents.  I'm sure they'd have the highest spot on the medal podium instead of us. 

Filling up the Family Truckster

Each of the fluffy mounds in the backseat of Nathen and Jennifer's van contain a tiny little person.  Isn't it awesome that in the course of just one day their van went from 43% to 86% full.  Two more kids and they'll have to put one up on the luggage rack. The good people that make Dodge vans must figure that the average family won't have more than 3 car seated babies at one time, so they only put anchor hooks in the middle seat of the back bench.  This means that no matter where Annie sits she'll always be right up against a sister.  Nathen and Jennifer always let her decide which baby gets to be her travel companion.  Most of the time she chooses whichever one is awake so they can play together on the way.  Katelyn, Makayla and Lily are so lucky to have an older sister to show them the ropes.  We're all very proud of how well Annie has handled this huge change in her life style.  

It's a lot of fun to watch the complicated routine that is getting the triplets from one place to the other...just finding a place to stash the car seats while away from home is a chore in itself.  Add sub-freezing temperatures and a slippery driveway to the mix and you have quite the spectator sport.  I can only laugh because I'm not the guy having to do up all those buckles and straps.  

When Triplets Attack Grandpas

Jennifer and Nathen continue to be constantly caring for my perfect little nieces, so they've asked me to put up a few more pictures of their new family.  Fortunately, I now have a few SD cards overflowing with triplet pictures from our recent Christmas trip, so let the posting begin!

Feeding, burping and holding the triplets really is a one-at-a-time thing...it's not like any single person really ever feeds more than one at once.  At least that's the case for those of us who are visiting, Super Mom Jennifer knows how to successfully feed two babies at the same time.  I tried the Jennifer method once, but had to abort the mission when I discovered that much of Makayla's bottle had converted immediately to slobber without first going through her mouth.  

While home for Christmas Sara and I tried our hardest to get pictures of all three triplets together, hopefully in the lap of some unsuspecting relative.  One night the three of them were looking collectively festive in their Christmas garb, so we were anxious for a photo shoot.  Grandpa was innocently feeding Katelyn so we each grabbed  one of the twins and pounced.  As you might expect, a two-armed person (as most people are) can comfortably hold a pair of babies, but the third little person really complicates things.  You sorta have to put a hand under each of #3's leg and try to balance her head on your chest, all the while hoping that there are no juicy eruptions from #s 1 and 2.  After the initial shock of being rained upon by three tiny tykes wore off, Grandpa was able to be his usual self, and started making funny voices at the babies.  He's such an awesome Grandpa, and a really great sport.