My First Baby Love

Jackson will always be my first baby love.

July 2011

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I couldn't fall asleep last night and ended up being really groggy this morning.  Jackson awoke early and asked me to fix him breakfast.  As soon as I toasted his waffle and gave him milk, I turned the TV on and went back upstairs to bed.  Before I knew it, an hour had passed and he was tugging on the comforter saying, "Mommy!  Get up!  See. It's not dark out.  Get up!  You want to snuggle with me downstairs?"  I desperately wanted to roll over and ignore him, but I was overcome with guilt and begrudgingly got up. 

It's a daily battle to resist following in my own mother's footsteps.  I have regular internal conflicts on how to transform my frustrations into teachable moments.  Being a stay at home mother has forced me to reflect a lot on my parenting. I yell a lot less than I did a few months ago.  It's led to so much more enjoyment these days, being able to nurture Jackson and the babies. 

Jackson is three weeks shy of turning three years old.  I've been going through pictures from the past year so I can begin working on his yearly collage.  It's been a year of enormous changes for our sweet Jackson Lee.  I came across this post that I wrote the day before James, Amelia, and Madeline were born.  I remember so vividly sobbing hysterically, mourning the fact that Jackson would no longer be my baby boy. 

Sparklers for Fourth of July 2013

Jackson has been full of surprises over the past year. He challenges me multiple times a day (though I assume every mother could say the same about their toddler).  Jackson has matured into an incredibly thoughtful, inquisitive boy.  Here are some examples:

Several weeks ago I misplaced my engagement ring.  I've searched high and low, moved furniture around, emptied the trash and recycling bins out, and checked every crevice.  Jackson helped me look for it but we have yet to find it.  Fast forward to last week.  Jackson was so excited when I picked him up from preschool.  He was just beaming ear to ear when he exclaimed, "I got a surprise just for you!  I got you a ring from the treasure box."  He then pulled out this ring from his pocket and placed it on my finger.  His teacher was watching to see my reaction, then stepped in to confirm that he specifically told her he needed a ring for his mommy.  Melt my heart!

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Jackson is such a good big brother.  Though he know no boundaries, he is very good natured and helpful with the babies.  Quite honestly, he has more than enough reason to be resentful or jealous.  I cannot tell you how many times we are stopped by strangers who "ooh" and "aah" over the babies while completely ignoring Jackson.  Instead of getting upset, he just ignores them or stays close to me.  I frequently catch Jackson "reading", singing, and patting the babies.  He does his best to soothe them when they are upset.  He tries to feed them and brings me diapers and burp cloths as needed. I am so proud of what a helper and role model he has become.

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I'm so happy at how easy going and grateful Jackson can be.  More often than not, he shows genuine appreciation for things and says, "Oh, thank you!".  The simplest things--eating a doughnut outside, going down a slide with his hands up in the air, or jumping over pretend alligators in the hallway--bring pure joy to this sweet boy.

Jackson is so affectionate towards Jesse and I.  He always wants to cuddle, sit on our laps, and give "tight hugs"or fish kisses. His clinginess is often a cause of irritation, but I must remind myself that he won't cling to me forever.

I pray daily for God to grant me patience and wisdom, to be a good example for my children, and to not take for granted the gift I have to spend each day with my babies.

DPK: Jackson the Runner

After a very low key day at home yesterday, I was ready to get out of the house today.  Once I picked Jack up from preschool, I let him choose our indoor adventure (mall, library, rec center, museum, or baking at home).  He quickly requested the museum.

The kids are pretty easy to manage when the babies are in the stroller.  Clearly the triplets can't go anywhere and Jackson is pretty good at following directions. I generally let Jackson take the lead in the museum and the babies and I follow him.  Now that the babies are becoming more interactive, I want them to have opportunities to play as well.  It's unfair to keep them confined in the stroller for hours when there are so many appropriate places for them to play.

Unfortunately, Jackson is in the habit of coming and going as he pleases.  He can no longer do that if I have all three babies on the floor.  I'm pretty fast, but it still takes a few minutes to pick up and buckle three babies in the mammoth stroller.  Jackson walked away three times today.  In his defense, the museum has an extremely open floor plan and he is used to wandering throughout the areas.  He wasn't being mischievous; he simply wasn't paying attention.  The final time resulted in another mom volunteering to "keep an eye on the babies" when I couldn't find him and had to literally search for him.  Yes, I embarrassingly became that mom who loses her kid in public.  Ugh!  I also became that mom who pulled her kid into a quiet corner and promised to leave immediately if he left my sight again.  He held onto the stroller the rest of the afternoon.

In spite of Jackson walking away, we all managed to have an enjoyable afternoon at the museum.  We spent a fair amount of time in the play restaurant where Jackson served us pizza and salad.  He accurately named every fruit and vegetable.

He insisted that all five of us eat some salad.  Amelia obliged.



I was really proud of Jackson's math skills.  I'm not sure if math just comes naturally to him or if he has learned that much from UmiZoomi.  Jackson was able to correctly answer 80% of my questions:

• How many slices of pizza do you have?
• How many slices of pizza do I have?
• How many slices do we have altogether?
• Does Jackson or Mommy have more pizza?
• How many more slices do you have? (He missed this one. Subtraction is a hard concept.)

Moving on...James became Jackson's patient in the doctor's office while the girls ate in the stroller.  James didn't care what Jackson did to him as long as his lunch was free from disruption.

Because James is our only sitter, he was able to do more things than the girls.  He drove the tractor and the fire truck.  And by "drove", I mean he licked the steering wheel.  Oops.

All three babies had a chance to play in the fitness center.  This area has a rock climbing wall, balance beams, and various equipment.  I was happy to find a completely secure and entertaining place for the babies to have tummy time. (Notice that I have to hold Maddie's hip and lower back to prevent her from automatically rolling over.)

Hopefully, Jackson will learn patience and give his siblings more opportunities to play so they can all have fun at the museum.

Sensory Bottles

After stumbling upon this post on sensory bottles last week, I've been excited to make our own set for the kids.  The whole idea of sensory bottles is to stimulate babies' senses by using objects of different colors, weights, sounds, sizes, shapes, consistencies, etc.  I spent $2 on a case of small water bottles.  (They happen to be the perfect size for Jackson's lunchbox)  The rest of the supplies were various items I gathered from our kitchen and craft closet.  It rained all morning, which was the perfect time for Jackson to work on our "special project".

After removing the labels and leftover adhesive, we came up with different ideas of what to put inside the bottles.  Jackson was very hands-on and creative.  The only thing I wouldn't allow him to touch was the glitter.  I added gold and silver glitter to one of the water bottles. 

In the next bottle, Jackson added centimeter cubes to the water.  Beads would have worked just as well, but I have thousands of cm cubes from a professional development course.  Of course we counted them and identified their colors as he placed them in the bottle.

We poured the water out of another bottle, then curled pipe cleaners using a pencil.  This was good practice for Jackson to work on his fine motor skills.  Once the bottle was dry, we placed the curled pipe cleaners inside.

My favorite bottle to create was inspired by my childhood days of making sand art.  I let Jackson pick the colors and dye salt.  We tried mixing the gel food coloring and salt in a bowl, but discovered that it mixed much better in a plastic bag.

We used a funnel to pour in the different colored salt.

I was trying to continue the learning and make the final bottle a science experiment by adding oil to colored water.  Each time I told Jackson that the water and oil wouldn't mix, he grabbed the bottle and shook it, saying "See Mommy. I mix it."  Eh, I guess that was a bit over his head.

Once our bottles were assembled, I finished them by hot gluing the lids.  I wasn't too worried about the babies unscrewing them.  However, I knew it would only be a matter of time before Jackson had glitter and salt all over the house.

Here are our final bottles.

I introduced the bottles one at a time by shaking, rolling, and squeezing them. The glitter especially intrigued the babies.  (Maddie was sitting on my lap.)

Then I let the babies explore on their own.  It was a successful sensory experience!

Triplet Mom Diet

Moms in my triplet groups always complain about "the triplet diet".  They'll post pictures of Twix wrappers and a soda and say, "My lunch today."   Now don't get me wrong, candy and soda is a favorite snack of mine, but it is certainly not a meal.  I've never understood claims of not having time to cook or eat.  I rarely spend more than 5-10 minutes making breakfast or lunch, and dinner is typically 30 minutes.  Here's a daily food diary, from a triplet mom/foodie:

Breakfast this week has consisted of waffles. I was elated to find the Food Network waffle maker on sale for half off at Kohl's this past weekend.  I wanted this particular waffle iron because it makes four individual waffles.  This means I can make large batches, freeze them, and pop them in the toaster as desired.  While the initial prep work took half an hour, I now have enough waffles for the entire family to eat this week.  Jackson and I have been devouring our whole wheat waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar.  The powdered sugar is an unnecessary step, but it makes me feel like I'm at a bed and breakfast. 

Scratch-made waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar

Lunch almost always consists of leftovers from the night before.  That's more incentive to eat well for dinner because I know I'll be eating it again for lunch the next day.



grilled chicken and peppers, black beans, brown rice

Dinner this evening took less than ten minutes from stovetop to plate.  We had whole wheat couscous, black beans, and pan-seared salmon.  Nothing fancy or time consuming, but definitely healthy and tasty.

salmon, beans, couscous

Dessert was a smoothie.  (If I put it in a bowl it tricks my mind into thinking it's ice cream.)  In under five minutes I mixed frozen fruit with plain greek yogurt.

Peach-mango smoothie

Another Park Post

I have a few posts that are more serious in nature sitting in draft mode.  Quite frankly, I don't want to share them yet, so I'm going to stay in my perfect bubble and publish yet another park post.  This morning we headed to Dan Nicholas Park.  It's a longer drive, but we wanted to visit our favorite MiMi at her nearby work. 

We were still off schedule as a result of the time change.  It's amazing how little I care about the time changing when I don't have to drive to work in the morning.  Jackson and I made waffles while the babies slept late.  As soon as they were dressed and fed, I loaded everyone in the van.  Forty-five minutes later we were ready to play.  The girls were quite content to leisurely stroll in the shade.  

James did not have the same luxury as the girls, since the canopy on the quad stroller doesn't extend far enough to block the sun in the front seats.  He was content playing with the giant abacus, nevertheless.

This park was perfect for our timid Jackson.  It has dozens of separate playgrounds all in one large area.  Not surprisingly, Jackson only chose to play on the playgrounds where no one else was playing.  There were the typical slides and swings, but there was also an enormous web you could climb and a variety of ladders. 

The only thing the babies can do is swing, so we spent a fair amount of time swinging.  These particular swings had a raised back, which meant my usual tactic of doubling up wouldn't work.  All three did a great job swinging solo.  Maddie grinned and alternated watching me and her feet.

Amelia held on for dear life, despite being incredibly stable.  I guess she was startled at the range of motion she had because she gripped the sides and didn't smile as much. 

James, per usual, had the best reaction and smiled and laughed constantly.

Jackson took the initiative to push Amelia in the swing.  He was so very sweet and kept saying, "I be gentle.  Good girl.  That's it."

This park has campgrounds with lots of trails and a wildlife center.  We saw bald eagles, snakes, fish, ducks, and more.  I forgot to bring bread, but Jack was still happy to talk to the ducks. He walked the entire time, never once choosing to sit in the stroller.



 The turtles were a better received than the snakes.

Seventy degrees is my ideal temperature.  Being able to spend the day outside in such gorgeous weather is always refreshing.  It would have been even more relaxing if we weren't crunched for time.  I had to set my phone alarm to keep me on schedule.  We rushed through WalMart to show off the beautiful babes and just barely made it home in time to greet Maddie's Early Intervention team. Whew!

Grocery Shopping Success

I really hate grocery shopping, almost as much as I hate when Jesse goes grocery shopping.  Jesse doesn't think he needs a list, so he inevitably comes home with extra junk and forgets key ingredients for our meals.  As a Type A personality, I not only make a list, but have it organized in categories and highlight when I've placed the item in my cart.

Maddie and I have been doing the grocery shopping on the weekends for a few months now.  I've been trying to do a better job with meal planning, looking for sales, and determining what the best buys are.  Maddie and I went to Sam's to price check and see if paying for a membership would benefit our family. I have memorized most of the prices for our staples at Aldi.  (Exp: cantaloupe=$1.19, strawberries=$1.79, grapes=$2.99, milk=$2,89, carrots=$0.99, ground beef=$4.40/lb, dozen eggs=$1.79, canned beans=$0.59)  Very, very few food items were cheaper per ounce at Sam's.  If I have to switch to formula in the next few months we will buy a membership, otherwise we'll be sticking to Aldi for now.

My goal is to go grocery shopping every other week and to stick to a monthly budget of $350.  I *think* I can do that.  I'm okay with running into Aldi on the off week for a quick milk/produce run but I really want to stick to our menu plan and avoid any extra purchases. 

Jesse and I spent a good fifteen minutes to discuss upcoming events and plan our meals for the next two weeks.  I organized our grocery list and kept it out to reference throughout our shopping trip.

I purchased every single item on my list.  The grand total was...drumroll please...

The total came in under budget because we're able to utilize previously purchased chicken and salmon when they were on sale. (If you really want to factor in those costs, our two weeks worth of meals will include an $8 package of chicken and about $6 worth of fish that we have in the freezer.) 

I was so proud of myself for coming up with tasty, healthy meals on a budget.  I unloaded all the groceries and made Jesse guess how much it cost.  Of course I wanted to take a picture since I'm a bit crazy.  Jesse mocked my excitement.

As much as I hate grocery shopping, I certainly enjoy a well stocked pantry, fridge, and freezer. 

With the grocery shopping out of the way, I get to focus on one of my favorite tasks--cooking.

3 Steps for a Successful Date Night

Jesse and I have had a rough few weeks with unexpected challenges.  I've been itching to get out of the house for a date night.  Our last date was in January for dinner and a movie.  We never managed to get out last month.  Thankfully, our sister-in-law (and family) graciously volunteered to bring dinner over and watch the kids while Jesse and I went out.  Here are the three steps that guarantee an enjoyable evening:

1. Alcohol: We used a groupon to keep our dinner cheap but splurged on a margarita for me and Dos Equis for Jesse.

2. Dessert: The fried ice cream was better than dinner or drinks.  YUM!

3. Fashion Show: After dinner we headed to Walgreens to print some pictures.  While we were waiting, we stumbled upon an entire bin of popcorn shirts.  The tiny shirts begged to be worn, at least for a few minutes.

There's nothing better than spending the evening out, laughing with the one you love!