Our family

Our family

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Night-night just got a whole lot easier

I am enjoying a fantastic lull between au pairs. I am mostly home with the kids for three straight weeks, and I am over the moon about it. One of the toughest times to deal with the kids is homework and night night (and usually the only time that I see the kids at all during the week.)

And though homework is still tough because the triplets do not want to entertain themselves for the hour that the homework takes, night night has gotten much easier.

Steve has been telling me for a few weeks now, that the big boys help him do night night routine with the babies. It just did not sound like a good plan to me. But monday night they talked me into letting them help. So they each helped brush the babies teeth. Then during reading time, I read to one baby and each boy read to a baby. It was like a scene from "a perfect preschool setting" Chris was reading to Mikie a book about the earth and with each interesting fact, would say isn't that awesome? I mean how inspriring can a reading session get? While Matthew was showing Cara a shapes book and asking her to point ot several shapes and when she would get them right he would say" nice work Cara" Okay What?????Honestly I don't know who these people are! It gets better. I tell them to leave it is time for me to shut the lights and rock each triplet. "No. we wait here" they tell me. okay lets try it. The boys go to the corner sit as quiet as mice while I rock the others. Then we leave and they tip toe quietly all the way up the stairs.

Honestly that is what happened. I was so impressed. And overall my anxiety was lower because I didn't have to rock the babies while listening to things crash and fights breaking out from the boys room upstairs where they usually wait for me!

This three weeks will be topped off by the Myrtle Beach trip so it is a great spring for me, and hopefully the babies are enjoying themselves also!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Sunday

This Sunday starts out like usual, Steve and I get up at 6:30 to prepare for the day. We make French toast most weekend mornings and bacon Yum! The only catch is that our kids wake up starving, so we have to get a jump on the cooking action. Matthew is up early which is no suprise so he cooks with his dad and I take a few pictures for his star of the week poster. Matthew is an exceptional student in that he hands in everything on time and pays careful attention to all the details of his school. He knows all of the janitors by name, what his teacher's husband, mother and sister all do for a living.
When Cara enters the kitchen she greets each one of us "good morning dad, good morning mom, good morning Matt." She loves greetings. All of the babies do like to greet, when we pick up the boys from school there are hugs from each baby to each big boy, who in turn act like they are just tolerating it, but their tiny smiles betray their appreication of the gesture.
After breakfast, we dress everyone for church, digging out dress shoes and clean socks. Church is a landfield to us, but the kids have gotten better. I bring a bag of books and small quiet toys. Today I get to sit next to Chris, who prefers to sit away from the other kids so he can read the miselet. I tell him that the priest will be reading thhose specific words soon. The priest gets started and Chris follows along word for word, right through the easter story. I explain to him what is happening in the story. He is really into it.
We make it through with only one incident. On a bathroom trip there is a brief wait. This is not Mark's forte and he drops his pants in the lobby as he waits his turn for the bathroom. Well at least Mikey didn't request to sit as he can't say s and always replaces it with sh. So when he goes to the bathroom now, he will say I have to sit! But it comes out a bit different then that.
After church we stop for bagels and head home.
We spend the rest of the day doing nothing but playing board games, watching movies, hitting the internet, and reading. Steve shows the kids how to make crosses out of the palms, nonni stops by with some new clothes, Cara is demonstraing her exceptional verbal skills with endless detailed complaints about her brothers and Handro is flying through the air with the greatest of ease from any mount he can find. Another good Sunday.