8 Month Update

It is getting harder to find the time to do these updates!  Work has been crazy...6 days a week most of this month, so once I get the babies down for the evening I haven't had energy for much else.  I did want to make sure that I got a quick post in this month, though, because we have had a lot of milestones.

First off....we have teeth!  Well, 2 of the 3 have  teeth.  Both Lia and Mya have cut their two bottom teeth in the past month.  While Ava is constantly chewing on everything, she has not yet got any teeth.  As you can imagine, 3 teething babies has led to more than a few sleepless nights. 

While she may be toothless, Ava is leading the pack with her sitting skills.  She now sits unsupported for long lengths of time.  Yesterday, I left the playroom with Ava laying on the floor and when I came back, she was sitting!  I thought maybe I was imagining it, but twice today she did it with witnesses, so not only is she sitting, but she is able to push up to a sitting position as well.  Lia and Mya will sit for a brief period of time, but both of them are still toppling over pretty quickly.

I am afraid that we are just days away from being seriously mobile.  Well, actually, they are all pretty mobile already.  Lia drags herself all across a room using sheer upperbody strength.  Ava gets up on all four like she is going to crawl and eventually just lurches forward.  Mya is also scooting all over the place.

We took advantage of the great weather this month to take the girls to the park for the first time.

Mya

Everybody swinging together

Ava, Lia, Simone, Noa & Mya

All my girls!

Mya'd had enough fun for the day...

Ava

Simone

Ava

Lia

Ava has graduated from physical therapy this month.  Her torticollis seems to be pretty much resolved.  She no longer has any problems with turning her neck to the right and her head tilt is almost unnoticable.  Her headshape has visibly improved with her helmet and she seems to be getting pretty much used to it by now.  I'm sure we will have to continue wearing it for a few more months.  My hope is that maybe we can be done with it by the end of the year.

I have been on a mission to try to take all the kids on at least one outing per week in order to get used to taking them places.  The park was the first of these outings, followed by a big grocery shopping trip, and then last week, a trip to the pumpkin patch.  While the trip ended up going well and the kids had a blast, we did have one mini-disaster.  As soon as I got all the babies loaded up into the stroller, the wheel fell off of it.  After momentarily panicing, we realized that we might be able to fit the car seats into one of the pumpkin picking carts.  It was a tight squeeze, but it worked!

Simone and Ava

Noa

We decided Ava was much lighter to carry than Simone's massive pumpkin.

The pumpkin Simone picked.

Noa

Well, I think that is most of the major baby news from this month.  I did just remember that we are starting to have some babbling going on too.  Ava says "dadadadada", Mya says "babababa", and Lia is still just screaming.  Noa is doing pretty well with school.  We have had a couple of rough days and one call from the teacher, but it has been getting better.  After a little bit of an adjustment period, Simone seems to be doing well with middle school and brought home straight As on her midterm report.

Here are some more photos from this month...check in next month for Halloween pics!

Mya, Ava, Lia

Ava

Lia

Mya

Mya, Ava, Lia

Ava & Mya

Ava

Mya: "Why do you keep putting me in the middle of these goofballs?"

Lia and her sweet chipmunk cheeks

Modeling our halloween pajamas:  Lia, Mya, Ava

Mya and Ava pinning Noa

Ava, Mya, Lia

Lia

Mya - if you look close, you can see her teeth.

A Kindergartener, A Middle Schooler & 7 Month Old Triplets

Things have been busy around here for the past month, which is why I am so late with posting 7 month  updates.  Simone has started middle school this year and Noa has started kindergarten.  This has been a new experience for both of them and keeping things busy around here.  Here are a couple of pictures of Noa's first day of school...I have none of Simone because apparently when you are in middle school you are too cool to be bothered with posing for school pics for mom :(

Noa is doing really well in Kindergarten.  All of his weekly reports have come back very good and so far no calls from the teacher.  Thank goodness we put him in the summer school program so that he would be prepared for starting school this year...I think it made all the difference in the world for him being able to adjust so easily.  Plus, he still gets a kick out of riding the bus every day, so that makes things a little easier most mornings!  Simone seems to be liking middle school...although most days she doesn't give me a lot of details.  Oh, the joys of a preteen...can't wait to see what is in store for me during the teenage years.  We just celebrated Simone's birthday last weekend since she turned 12 on September 7th.

My hippie chick's peace sign cake.

The girls have been doing well this month, but Ava has been keeping us busy.  I'm not sure if I have wrote about this in any of my previous blogs but Ava has plagiocephaly and torticollis.  Plagiocephaly is basically a flat spot on the back of her head that resulted from a preference to lay on the left side of her head.  Torticollis is a shortening of the muscles on one side of her neck that causes her to hold her head at a tilt and made it difficult for her to turn her head to the right.  It's not really sure which one of these conditions started first, but they often go hand in hand. We have been going to physical therapy to work on the torticollis for the past couple of months.  She has shown a definitely improvement in her neck mobility since we have started doing the exercises.  In order to correct the plagiocephaly, Ava will have to wear a helmet for the next 3-5 months.  We just got it this past Tuesday, so we are wearing it longer stretches every day in order to acclimate her to it.  By Monday she will be wearing it 23 hours a day.  So, in addition to physical therapy, we have to go to have the helmet adjusted every 1-2 weeks and also go see her specialist every 6 weeks in Columbia.  Hopefully it will resolve quickly and maybe we will have the helmet off by Christmas.  I think it bothers us a lot more than it bothers her!

Other than Ava's minor issues, the girls are all doing good.  They are still taking 4 bottles a day and eating solids 3 times a day.  Breakfast usually consists of oatmeal, yogurt and fruit; lunch is vegetable and fruit and dinner is meat, vegetable, fruit and whole wheat cereal.  Our schedule is still working pretty well for the most part, but we seem to be going through phases with sleeping through the night.  We usually have a couple of good weeks followed by a couple of rough weeks.  We are going through a couple of rough weeks at the moment...so hopefully the good weeks are coming up!  Although we feed all of the girls the exact same amount of food, Lia continues to pull ahead in the weight department.  I don't have exact weights, but last week Lia was already weighing about 20 lbs. when I put her on the scale!  This girls just won't stop growing!  Mya was about 17 pounds and had gained the least of the 3...but that is not surprising since that girl is in constant motion.  Even when she is sitting in her bouncy seat, she is constantly bouncing herself or twirling her feet and hands in the air.  Ava weighs a little over 15 pounds now but continues to put weight on steadily.

All three of the girls are still pretty easy going and are doing more and more to entertain themselves.  They have really started paying a lot of attention to each other.  Wade walked into the room last week to find Lia taking her pacifier out of her mouth, putting it into Ava's mouth, and then taking it back out again.  They both seemed to think that this was just hilarious!  We are trying to work on sitting so that hopefully they will be sitting unsupported within the next couple of weeks.  Ava and Lia are doing pretty good at sitting, but Mya has no interest.  I think it's because it would require her to be still in order to balance and the girl just can't sit still.

Ava and Lia practicing their sitting skills.

Well, it's bathtime around here which means that I am about to have some tired and cranky babies on my hands if I don't get this show on the road.  Here are a few more pictures from the past month.

Lia has always got to have her hands on somebody, or in this case, inside Mya's mouth.

Lia still has her hands on everyone

Ava

Lia

Mya



Sister Rosie meeting the girls for the first time.



Mya bouncing as usual

Ava, Lia & Mya

Enjoying lunch on the back deck

Lia, Mya & Ava

Mya

Noa on papa's Harley

Lia with Aunt Becky at Simone's birthday party

Lia blowing raspberries with every mouthful of oatmeal.

Mya

Lia, Mya & Ava

Mya, Lia & Ava