Back in the 'Boken

Hello everyone! I'm not sure how many of you are still reading this blog, but I've decided to keep it going for now as it has become somewhat of a journal for me to track this journey and to share with the girls someday. I do find it hard to keep up with uploading recent pictures, but at the same time I feel guilty about not doing it. Anyway...

We had a great time in Binghamton last week and the Baptism for the girls was beautiful. Fr. Corey did a fantastic job as usual at St. Patrick's. We kept it small with the immediate family so it was really intimate. Mary (Ducey) Vaughan hosted an unbelievable party afterwards for our families. We had perfect weather for her amazing back yard with the deck and the pool. The kids had so much fun swimming and playing wiffleball. There was so much good food and everyone just had a great time. Thank you Mary, Ryan, Mason, Reese and Cash for opening up your home to us and being the great hosts that you are! My Aunt Carol took pictures all day for us so we can't wait to see them. I will post some as soon as we get them.

We spent the last week back in Hoboken getting into our usual routine. We were able to get a day at the pool and some nice walks in around town. The weather has been so nice this summer. Dennis and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary on Wednesday, 8/13 and had a nice dinner out at Lua which is on the water (Hudson River) looking out at the NYC skyline. We shared a bunch of tapas which were delicious. We stopped at the Elysian bar for a drink afterwards on our way home. Carolynn and my mom offered to babysit the girls which worked out great. Dennis had a beautiful bouquet of flowers sent to the house during the day and then he gave me a gorgeous diamond necklace. It has 3 diamonds that drop down which is so symbolic of our 3 girls and 3rd anniversary. I love it! Here is a picture of us before we went out so maybe you can see it. We look a little awkward because my mom was trying to get the flowers in the background.

The girls are doing so well and are just so much fun to watch. They are starting to notice each other a bit more each day and are cooing a ton. This week we started practicing sitting up in the Bumbo chair and they liked it. They are still eating well (up to 7 oz's now) and sleeping great (day and night). The nights are getting much better with them sleeping longer stretches. Molly and Tess are the strongest sleepers especially Tess lately. She slept from 10pm until almost 8am one day. Now if only we could get Madeline to sleep as long. She still wakes up first at around 4am now. But, this is still much better than the 2am feedings. I have been able to breast feed her real quick and then go back to bed until about 5 or 6am when Molly and Tess wake up. Madeline has become quite vocal in the past couple weeks when it comes to her cry. She use to sound like a little kitten but now it is piercing loud. This is usually when she is hungry and she lets us know that she wants to eat NOW. It all makes sense now that I realize she had been on a big growth spurt and was just hungry more often then Molly and Tess.

We had a pediatrician appt. on Thursday and the girls are looking great. Here are their stats:
Molly: 9lb, 12 oz.; 221/4 length, 371/2 head
Madeline: 9lb, 2 oz.; 20 3/4 lenth, 371/2 head (Madeline did some catching up to Tess)

Tess: 9lb, 3 oz.; 21 1/2 length, 381/2 head

They are still of course very small for their age due to the prematurity but they are on the growth charts now at least. Molly is in the 10th percentile and Madeline and Tess are in the 5th percentile range. It is interesting because they seem so much bigger to me now because they really have grown a lot, but then other times I realize how small they still actually are. These pictures put it in perspective:

Carolynn (9 mo's pregnant) and Tess:

Love the face on Molly...she always look scared when we take her picture. Have I mentioned how much all three of the girls love their pacifiers? They can't get enough of them. I had purchased these pacifiers that have a stuffed animal attached to them for when they were in the hospital and they started using them right away in their Isolettes (actually Molly didn't really like hers back then but she does now). So, they have always used them, but there was a two week stretch where it seemed like they constantly wanted to be sucking on them. So, every time they would fall out they would cry so it felt like you were putting them back in their mouths all day long. But, now it has slowed down a bit which is nice. They still do love to soothe themselves with them so they are great to have. We rely on them even more so because of having triplets when you need to buy some time while your hands are tied with the other babies, etc.

They have started putting their hands in their mouths a lot and at times have started sucking on their thumbs (so cute). It wouldn't be a bad thing for us if they did start to suck their thumbs instead of the pacifiers since they can self-soothe when they need to (like in the middle of the night). I want to make note of some of their individual traits that have been coming to light over the past 3 months. Here goes:

Molly Claire:

She has the most beautiful skin tone that we all just admire. She looks tan! I know she didn't get this from my white Irish genes so it must be from her daddy who does have a darker Irish complexion. I have a feeling her sisters will be jealous of her ability to tan easily when they get older. Molly was born with a nice head of hair which is thinning out now (she has a receding hair line now...so funny) and is getting lighter each day. We can't wait to see what color hair she ends up with because some days it looks brown, some days blond, some days auburn/strawberry blond. She loves her pacifier and loves to sleep and is a very relaxed baby. She eats good, sleeps good, plays good and is just all an all around easy baby.

Madeline Rose:
She is so sweet and dainty....very lady like. She even crosses her legs when she eats. She loves to eat but her eyes are bigger than her little stomach because she spits up a lot after. So, we have to be careful with her after she eats. She smiles a lot too and can go from smiling to crying to smiling again in a split second. She loves to sit back and watch everyone, especially her sisters. She has the most beautiful long curly eye lashes and makes the cutest faces.

Tess Elizabeth:

She is going to be a lot of fun. She is entertaining to watch because she is very interactive and shows a lot of expression. She is smiling and cooing a lot. She may also be the athlete because she moves around a lot. Even when we have her all swaddled up for bed in her crib she pivots all over and we find her in a different end of the crib laying horizontal when we've put her in lying vertical. She's a great sleeper....she is sleeping a ton these days. She also has this position when she is relaxing where she cocks her head up to the right facing the ceiling. It looks so uncomfortable but she loves it. She seems to be moving away from the pacifier and sucking her thumb more. She is our fair skinned baby and gets red in the face easily if she is hot or bothered. She also has these great big blue eyes.

They are all doing so well and seem to be dealing okay with the fact that they are triplets and can't always be held or have our full attention. It is tough because you feel so bad when they are crying and you have your hands full with the other two and you can't get to them. Or you just want to be able to hold them for a longer time but you have to put them down much more than you would if you only had one. They use to be able to sleep through anything even their sister's crying right next to them but I think they are becoming more sensitive to noise now because as I was typing while they were napping Tess let out a loud yelp type of cry that startled Molly and Madeline and they sort of jumped in their sleep.

All week we had Molly and Tess in the big crib in their nursery and Madeline in the small portable crib in our room since she wakes up more often. This has been working out pretty well. Last night Dennis and I went out for awhile with friends (out 2x in one week...yeah!) while my parents put the girls to bed and we had my parents sleep in our room and then had all three girls in the same big crib in their nursery where we slept. So, when we got home it was so cute to see how they had curled up next to each other. We were just standing over their crib staring at them.

We found out there is another set of triplets (3 boys) that were also born in May that live in Hoboken. The mom and I have been emailing and are planning to get together soon for a walk or something. Should be an interesting sight! I will leave you with some recent pictures of the girls:

(LtoR-Tess, Molly, Madeline) with the flowers from Dennis in the background

above LtoR: Molly, Tess, Madeline

Molly and Madeline had enough but Tess still wanted to pose:

LtoR: Tess, Madeline, Molly

LtoR: Molly, Tess, Madeline hanging out in their little portable crib in Binghamto