So, I never wrote a follow up post about our first trip away
from the kiddos. All in all, it was
great. Michelle was pretty exhausted
from all the time spent networking and presenting at the conference and spent
most of the trip limping from a combination of blisters and too many hours
standing on cement. I spent a lovely
morning sitting at a coffee shop working with our friend Marty who flew in from
Seattle to hang out. We ate a ton of
delicious food, enjoyed a couple of happy hours with Marty and classmates from
Michelle’s program, and even did a bit of shopping. The hardest times for me were when I would
see other little ones in passing. But
honestly, it was shockingly easy to slip back into my pre-kids, big city
lifestyle for a few days. And we kept
getting cute pictures of the kiddos off on a variety of adventures with Grandma
and texts that they were doing well, which made it much easier to just relax
and enjoy the time away.
 |
| yes, we did spend a lot of time eating & drinking ;) |
On Friday
afternoon we tried to FaceTime the kiddos and that was a mistake. They were super happy and excited to see us,
but the internet was iffy at the convention center so we lost them multiple
times. And I think they realized we
weren’t coming home right away and got pretty sad, especially Avery who just
started crying. (Michelle and I were right that she would have the hardest
time.) That was the hardest moment of the trip for all of us I think. Denise said overall they did really well, but
generally missed us the most whenever they were waking up in the morning or
from naps. They had a great time with Michelle's family and went on lots of adventures!
We got home from Denver on Sunday afternoon and all three
were napping so we didn’t get a joyful “run to mommy” welcome home, but
they certainly were happy to see us when they woke up. We got lots of good hugs and snuggles that
afternoon.
 |
| welcome home snuggles |
We weren’t about to start a
10hr drive at 4pm so we drove home all day Monday making for a long long
day. And because I missed Monday and had
a couple of quarterly review meetings my work week was jam packed Tuesday
through Thursday. And of course,
Michelle has been trying to get a ton of work done this week too. Between that and just having been out of
routine for a week, this past week has been a rough one. I’m sure it is a combination of factors, but I completely
lost my parenting groove making this past week feel even harder. I’m sure some of it is that we’ve all been
off our normal routine for a week but I also think being completely “off duty”
for five days seems to have reset my
sense of “normal” or made me forget how much energy a typical day with triplets
requires. I have just been off my game
all week and even just having the mornings and evenings with the kiddos has
felt so hard. I’ve been more easily
frustrated with their typical toddler refusals, constant dawdling, whining or
crying for what they want, and what feels like constant fighting. When I’m not completely immersed in it I can
see that it’s really just typical two year old behaviors and no different than
before the trip and that there are lots of cute and fun moments too. But in the moment, it’s hard to see and feel
that. I was looking for a crabby whiny kid pictures to add here, but
when I'm "off my game" I can't step back enough to take a picture so all I found where cute and silly pics and videos like these two!
 |
Update:
I started writing this post on Friday or Saturday. It is now Tuesday and I am happy to report
that on Sunday things started to turn around.
I’m starting to get my groove back and can feel myself having more
patience and having an easier time staying calm amidst the chaos. That is the key to sanity I think when trying
to parent triplet two year olds…finding a way to find, be, and model calm
amidst the chaos. I think I just found
my own new internal mantra. =) Here’s to
a better week and lots more calm amidst the chaos!
