Archive for July, 2009

Escalators, Baby Banger, and 1-2-3

Published by Daphne on Jul 25, 2009 in Angelina, Deep, Jubilee, Madeleine and Pictures. 0 Comments

I was alone with Jubilee the other day and we were running errands together. At one store, we took the escalator. Suddenly, my heart became wistful. As far as I can recall, Angelina and Madeleine have yet to ride an escalator! When Jubilee was their age, riding escalators was one of her favorite pastimes. Our trip to NYC involved many an escalator ride as part of her tourist experience. And it’s not simply because she’s the oldest and the oldest always gets to do more things or do them first. It’s because she was a singleton. I just don’t walk around stores with my children anymore; Angelina and Madeleine are always in a stroller or cart. The most I’ve walked in public areas is from the car to the closest shopping cart so that I can “cage” the toddlers before going shopping.

It’s not just escalators. Every once in a while I would let Jubilee play a computer game called “Baby Banger.” It taught her that if she pressed a key, then a picture would pop on the screen. But how can I play that with two toddlers? I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s not easy because they already fight over toys. Nothing is easy when you’re raising multiples… and an older child!

Another game that they’ve missed out on is “1-2-3” where each parent is holding the child’s hand and you lift the child up into the air. Kind of difficult to do when you’re outnumbered by your children. We did manage to play 1-2-3 with Angelina the other day. We were both holding her hands and David was carrying Madeleine with his other arm, and Jubilee wasn’t with us to get jealous. Needless to say, Angelina loved it. Thankfully, Madeleine didn’t seem to care.

I guess a lot of this comes down to being more diligent in giving Angelina and Madeleine these experiences.

Jumped Ship Again

Published by Daphne on Jul 25, 2009 in Deep, Madeleine and Prayer. 0 Comments

Madeleine jumped out of the other crib this afternoon. I think she was pumped with adrenaline as she had been trying all afternoon to do it and finally succeeded. Now we really have to consider putting her mattress on the floor. This is difficult because 1) we have to make sure the room is safe if she wanders around, and 2) she will likely wake Angelina out of her sleep by poking her.

Sleep training Madeleine is not fun. We’ve been praying a lot for this strong willed child.

A Week of Croup

Published by Daphne on Jul 12, 2009 in Angelina, Deep, Illness and Madeleine. 0 Comments

Quite suddenly Tuesday morning, Angelina started coughing a barky cough and had a high fever. Madeleine’s fever came a day later. The first few nights were horrible. Angelina would cough and have trouble breathing, which would wake up Madeleine. After Angelina was taken care of (outside for fresh air, hot steam, holding), she would go to sleep, but Madeleine’s separation anxiety would kick in.

On Wednesday night, I stayed up late. I was mostly waiting for Madeleine to stop crying and go back to sleep. At some point I gave up and took her to the living room. I read Goodnight Gorilla to her as a not-so-subtle hint that it was bedtime. Then she sat and read in my lap while I leaned my head back in a semi-conscious matter.

Eventually, Angelina woke up again with breathing trouble. I took her to the bathroom to run hot steam. Madeleine didn’t even mind not being carried. In fact, she happily stood by my side, following me around. When Angelina dropped her blankie, Madeleine picked it up and gave it back to her sister like a good little helper. I couldn’t believe how alert she was at 3 in the morning!

When I put Angelina to bed, I put Madeleine into bed too. I even gave her Goodnight Gorilla hoping it would calm her down. She still took 20+ minutes before she went to bed. I watched her on the monitor, she cried, read the book, then finally went to sleep. Crazy.

On Thursday, I was wide awake. I didn’t even take a nap, though mostly because Jubilee had ballet class that afternoon. But come 7:30pm, I hit a wall. Oof. The next few nights were not bad. They still have low grade fevers,their noses are now running faucets, and their is minimal. David and I got to out on a date Saturday afternoon so that was nice. Except that we were really tired.

Prodigy?

Published by Daphne on Jul 7, 2009 in Angelina, Deep and Firsts. 0 Comments

Of course I’m being facetious, but who knows?

David once told me that you can recognize a potential piano prodigy (try saying that three times fast) by the way they play the piano. Are they drawn to the piano? Do they enjoy sitting there? What does their “music” sound like?

All my kids love playing on the piano. In particular, they like it when we’re playing it. They beg to be helped up onto the piano bench - all at the same time. It makes practicing the piano difficult when your children are also banging on the piano.

Today, Angelina was at the piano. But instead of banging like all three kids usually do, she was playing very gently. I think she was paying attention to how she was playing and what the notes sounded like.

Or I could just be imagining things.

New Words

Published by Daphne on Jul 3, 2009 in Angelina, Firsts, Jubilee and Signs & Words. 0 Comments

Angelina’s speaking vocabulary is growing. Often she is heard mimicking us, that is, immediately repeating the word we just said. In these cases, it’s a little difficult to know if she’s actually learned the word. In the past couple of days she’s been saying some things that are on her own accord.

If she wants to show you a toy, she will bring it to you and say, “Look.”

If she wants to perform a trick or stunt for you, she will say, “Watch.”

And my personal favorite, if she’s giving something to you, she will say, “Here you go, Mom.” It took me a long time to decipher this phrase.

Reflecting on these words, I’m pretty sure she learned them from her older sister Jubilee.

Solution (We Think)

Published by David on Jul 2, 2009 in Deep, Firsts and Madeleine. 0 Comments

After monitoring enough of Maddie’s attempts, we think we finally identified exactly how she was able to climb out. She would get into a corner and reach out her arms over the crib up to her armpits. Then she was strong enough to pull down her arms and thus “lever” her body up a little bit, feet off the crib mattress. Once up this little bit she would wedge her feet against the two vertical corner slats where they formed an angle. From there all it required was sheer determination to climb up a little further. We never witnessed what happens next, and we don’t plan to either because we don’t want to let it happen again.. all I can picture are some pretty scary looking falls.

So.. in the end, we simply swapped cribs because the other crib has sides and ends of uneven height such that Maddie can’t stick her arms out over the rails at a corner. Also, there is no corner angle where vertical slats meet together at the side and end. (It’s hard to explain with words.)

We are relieved to observe that she hasn’t tried to climb out again since her initial attempts were thwarted in this new crib.

After Last Night

Published by Daphne on Jul 2, 2009 in Deep, Humorous, Jubilee and Madeleine. 0 Comments

We expected Madeleine to sleep in since she had been awake for 3 hours in the middle of the night. Nope! Angel and Maddie woke up even earlier than usual. So David went in to give them some toys. Maddie, of course, did not like the idea of remaining in the crib. So she jumped ship again!

David wanted to buy a bed that day. I wasn’t so eager to have one toddler in a crib while another could roam around during room time. The other solution is a crib tent. Unfortunately, I was told that you need a crib where the sides are all straight. So I’m not sure if it will fit on either of our cribs.

What to do? High tech geekiness and a mother’s need to be more determined than her daughter! David set up a LAN camera so I could watch Madeleine during nap time. I had the children play and eat lunch in the backyard to use up energy, hoping this would make Maddie too tired to climb out.

When it was nap time, Maddie started crying as soon as I put her in the crib. I went to my computer and monitored her. Jubilee loved this. She got a big kick out of it and acted like a hall monitor. “I’ll tell you when she starts to climb out,” she said.

“No, tell me when she stands up,” I explained. “You can also tell me when she starts to climb out, but it’s more important to know when she’s standing so I can be ready.”

So we stayed in my room like security guards. Jubilee sat at the computer while I positioned myself to get to Madeleine before she could get out of the crib. She tried a couple times, but I immediately ran in there before she could escape. It lasted about 10 minutes and she fell asleep.

Determined

Published by Daphne on Jul 1, 2009 in Deep, Firsts and Madeleine. 0 Comments

I came home late Tuesday night. When I got into the bedroom, David and I began talking. Our noise probably woke Madeleine up. She would not go back to sleep. From 11:00pm to 1:00am we did everything: changed her diaper, held her, gave her water, gave her milk, gave her gripe water, showed her our bed and that we wanted to be asleep in it, ignored her, prayed for her, who knows what else.

At 1:00am, when we thought the gripe water would do the trick, we told her we weren’t going to come in again. We went to bed and turned off the lights. After a few minutes, yes, she began crying again. Every time we thought she was slowing down, she started crying more. There were times when the crying sounded belligerent.

We heard her flop down on her bed ready to sleep, but she kept crying. We heard a flick of the door handle and that shocked us. Did she throw a book from her crib to the door? Then we heard knocking! Oh no!

We rushed into the bedroom. Sure enough, she had climbed out of her crib, determined to get out of the room to run to us. Oh no!

Madeleine had won the battle! We put her in our bed. She was calm until I turned out the light. Then she started crying again! So David pondered that maybe she was becoming afraid of the dark. He found a night light, plugged it in the bedroom, put Madeleine in the crib, and closed the door.

We didn’t hear a peep for the rest of the night. That is, for the next 5 1/2 hours because it was now 2:00am!

(And if you’re wondering, yes, Angelina slept through the entire ordeal.)