Bring It on: The Sacramento Zoo and other adventures...

Hey Momma!

(Sidney)

Elliott (shown here) and Jenson have started to pull themselves up on stuff. Cue me lowering their cribs yet again!

The boys with their friend Emma

(she's been helping us keep the boys entertained

almost since they were first born!)

The boys and I stopped by Jason's office last Friday to have lunch and visit with his coworkers. The boys had fun, Daddy had fun, and I'm pretty sure we distracted enough of his coworkers that productivity was possibly affected. :) Jason's coworkers have been so amazingly supportive of us and our little family from the beginning, and it's so fun to see how excited they get when we show up.

Sidney

Sidney & Jenson

Sidney

Jenson

(did I mention we're pulling ourselves up on stuff?!?)

With Jason's coworker Tessa

... and we've really started crawling up the 2 steps into the kitchen too!

Sidney is the only one who hasn't done this yet, which is totally fine. (And let's be honest- life will probably be slightly more crazy when all three are going in three different directions, so Sidney can just take his sweet little time if you ask me!)

I used to get all feisty and worried about whether or not the boys were meeting their developmental milestones on time, with each other, at the "head of the class"... I finally realized that I was getting way too worried about things and had to just CHILL OUT. I think a lot of my neurosis in this arena was tied in with my guilt over having to try and split my energy and time evenly between the three of them... and realizing that I was just not going to be able to achieve any sense of perfection in this area. So, might as well settle down, chill out, and just enjoy each little step whenever the boys decided to achieve them! And since I've adopted this as my agenda, I've been enjoying parenting so much more.

At the Sacramento Zoo, where the boys were pretty much not at all interested in any animals, but were totally fascinated by some growing bamboo

But we did get all of them to look at this bird at the same time.

Roaming the trails at the zoo with Daddy

Jenson nodded off in the Reptile House...

The trip to the zoo was a little bit of an eye opener for us. I'm used to people coming up to me when I take the boys out for errands/adventures and asking us questions, etc. But I was totally unprepared for the zoo. Here we were surrounded by other families- parents and children!- and I have never felt like such a circus freak as I did that day. People were making rude comments, laughing, stopping right in the path of our stroller to gawk and stare, taking our picture without asking, etc. While Jason and I enjoyed our time with our boys, we really didn't enjoy the reactions that we garnered. I realize that three babies together are a little bit more unusual than one baby alone, but it's not like they are totally foreign. To be sure, we are a little more visible when we dress the munchkins alike and throw them in the triplet stroller. But I bet the zoo could have charged extra for admission that day for people looking at the new exhibit- the elusive and rare "Human Triplets"!!

I know that our life together with these boys is going to be a little bit different than the average person's. I get that concept. But I also firmly believe that when you break things down to their base level, we're not that much different than other families. Yeah, I probably change more diapers than the average momma. And my guess is that not every parent has to remind their sons that "we don't use our brother's head as a jungle gym!" like Jason and I do. But still- we're just two parents... trying to raise three little boys into respectful young men... just like every other parent.

So the zoo trip left a bad taste in my mouth, and I was kind of bummed about it for a few days. But you can't stay bummed for long when you hang out with these three happy little dudes.