I Can't Believe My Triplets Are Turning 7!!!

Today is my girls birthday party. It's a PJ, pizza party this evening. They are so excited. Their birthday isn't until Dec. 11th, but with a crazy next two weeks, this was the best day to do the party...and the bonus is that they don't have school tomorrow.

Wow, how can my babies be turning 7! It seems like just yesterday I spent months on bed rest anticipating their arrival. I remember how surreal it all seemed. How could I...a 21 year old girl be having triplets? I felt so inadequate. I'm not ready for this, I thought over and over. Donevan was in graduate school. We had just moved to Ann Arbor and had no family or friends. Everyone he talked to at the U of Michigan told him to drop out and that he couldn't handle it. I don't know why in our minds we thought we could handle it, but we did. We had faith that it would all work out and he stayed in school. The girls were delivered during his week of finals and on a day he had an emergency root canal. Yuck!!! The day the girls were born I was already in the hospital. I had been in for a while because of preterm labor. Anyone who has preterm labor and has to go on mag. sulfate is a saint. That is the worst stuff I have ever had in my life. But, it worked and they say, everyday you can keep a premature baby in the womb equals a week in the NICU.

They came into this world on December 11th 2000. We don't tell them the order they were born in. So far, they still believe that they were all born at the same time. Ashleigh was born first and weighed 4lbs 1 oz. Caitley was born second and weighed 3lbs. 4oz. and Brittany was born last weighing 4lbs. 6oz. It's actually funny how random people will say to Caitley, "I bet you were born last because you are the smallest." Is that the stupidest thing you've ever heard? Really though, you might be thinking, well why did they name them ABC and that doesn't match the order they were born? Here is the reason. When they were in the womb they labeled them baby A, Baby B, and Baby C. Then they relabeled them ABC by birth order. Baby C in the womb was Caitley and she was our small one and we were so worried about. So, when she came out, she was baby B in birth order...and we couldn't name her Brittany because all along we had been calling her Caitley. So that's how that works.

The first year of their life can be described by these words
~Bottle, Burp, Change Diapers, Sleep, Bottle, Burp, Change Diapers, Sleep.........

They say in a babies first year of life you change aprox. 2788 diapers. That means we changed 8364 diapers in a year. Crazy!!! The most annoying question of their first year of life, "How do you do it" Well here's my answer. You just do it. You don't have a choice and you just do it. I do have a philosophy that I adopted when they were first born that I have lived by since. It's "Take it One Day At A Time". You can't worry when their a newborn what it's going to be like when they're crawling. You can't worry when their crawling what it's going to be like when their walking. And I can't worry today what it's going to be like when their 16. The other funny thing about their first year of life was bottle making. We had a huge pitcher...I think it was like 4 quarts and we had a line marked on it with a sharpee marker that showed how much water was needed to be able to dump an entire can of formula in and mix a batch. It was enough bottles for three days worth. Our entire fridge would just be bottles.

The Second and Third Year of Their Lives can be described as
~Containment
We just figured out how to contain them in one location and let them play together. They never had the "terrible twos" because they never got bored. That was nice.They were really good 2 & 3 years olds. I can't mention these years w/o the dreadful potty training. We did it one at a time and boom boom boom it was done. Well actually Brittany was a little stubborn about it and one weekend we went to Salt Lake and my sister Debbie kept telling her to use the potty and by the end of the weekend, she was potty trained. It was a great day at the Neider home when we didn't have to buy diapers anymore.

The Fourth and Fifth Years can be described as
~Lots of Fun and School(yeah, a break for Mom)

Everything is magical when you're 4 & 5. The girls believed in everything and were so excited about everything. They would say the cutest things. For example Caitley couldn't say "somebody" she would say "somtibody" We still say once in a while "somtibody" and laugh about it. The best thing about 4 & 5 is the glorious preschool and kindergarten. The girls loved school from the first day they went. They enjoy learning and especially being around friends. They've always been very social...a little too social sometimes.

~The Sixth Year can be described as Emotional

I say this not in a bad way. This has been the year of a lot of emotional firsts. We have had to deal with feelings being hurt at school, the outfit they just had to wear to school isn't clean, comparing of oneself to another, first crushes and all those things that begin the girl drama. Oh little girl drama. It has just begun and like I said earlier, I will just take it one day at a time...most of the time I refer to our family therapist. Ha Ha Ha. That would be their Dad. No really, their Dad knows how to deal with the drama like no other.

So that pretty much sums it up. It's so hard to believe that I have raised these three little girls. It's been so much fun and I have learned so much about myself and they are constantly teaching me how to be a better person and I love that.

If there is anything I could wish upon them it is that they believe in themselves! I want them to know that they can do anything and that they know they are a Daughter of God. I hope they will know their self-worth. I hope they will have strong self esteems and always know how beautiful they are inside and out. It's easy in a self absorbed, materialistic world for young girls to not feel good about themselves and I hope they never have to feel that way...and again we refer to our Therapist!!!

I love being a Mom. It brings me so much joy in my life. Most days I feel like I am just doing the same things over and over and that it's not making a difference. It's in the little things that my children do each day that I can know that I am making a difference and I am very blessed. I truly am very blessed!!!!!!