Six Months and Still Kickin'

The babies turned 6 months old today. Time flies when you don't have time to look at the clock. Recently we have observed the most amazing miracle of our lives. Claire and Brynn are SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. Not just a wimpy 7 or 8 hours. I'm talking 12 straight hours. It's a beautiful thing. Too bad Lia can't jump on board. We're not going to go hard core with Lia quite yet... I just took her to the Cardiologist again today. She hasn't been eating nearly as well as usual and her breathing seems pretty labored. Long story short... her heart has continued to enlarge to the point that it's pushed her Liver down (?? What???) She is going to get her surgery next month instead of in May. I just want to get it over with.

Here are some random pics of some of the fun stuff going on in the Lloyd home:

Miriam has taken on a new hobby... she's a monkey and climbs all over everything. Mostly furniture, but she also enjoys the backyard with all the rock walls and overgrown weeds. She calls it "The Jungle." Another favorite pass time of hers is holding her baby sisters. She loves them a little too much and has to constantly be reminded to be gentle.

Miriam also really loves watching "Scooby Doo" but gets pretty scared. She needs to hug her stuffed puppy and Daddy for support.
I must say, I heart warm weather. Yesterday it was finally warm enough to take the girls out on the patio. It made me happy.

Apparently it made Brynn happy too.

Child Exploitation

Exploiting our kids started pretty simple. Derek found a list online of companies who have "multiples programs." If you have twins, triplets or more, you send them a letter along with copies of birth certificates and the companies send you free stuff. We've had stuff coming in the mail for months: diapers, formula, toys, sippy cups, onsies and lots of coupons among other things. Yesterday exploiting our kiddos went to a whole new level. I was out for my regular Saturday trip to the grocery store. It had taken a lot longer than I anticipated. Derek called to tell me to hustle because all the girls were hungry and crying. I was about 30 seconds from home when I looked in my rear view mirror. Oh crap.
Police officer: Hi Ma'am. I'm pulling you over for speeding and I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to give you a citation.
Me: Oh, Really?
Police Officer: Do you know what the speed limit is through here?
Me: 25?
Police Officer: Ya. Did you even see the flashing sign back there telling you how fast you were going?
Me: Umm, no.
Police Officer: I noticed you were on your phone.
Me: Ya. I have baby triplets at home. My husband was calling to tell me to hurry home because they are all hungry and crying.
Police Officer: Triplets? Wow. Well, do you want me to follow you home? You can take care of them and then we can take care of this.
Me: That's alright. It will only take a couple minutes, right?
So he gave me my ticket and I rushed (not sped) home to feed the babies. After I finished feeding them I was putting Miriam down for nap and Derek came in with my cell. This was the voice mail I had:
"Hi Mrs. Lloyd. This is Officer so-and-so. I just pulled you over and gave you a citation. I'm going to go ahead and void that. I think with triplets you have enough stress in you life."
Fabulous. Who knew they could even do that? Good work baby girls. Way to start pulling some of your own financial weight. Keep it up. Next stop: Tax Return. CHA-Ching.

Blessings, Blessings and More Blessings

Two weeks ago we finally blessed the girls. Derek gave them beautiful blessings and they looked like little angels. I looked everywhere to find three different dresses that I felt fit each personality. (L-R Claire, Brynn, Lia)

Lia and Claire will both have their heart surgeries in May. At their Cardiology appointment, Dr. Pinto informed us that both girls have fluid in their lungs and both have enlarged hearts.... sounds urgent to me, but she feels it's best to wait a couple more months until they are a little bigger. Ideally they don't like to do this surgery until a baby is a year old, but waiting that long isn't an option. NOT to say that these girls are small! They are now weighing in between 12 and 13 1/2 pounds. That's 3-4x their birthweights. I know they will be just fine. They will recieve wonderful care and this procedure is very common. I just feel so fortunate that it is not something more serious, life threatening or something that will need to be dealt with life long.

SPEAKING of blessings... I can't even express how grateful I am for some wonderful angels in my life. My mom goes back to work full time in March. Oh how I will miss my mommy! She has been here helping me every Monday and Tuesday from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm for the last 6 months. I have the most wonderful mommy in the world. My sister Jenette is the greatest too. Every Wednesday she comes to help me and then Miriam goes to her home on Thursdays to play with her cousins and get out of the house. My sister Jenette is the most loving and generous person I know. She is the mom I hope I can be someday. And also, my girls surrogate grandma (who is actually my little sister Julianne's mother-in-law) Annie. She loves my girls like they're her own. Just to give an idea of the kind of person she is.... she called me the day before Valentines and said "It would be a blessing to me if I could come and watch your kids so you and Derek could go out for Valentines Day." She watched all four all by herself and was still smiling when we came home. What a woman. Here she is with (L-R) Lia, Brynn and Claire. Thanks Annie. We love you.

"Mommy! Baby Sisters are Everywhere!"

That was Miriam's observation the other day, and yes Miriam, baby sisters are everywhere. Everyone thinks that their own kids are the most adorable and bright and funny and I'm no exception with how I feel about Miri. When ever I mention that I'm going to "pump" or she sees me washing the parts to my breast pump she loudly exclaims "I'm comin' mommy!" She gets as many books and stuffed puppies as her little arms can handle and hauls them upstairs into my room and we sit together on my bed while I pump. She will comb my hair or read me stories. The other day she pulled out one of her sesame street books and read the entire book to me word for word. Each page was only one or two sentences, but still I was quite impressed. When she finished, I said "Your a smarty pants." She replied "No I not mommy, I Mee-yum." (Her own special pronunciation of her name.) One area that Miriam hasn't especially excelled in is potty training. The other day we decided to test out bribery. I told her if she went pee in the potty she could have a candy. She sat on her potty buck naked for an entire hour watching Mickey Mouse before finally peeing a tiny amount. We decided to put her big girl Dora panties on her instead of a diaper and gave her the promised candy. She was so proud of herself and excited she started running in circles around the kitchen island. Within about 3 minutes she had wet her panties.

As far as the triplets, here are some update highlights:

• Lia has done really well on her formula and I'm now able to nurse her once a day.


• Claire and Lia have a follow up appointment with their Cardiologist on the 10th and their heart procedures will probably be scheduled then.


• All three girls made it through their first head cold. That was the reward we got for taking them out on Christmas.


• All three girls are also laughing as well. It's adorable, especially Claires roaring belly laugh.


• We're blessing the girls on Sunday at 10:30. Anyone who would like to come we'd love it. Email me if you'd like directions to our church stephie_lloyd@hotmail.com

A Sad Day

I'm sad today. My little Lia has been having a little bit of mucousy blood in her poops for the past week and a half. They did a bunch of tests and ruled out infection. The doctor told me that it is most likely an allergy to cows milk, which seems weird since she is 100% breast milk fed. Apparently the cows milk proteins can come through my breast milk from my diet. For the past 4 days I've completely eliminated dairy from my diet (which is actually harder than it seems.) It hasn't helped, actually she's been having even more blood in her poops. I checked in with her pediatrician today. He told me that he still thinks it's a food allergy... could be soy, wheat, corn or a number of other things. He said that it is pretty much impossible to breast feed a baby with such sensitive allergies and told me that I will need to stop breastfeeding her and start giving her a hypo-allergenic formula instead. He said that the number one priority is to stop the bleeding in her intestines caused by irritation from a food allergy, of course I agree. It's disappointing because I have worked SO HARD to be able to breast feed my triplets and finally it has been working perfectly for all three. We have a system going and It makes me so sad to have to stop breastfeeding my Lia. There is nothing sweeter than a nursing baby. Lia is the one who has liked it the best too. She's grunts with pleasure while she nurses then looks up at me and smiles while milk spills out of the sides of her mouth. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. Today I'm just sad.

Merry Christmas and Fixing Hearts

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Ours was wonderful. We actually took the babies out to enjoy the festivities... a first for us! Everyone is doing great. The girls are now in between 9 1/2 and 10 1/2 pounds, about triple their birth weights. They are all so chunky :) Really, their rolls have rolls. It's such a welcome sight after seeing them all so thin and sickly looking when they were born. I'm telling you, my breast milk must be cream. We took Lia and Claire to the Cardiologist on the 16th. They both had Echo cardiograms and we were told that both of their PDA's have not closed and they will require surgery to fix the valves. They like babies to be older and bigger for these procedures, but we were told that in about three months these will need to be taken care of. Apparently both of their hearts are enlarged on the left side due to the extra blood flowing through the open valve that should be closed. We will do the surgeries on separate days, because they will need to stay over night and I want to be able to give each baby all of my time and attention after the surgery individually. It shouldn't be a big deal. It sounds pretty routine, but anything like this kind of feels like a big deal. My girls are smiling all the time and Miriam absolutely adores them.

Family pix

My good friend Suzy took these beautiful pictures of my sweet girls. I highly recommend her!!! You can find her at http://www.suzyophotography.com/ Thanks Suz! Love ya!