Mission Impossible?

The target: SLEEP The obstacles: Three Newborns It's dark in the lakehouse. Only the light from the TV is flickering with low volume playing an episode of "Bones" to keep my eyelids from shutting. In my arms is a baby girl eating from her bottle and I am struggling to stay awake. Beside me in a boppy is a baby boy who, at the moment, I thought was fussing. Beside him, with his feet kicked back and slightly reclined, is my husband, holding the other baby boy. Across the room sleeping on a pallet is our four year old sleeping the way we wish were doing. As I am sitting there feeding one, I look sleepily over at the baby in the boppy (who I thought was fussing) to put a passy in his mouth. It is at that moment I realize it is not the baby in the boppy crying. I am slightly startled to a more awake state and look over to see the baby my sweet, sweet husband is holding, with his feet straight up in the air. I panicked and immediately begin yelling "Michael! Michael!" He then snaps up, throwing the reclining seat forward, baby still upside down. At this point I am on the verge of tears thinking that my sleep deprived husband has squashed our baby's head in the seat when he sat it up. I am yelling at him "get the baby, get the baby!" He is looking at me blankly yelling "what baby?!" I yell "the baby in your arms!!!" He looks down and grabs him up. I then begin to laugh hysterically as I am shaking, still feeding our baby girl, with the other baby boy still sleeping in his boppy and four year old snoozing on the floor. I know it seems a bit irrational to be laughing when the moment before you thought your baby's head might have been squashed, but when you are going on little to no sleep for seven weeks straight...laughing hysterically is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. At that point in time it was probably 3am and my husband had been up since 4am the night before. The story ends with upside down baby falling right back asleep in his daddy's arms. I tell Michael to lay him down and go to bed. My husband responds with, "yes, but if you need me, please wake me up by gently shaking my arm or something, and not yelling at me." Poor guy, I scared us both to death. So, end of story, we are tired. That about summarizes our seven weeks with triplets. :) We live for the weekends when mom and Clay come and give us some time to sleep. This past week Granny Shirley, Clay's mom, came and has been an AMAZING help with the babies, cooking, and washing bottles. This has definitely given us time to take turns napping during the day. Everyone asks if this is harder than I thought it would be and my answer is no, it really isn't. I, in no way, shape, form, or fashion at any point in time thought this was going to be easy. We are changing more poopy diapers, going through more formula, and soothing babies hour after hour all while trying to entertain a four year old who is feeling a little bit left out. At the end of the day though, I kiss four children's sweet heads and tell four sleepy children that I love them and my heart is full with more love than I could have known. The babies are growing and changing every day and we are so very thankful that we are all healthy (minus sleep deprivation). I am so very fortunate to have a husband who is right there with me changing diapers, washing bottles, doing everything I do and some things better. :) The babies have actually done better sleeping the past two nights. We feed them, swaddle them, and put them down. Last night they went about five hours in between feeds with only a couple of times of needing soothing. It would have been great, except Michael woke up to help feed with a migraine. He is feeding our reflux baby, Gabe, and he is not having a good feed with lots of reflux. I am feeding Ethan. Michael quickly gets up and places Gabe in his carrier and runs to bathroom. I hear Michael throwing up because of his headache and I look over and Gabe has formula coming out of his nose and mouth. Caroline is waking up and becoming fussy and the four year old wakes up from all the noise. I run to Gabe, lay Ethan down, and pick Gabe up. Michael comes back with a bath cloth on his head and finishes feeding Gabe. He is truly a trooper. After that the babies go back to sleep and stay asleep until about 6am. So, maybe just maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel with completely sleepless nights. Our conclusion is that maybe sleep is a mission impossible at the moment, but we figure in twenty years or so, we may sleep through the night, and while sleep is little, the rewards are great. That is just a quick insight into our lives at that moment!  It has been fun and already so many great memories.