BockTriplets!

Well the score is Christopher 2, Anthony and Daniel 0. Christopher had a second tooth come in last night, right next to the first one. Lorna says she can see teeth ‘just under the gum’ on Daniel, and Anthony’s gums are so sensitive he won’t let me check them, so I expect we will have teeth popping like sprouts in a springtime garden any day now.

In other general news, the boys are all doing really well. They are ‘mobile’, but I wouldn’t quite call it crawling yet. Anthony olls onto his back and can do a ‘backstroke’ across the floor, and Christopher does a combination of wiggling to turn himself around and rolling to get where he wants to go. Daniel has the same kinds of motions down, but seems to be content to just sit and watch. As soon as they figure out how to lift their butts to get their legs under themselves, they will all be mobile – and we are nowhere near ready.

They are all very giggly, and are easy to get on a giggle-roll. Anthony has the strongest legs, and LOVES the jumpers we have. Christopher seems like if he could just balance himself, he’d be ready to run across the room, and Daniel loves to be flipped head over heels in a summersalt.

Last week they were about 18.5, 16, and 18 pounds (in aphabetical order).

They have been eating ‘solid’ food; basicaly mushed up string beans, peas, sweet potatoes, and stuff like that. We made the mistake of starting them on some of the sweeter stuff (like the sweet potatoes), so they fought the introduction of things like string beans. We seem to have gotten over that though.

5 Minutes ago, we had the first sign of a tooth. Christopher has the top of a tooth peeking up from his bottom left gum, almost directly in front.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a good picture for the blog, but I’ll try.

Here’s the video of the visit with Santa. Anthony cries almost the whole time, and at one point grabs Santa’s beard and pulls. In the higher res version, you can read Santa’s lips as he says, “He’s got my beard…” Oh well – I guess Anthony gets a lump of coal this year.

The boys saw Santa today for the first time. They didn’t have much of a list ready, but we sure did. Left to right in the photo is Christopher, Daniel, and Anthony.

Taking 6 month old triplets to the mall is an experience. You need to want to be the center of attention wherever you go, and Christopher sure likes to be! You can see it in the picture – he seemed to think everyone was there to meet him. Everywhere we went, people would ask about them, or tap on their spouse’s shoulder and point at us. I would hear people mumbling things like “My God… I can’t imagine”.

I have a video of the whole experience too… I’ll have it up on YouTube soon.

And by the way, I’m pretty sure that’s the real Santa, not some cheap mall Santa. The beard was real, and it was the same Santa that Lorna and I sat on the Christmas before our wedding.

Here’s the story I promised a while back…

My Grandma Bock loved to knit. In my family, we each have these big, heavy winter blankets that she knitted, and to me, the first real winter day is the day we need to wrap up with one by a roaring fire. She passed away in 1988, years before I had met Lorna.

A few months ago, my aunt Janine came over to meet the boys, bringing with her a few presents. She told us a story about How Grandma had given her a special mission – knowing that all of her grandkids were too young for her to see her great grandchildren, she knitted a bunch of stuff for them and gave them to Janine for safe keeping.

Over the years, Janine went into the box twice, both times when her daughter had kids. When she heard we were having triplets, she went to the box to see what was left. There were three bonnets and three blankets.

Left to right, that is Daniel, Christopher, and Anthony, each in their great-grandma blankets.

By the way, the big siamese cat pillow was made by my sister-in-law Nicole.

I have some pictures and stories that will be up soon (perhaps even this weekend), but in the meantime I’ll share some news updates.

The kids had their 4 month Doctor’s appointment yesterday and got some shots. Anthony currently weighs 15 pound, 7 ounces, Christopher weighs 12 pounds, 10 ounces, and Daniel weighs 14 pounds, 11 ounces. Christopher has a little acid reflux and is now on some medicine and a special formula to help, and it is doing wonders.

We have good news on the Nanny front! After interviewing a bunch of people, a few false starts, and other setbacks, I think we have finally found someone! I’ll have some info for everyone soon, but we couldn’t be happier with her qualifications – calling her a Nanny doesn’t give her enough credit – she is more like our personal childhood education consultant.

I just put a bunch of really good pictures up on flickr. Check them out.

This is probably the hardest thing I have ever had to write. I have tried to think how to avoid writing about it on this blog, but there is no way to – this will affect every day for the rest of my life. My brother Mike passed away on Aug 12th.

Everything I am today I owe to my brother’s influence. He was 7 years older than me, and I looked up to him (literally and figuratively) until I was old enough to find my own way.

I remember sitting in the Music and Arts Center in McLean, waiting for him to finish his music lessons. I wanted to play an instrument just like him, but of course it had to be a different instrument (he had played guitar, bass, french horn, and saxophone by that time). I could hear the drums in the practice room down the hall and used to watch through the little window. Those moments ultimately led me to become a music major in college… and ultimately led to my circle of friends where I met my wife.

When I got my first computer in 1979, Mike used to sit with me and type in the games we would play – before you could buy computer games everywhere, you had to type in such exciting games as Hunt the Wumpus. As we would sit there and type them in, I learned to program (probably inspired by an inspiration to cheat and beat him, no doubt). If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have my career.

Every Saturday, we would watch Ultraman on Channel 20, and we would make brownies or chocolate chip cookies. Mike would make me a “Super Giant Colossal Cookie” – basically a cookie about the size of 3 normal ones. I figured out much later in life that he would make me one big cookie so he could have all the rest to himself. But this instilled in me my baking habit; and I’m proud to say last year I baked his wedding cake.

I could go on, but my point is that there is no way I’d be the person I am today if he wasn’t my brother – and now he has been cheated out of the chance to be an Uncle to my kids. Just as I’m watching my boys figure out what it means to be brothers, I have lost mine. Fate is cruel.

No, the kids aren’t with me in the airport – this is a picture taken last week at their pediatrician visit. They are all around 7-8 pounds now… I’ll make sure I enter updates as each one crosses the 10 pound mark.

I spent this weekend in Des Moines, speaking at the Central Iowa Software Symposium. I flew in Saturday, spoke on two topics, Spoke on 4 topics Sunday and participated in an expert panel, and now I’m flying back. Even with all of that, it felt like a vacation... I got 8 hours of sleep two nights in a row.

My first flight back was cancelled though, and I’m getting home later than I thought. I can’t wait to get home and see them. Two months ago, the sound of a screaming kid in an airport or restaurant sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Now my heart skips a beat as if I need to jump up and respond. It is amazing how having kids feels as if it rewires part of your brain.

Just a quick thought that I hope helps other pending parents of multples – I was just talking with a friend of mine and I told him that we had set our tivo up to record anything with ‘triplet’ or ‘multiple’ in th description appearing on discovery, A&E, the Discovery Health, and so on.

thanks to all of the shows like ‘A Baby Story’, we were really prepared for all of the possibilities – and complications – that can happen with multiple births.