Triplets at 10 months

I can't believe how much the babies have changed in just a few weeks. So much personality. So different from each other. 

Beau has grown three teeth in 1 week. (2 bottom and r side incisor) She and Gigi added "Dog" to their repertoire. 

Gigi enjoys using the word dog to call out to every animal and to her father. Very funny to see him correct her and than, almost as if joking, she says dog again and laughs.

Carlos, still my lover. Likes to give kisses and eats using his whole fist to push food in while his sisters use two finger, fine motor skills. 

They know what it means when I say " No se toca!" Don't touch. But Gigi, my troublemaker, looks at me and laughs before she  goes right back to the naughty business. There is routine to the day, but it doesn't mean it is any less non-stop. 

   A man on the phone yesterday let his true thoughts slip yesterday when he said, "So you just stay at home, right?" I didn't even feel bad about it. It IS what I do, REALLY. It was just, that I know what he imagines my day to be and how different it really is from that image I will try to tell you. 

One day:

6:15 Beau wakes up. Feed her. Change her diaper

6:30 Gigi and Carlos are up. Feed and change them.

7:00 Golden and Eva get up for school. 

7-8:00 Change all babies diapers again because they like their morning constitutionals.

           Put lunches in back packs.

          Get dressed. 

          Get older kids dressed, teeth brushed, hair brushed, dog fed and taken out

8:00 Get three babies in jogging stroller and walk two older kids to school while going over spelling words while holding project on stroller

8:15 -9;15 Jog with babies

9:15 Put babies down for nap

9:15-10 laundry and clean kitchen

10:00 one baby will wake up. 

10:00-10:30 Other load of laundry, try and answer any phone messages, pay bill etc., Prepare baby lunches

10:30-11:00 baby play time. Change diapers

11:00-12:00 Babies eat lunch

12:00-1:00 Get babies changed out of clothes, Change diapers and Baby play time

1:15- 1:45 (or 2:00) Baby nap time. Fold laundry. Clean house. Go to bathroom first time today. 

Put dishes away. 

2:20 Change diapers. Load babies in stroller to pick up big kids at school. 

2:20-2:45 Walk to and back from school

2:45-3:30 Baby snack time. Help big kids with homework at same time.

Make lunches for next day. Clean kitchen from lunch and snack time.

3:30-4:45 Change diapers. (and think how much poop can a baby make?) Take big kids to ballet, piano, activity etc. Or Play time at home with babies.

4:45-5:30 Prepare dinner. Feed babies, big kids and husband. Fold more laundry.

5:30-6:30 Baby bath time. Feed babies snack

6:30 Beau goes to sleep

7:00-7:30 Carlos and Gigi make it to bed. 

7:30-8:30 Spend time with big kids, reading, playing. 

8:30-9:30 Go to grocery store to replenish all the food devoured by said children.

9:30-9:45 Spend a few moments of alone time with my husband before we crash in a coma.

12:00am- Feed Gigi, who still likes a midnight snack.

4:00am -4:30Feed Beau who decides she wants to play for awhile

6:15 Start this all over again.

The days change but the routine doesn't change much except to add more things into it. Like I don't even mention all the carrying of babies and nursing that is still going on.So yes, I stay at home and I dare that man to try and do it. He won't last 30 minutes. 

I love this video of Mike. It shows how he lost to a 10 month old.

Can any girl love him more than his sister?

She makes bars look good.

My future baller

I love this series of Beau at the glass door. 

Can any man love me this much?

Can you see her three teeth?

The girls play peek a boo

Gigi

My Romeo

Gigi has the best toothless grin I've ever seen. It's hard to ever get mad at her.

Carlos and his favorite brush. We call him "Vidal Sasson"

Writing Experiment

So, I was late with my entry into a writing contest. But I already had my mental diarrhea and felt it a waste to just toss it. Instead, I will place it here just in case another writing contest asks me to write a  200 word essay using the words "bridge, rust, and wet hair."  

  The Robin's Light

     Thomas’ bloodied leg was a small price to pay to be alive. Both he and the girl leaned against the rusted gate catching their breath. He couldn't explain why he had saved her except that something in her eyes reminded him of home. 

     Pushing the wet hair from her face, Marina stole a glance at her opponent. She thought he must be the worst soldier she had ever met, for he spent the better part of an hour battling her only to save her from certain death in the river rapids. She sighed as she looked around at the remains of the Astor Bridge. "No better place to die," she thought. Running was futile. No Robin had survived this long. "Will you kill me now, Robin slayer?"

     When the initial magnitude of her statement had registered, Thomas did not respond with words. Instead, he put up his palm to her revealing the warm blue light. Unable to hold back her tears, she cast her own azure light back at him. At this moment she was sure of two things; She was not the only Robin who survived past the age of eighteen, and hope had been restored in her heart. 

   

Friday Night Dating....the Harris Way

     After a long week of triplet doody duty, I was ready to be wined and dined Friday night. I was looking forward to a large popcorn at the movie and maybe, if I was lucky, a smoothie with my man. That is why I was a bit disappointed when he told me he had been asked to be the doctor at an amateur MMA fight at the Hilton. Do you know how desperate I must have been for any activity outside of these four walls to agree to watch grown men beat each other? But, I will tell you how a change of heart occurs.
     First, I met Mike at the Hilton where we had a nice sushi dinner before the fight. I love me some raw fish and was immediately in a good mood. When it was time to go inside, there was a huge line to get in....except for us. We had VIP passes around our necks and glided past the masses into the arena which consisted of a bunch of tables around a ring like we were seated around a dance floor at a wedding reception.If there was fighting at a reception, maybe a Kardashian wedding. In the very back there was a partition for the standing room only crowd ( or poor suckers as I lovingly called them). But we had really great seats. We were literally sat at the ring. I could lean in and touch the cage, and I mean cage, this is not an exaggeration. If you don't watch MMA, the fighting is in a circular arena that is fenced in just in case the fighters...oh, I don't know, slam each other against the fence. When I attend ballets and musicals, I like to be up close to see the footwork and appreciate the costumes. Here I was probably going to get a front row whiff of their BO and splashes of their sweat and blood. Then I met Travis, the fight promotor in charge, who asked me if I was ready to step in as the doctor if Mike was not able to. I laughed and, with a false bravado, said, "Yeah, I am more prepared than he is." The rules are that the doc has to examine each fighter immediately after a fight while they are still in the ring, before any further fighting can occur. Tonight there were ten fights scheduled.
     From the very first match, I was captivated. Really. My husband does Jiu-Jitsu and I have a rudimentary appreciation for the art of it but here, in the ring, it was a combination of a bar brawl and ballet, if both opponents had just enough knowledge of wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu,  and hand to hand combat to make the fighting seem.....beautiful.  The fighters were mostly young, zero body fat specimens with 50 % testosterone and 50% adrenaline fueling them on. It wasn't just a fight of braun. Eventually, the guy who had the actual technique of Jiu-Jitsu down and applied it, won. Simple as that. And at the end, Mike would go in and check them out. No problem! Wrong.
     During the third match, a fighter was pulverized by his much younger ( 19 yo) , first time at the show, opponent. The day before, at weigh in, Mike said that the 19 yo didn't make weight and that the opponent said if he ran around for an hour he would fight him if he lost two pounds to make it. The youth went out on the beach and ran his heart out while the veteran laughed with Mike about how he was psyching him out, getting him tired for the fight. The newbie did in fact, lose the 2 lbs and was allowed to fight. I don't think the veteran will make that mistake again. I guess you forget that teenagers are just a mystery of self reproducing energy. Mike and I both went back to the lockers to treat the veteran who developed intractable nausea and vomiting from the numerous blows to the kidneys and abdomen he received. I think he must have lacerated his spleen or kidney and was sent to the ER.
     The rest of the matches were intense and Mike had to go back to attend to a fighter with a broken jaw. Travis asked if he could proceed with the fight with me there. I figured Mike could bag and tag the guy to the ER pretty quick and said, "Sure." A minute and a half into the fight. The winner submitted his much stronger and faster opponent in an Americana arm bar. "SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!" I thought to myself over and over. I was wearing stiletto sling backs and a peasant blouse. Did I really belong in the ring with these men I would have purposely have crossed the road to avoid? The answer was yes. I grabbed my gloves and checked out both fighters. A nice man with a braided goatee helped me into the cage and another brick wall of a man helped me out.
     When the next fight began, Travis came and sat next to me. "I want to stay close for this one. These two have been going at it all night and I almost had to call the police back there. There is a lot of bad blood." I scanned the room for Mike and only found a crowd of spectators. To make my nerves go to high alert even more, these two fighters were the ones Mike had said impressed him the most in the physicals. They were in the super heavyweight category and Mike needed to tape the blood pressure cuff around the fighter with the braided mohawk. "I could wear his watch on my bicep."is how he described the smaller one. The other guy looked like Magilla Gorilla and Fat Albert had a baby. It was almost comical to see this guy in the ring after all of the other fighters. He must have supplemented his diet with yoohoo and ding dongs to get his shape. I thought I knew how this fight was going to end. I was wrong.
     The bell rang and mohawk ran like a freight train straight at FA and both of them flew into the cage right in front of me causing me to do the really cool move of lifting my hands up and screaming like a little girl. Travis found this hilarious. Next, FA pushed mohawk around the ring until he stumbled and FA simply fell on him. If I wasn't worried about mohawk's actual ability to breath, this scene was really funny. All you saw was FA splayed over mohawk, not moving at all, while poor mohawk's little legs scissored back and forth. Travis said that this was FA one and only move. That by simply crushing his opponents he would win. So much for training. But just when you thought this was the stupidest fight you could ever see, FA actually pulled his leg over mohawk and put his arm in an arm bar causing him to tap out. I couldn't believe Mike had missed this. It was amazing. But wait, oh crap, I have to go in there, don't I?
     I girded up my loins and made the walk into that arena where FA was screaming into the camera and mohawk laid motionless on the floor. The MC, in typical fighting voice said, "In the ring is DRRRR. Sylvia Harris." I walked over to mohawk and felt like this is the feeling people must get when they come across a beached whale in the ocean. He was huge. Unlike a whale, he was all muscle. A whiny, muscular whale. He said he couldn't feel his right arm. "No lie! Hagrid over there just ripped your arm off, dude! What do you expect?" As I crouched there in the ring, Mike showed up and said I couldn't have looked cuter in my heels and capris leaning over, examining the guy. Thanks hon.
     What I did come away with was a new respect for cage fighting and like every activity in life I had to find a lesson in it. The fighting was very much a representation of the kinds of people in life. There are the people who fight and fight and fight, expending all their energy and never doing much with their lives. And then there are the ones who take the time to educate themselves and realize life is not always kind to the hard worker but the educated one. They win using the muscle between their ears.
     Mike thinks he would like to try his hand at a fight. In all honesty, knowing his knowledge of Jiu-Jitsu, I know he could win but the difference is that all of those fighters last night had nothing to lose. That makes them dangerous....to me at least. But I wouldn't mind being the doc at another fight.  I think all the girls there need a better role model than The Girls Next Door. So at the next fight I will parade around the ring in my bikini, holding my doctor bag over my head instead of a ring sign. I will have to really do some self examination of why I loved it so much. But that is for another day.

Triplets at nine months.

This is the quietest moment I have had in nine months. It was on a car ride to Orlando and lasted about thirty minutes. Instead of resting, I videotaped it so I could watch it at times when they weren't so quiet.
Stats at this time:   Lbs   Hgt
Gisele                 19.56   28.50
Beau                   18.31   27.25
Carlos                 18.38   29.00

It's amazing they survived with how well we manage their hygiene.

I just thought I would add some of my favorite photos from this month

HO HO HO.....Belated Christmas Blog

I wish I had a "Pause" button on the weeks and months following Christmas. It all goes by so fast, between the school parties, the traveling to see loved ones, the countless hours making cookies, candies, gift wrapping. By the time January arrives, I have a list a mile long of things I have postponed doing due to the holidays as well as a bunch of resolutions I have to hurry up and break. Add to that a computer malfunction and I am soooo behind on my blogging. So, to give all of my pictures their due, I will give you a play by play of the festivities.

     We went down to Miami and spent the holidays with our friends and family. It was truly pleasant to see everyone. And for anyone who knows me, they know how incredible this statement is. No drama. No trips to the hospital or jail. Just good times with people we love. I guess we are all grown up after all. If ever I had any doubt about how we are getting older, I got to spend time with my nieces and nephews. My nephewTony's kids are just beautiful. They are around the same ages as Golden and Eva and that wasn't such a surprise since Tony is actually older than I am. The surprise was that my niece Susan has two kids. I used to change her diapers y'all. And her kids can play with my kids. WOW! It was very emotional for me to see Henry's girls since it had been years since I saw all of them together. Now two are married and one is serious with a boy so who knows. Funny, but I still see myself as twenty so these moments seem surreal. 

     My mother is over the moon with the triplets but she is equally in love with my two older bambinos and sees a lot of me in my daughter Eva. Santa made it out to South Florida without a hitch and we spent another Noche Buena and Christmas day with our friends The Guerra's. 

Babies first Christmas was truly memorable. 

My sister Maria, me, Beau, and Eva at our Christmas dinner

Abuela with her grand babies.

John,Gisele, Shelby,Beau, Carlos and Joe 

I love Beau's dress.

Eva and Carlos get into the Christmas spirit

The second cousins.Top( Golden, Troy, Kyle,Eva) Bottom ( Beau, Gisele, Carlos)

Christmas morning at the Guerra's

Eva poses for the camera

Abuela was smitten with Eva convinced that she was a reincarnation of me.

So nice to see my brother Henry's family too. Kathleen is so beautiful with her cousins and mom Ivis.

Henry and Mike catch up by the pool.

It was not only wonderful to spend the day with my nieces but also to see Susan's children too. How blessed could a girl get.

Running Around with Friends.....Or Miami ING Marathon

    This was the tenth anniversary of the Miami marathon. For those who don't know me well enough:

1. I love to run

2. I don't run to break records.

3. I like to set running goals for myself after I give birth, i.e. Golden- Disney marathon, Eva-Panama    City half Ironman. Triplets-Pensacola half marathon.

4. I will do practically ANYTHING for a Tshirt and a medal

Thus, when my friend Bert tells me, "Hey, I'd like to try running a marathon. Will you run with me." I tied up my shoes and checked the website to make sure the prize was worth my time. And, whoa Nellie, is this a medal or what? You can't see it here but that big orange tree thingy spins. I love Miami. All that was missing was Your in Miami Trick to start playing when you turned it and the skycape to light up. Here's hoping for maybe the twentieth anniversary. 

     We didn't run alone either. I like to be surrounded by my friends when I can so I asked my friend Jerry to join us, which he so graciously did. 

This race has been a true experience in what friendship truly means. 

     

     My friend Bert is a busy working mom. When I go to visit her in Miami, I am exhausted just watching her go. She's that mom that gets home from a twelve hour day and than decorates the house for a birthday party on Tuesday only after she has gone to the cub scout meeting she has conducted. Somewhere there she has found the time to not only train for a marathon, but to start running....period. She has run through neighborhoods I wouldn't even drive through, speeding, with my doors locked and passing all the red lights. She is tough. 

     

     The only person that may be tougher is my friend Jerry. Jerry is also a lawyer like Bert. He works everyday. He never takes a day off. And even though he is never NOT working, he manages to wake up before most people in Miami even make it to bed and runs farther in one day than most people will run all month maybe all their life. He is an ultra runner. Jerry likes to run races that are 100 miles or longer. They last more than 24 hours and most of them don't even have water stations. Jerry is made of steel. He ran 25miles the day before the race to warm up. (Yes, you can hate him now.)

   

     As for me, you know I got those new triplets to run with. So enough about my struggles. Just know this was a true labor of love for all of us to train, fly in, leave our babies for the first time etc....

    As we got to the race, I was thinking about the history of the marathon. How Pheidippides, a Greek soldier had to run from the Battle of Marathon to Athens (Did I mention he had just fought IN the battle before running) When he arrived in Athens 26.2miles later, he said, "We were victorious." before he collapsed and died. I was really hoping times had changed since then and that we were better prepared.For instance, Bert had music. The fanfare was great. Latin music blaring. Fireworks. Runners without shirts who actually looked good without their shirts. Every country was represented in this international race.

Bert's kiddos met us on our travels.

Looking pretty good after 26.2 miles. Jerry, me, Bert

The sign on the right is Spanish for Go-ooo.

     The highlights were simple, we ran through streets filled with beautiful homes, with incredible views of the water and Miami skyline. We were cheered on by strangers in several different languages. We met interesting people on the run including a 36 week pregnant yoga instructor (show off) and a French woman who let me brush up on my French as she convinced me to run the Rome marathon. Jerry and I even had time to get down and dance to some Adele on mile 18. And best of all, Bert's family met up with us along the run to show they cared. I didn't care much for the actual buzzards that were circling on mile 21,( NO LIE. But they were there for somebody else.) but that's the way things go in a marathon. You never know what your going to get. 

  

     As Bert ran next to me we reached mile 26. When we saw the finish line it started to rain and I told her to give it all she had. "Let's finish strong." She told me she was indeed giving it her all and step by step we made it to the finish. With her family cheering us on, the three of us made it to the end and got our awesome medals. 

Or in the words of Pheidippides, we were victorious. 

     Bert said this was her first marathon. But I think we are all running a marathon of sorts in our life. Bert was there cheering me on in my marathon to become a doctor. Sometimes running next to me when I thought I couldn't take another step forward. Jerry is finishing the marathon of raising a son. All the time, we have had good and bad moments, enjoyed the good scenery, met some new friends and been circled by buzzards. But we  were victorious and have the medals to prove it. 

Signs I loved along the way:

No pare! Sigue. Sigue! (Don't stop. Go. Go.)

Kick some Asphalt.

Run 26.2 miles because 26.3 would be crazy

Most people don't even drive 26 miles on the weekend

Your perspiration is our inspiration

Sweat is fat crying.

Dale que tu puede (Go because you can do it.)

No poop or pee pee on the lawn. I mean it.

     

    

Happy Birthday. Someday

Today I woke up with you jumping on my bed. So excited it was your third birthday. Knowing you couldn't contain yourself until breakfast, daddy had your present hidden underneath our bed. You tore the paper quickly and we couldn't help but laugh at your facial expressions when you saw the new toy train. I reach out and push the tuft of curly hair out of your hazel eyes as you turn the train around and around in your hand. Dad and I can't help but kiss those chubby hands of yours. They are always so busy these days. With the triplets already awake and in bed with us, you use this opportunity to show them your toy. You drive it over each of their wiggly bodies making train noises. You are so patient with them and let them drool and bite it as you tell them all about what it can do. Just as you finish describing your new toy to them, Golden comes in the room and crawls into bed right next to you. He hugs you and pats your head like he does every morning but sees your train and a gleam appears in his eyes. He takes it from you and begins to tell you all the details about the train you just finished telling the triplets about. But you are such a good baby brother that you listen intently to your older brother and let him hold your new toy. Finally, Eva walks in and gives you a card she made from scratch last night. She hugs you and you melt into her arms as you always do when she is around- her being your second mommy and all. She pretends to be mad at you for waking up early because she was going to bring you breakfast in bed. You suggest she brings it into our room. Minutes later a tray with a waffle and whip cream in the shape of a smiley face is put in front of you. We all sing you happy birthday. You are beside yourself with joy. Daddy and I, taking the ends of the now full bed, reach across and hold each others hands, no words need to be spoken. We know what the other is thinking. "We are the luckiest people on earth right now."
     Of course, this hasn't happened today. But as I do everyday, I remind myself that this day will be someday, with Heavenly Father's help, one day.
Happy Birthday Zachary. Our precious son.