How Are We Surviving Three Kids?

Three kids….wow, seriously we have three kids…

My Dad always laughs because he started asking for grandkids as soon as we got married and Kaleb’s response was always “In five years…”. Our five year wedding anniversary is this summer and we already have three…he gets a kick out of it.

We can’t imagine life without our kids and have no regrets on having them so close together. Oliver and Carter are 13 months apart and Carter and Harper are almost exactly 2 years apart. So yes, we have three kids 3 and under. How are we surviving?

We haven’t had to deal with any jealousy issues as far as the boys go. They love Harper to death and had no problem with adding her to the family! The energy level in this house has definitely gone up and I’m not sure if that’s because of Harper or because we’ve had family and friends in and out of here for the past month. When other people come over they pull out all of the crazy tricks (example: Carter bangs his head on the wall for laughs, bites people’s shoe (sorry again Brittany :) ), etc.). Since we’ve had nobody staying with us and the amount of visitors have cut back quite a bit, things have started to calm down, thankfully!

We’ve had to deal with quite a few incidents recently that we’ve either never had to deal with before or they just rarely happen and unfortunately they all coincided with Harper’s birth. That made things quite crazy at first! Both boys got a stomach bug (that literally happens maybe once a year!), Oliver got an infection that required an ER visit, and both boys caught colds (that they gave to Harper) that they’re still getting over. There were other things but I’ll keep it at that! I’m so glad Kaleb was home the first week to help me deal with a bunch of that stuff and Kaleb’s Mom stayed with us for another week and a half after that to help me. That made things much easier on me!

I’ve found that my days go much smoother if I get the boys out of the house for a little bit. We live in a condo so we have no backyard for them to run around in and with the amount of energy they have they just end up trashing the house and going crazy if there’s no other outlet for them. We’ll either go out for a walk in the morning with a stop at the park on the way home or we go to the park for an hour or so before we head to pick up Daddy from work in the evening. I’m so glad that we have longer days of sunlight with the time change!

We really try to avoid skipping or skimping on nap time! Nap time is essential and I’m not just saying that for their sake, but also for mine! Both of my boys take 2-3 hour naps in the afternoon and I call it my “sanity break”. I get a couple of hours in the afternoon to clean, shower, and/or nap before Kaleb comes home from work.

I have Harper on a loose feeding schedule, which makes it much easier to plan things and take care of two other kids. She eats every three hours (I adjust it to every two hours when she needs it) and it works out great! No I don’t starve her, she always gets enough to eat and is like clockwork! She starts to fuss at exactly the time she’s supposed to eat again; I love how predictable it is! The loose schedule makes it easy to get to doctor’s appointments, run out and get some errands done, etc.

Life is so crazy but God has been so good to us and we are so blessed with these three babies! We never take them for granted despite the craziness and chaos we experience everyday!