Rocks. It's what's for Dinner!

So I have a little bit of anxiety when it comes to doing things on my own with all 4 children outside the home. I over came the fear of going to the store alone, and took them all to Target one day earlier this year. (see photos below) I also have been taking Emmalee to a preschool class at the high school up the street 2 days a week for several weeks now, and have to load/unload/reload/unload the kids to drop her off and pick her up. I can do it! But it sure is exhausting.

Now that the weather is warming up, I decided to take them for a walk around the block yesterday before lunch. This went amazing! I pushed the Littles (this is what I call the triplets instead of calling them triplets) in the triple stroller, and Emmalee walked next to them. It was a perfect walk, and everyone was happy and took nice naps (minus Emmalee who is boycotting naps right now). I thought since the walk went so well I would try bringing them in the backyard on my own. To many of you, this may sound silly, but I have some serious anxiety about bringing them out for several reasons.

1. We have a raised deck off the back of our house and the Littles don't do stairs, and there's no way I'm going up/down a flight of stairs 3 times.
2. Even if I did that, what would the other(s) do while I was grabbing the next one from inside???? Not safe to leave them alone just yet.
3.We have a side door, which only has 4 steps, but they're all wonky and, again, the Little don't do steps, and again, what do I do once I bring the firs 2 out?

Okay, so the back door was out, side door it is. I got everyone ready, 8 socks, 8 shoes, 4 sweatshirts, diapers changed, and potty break, then I grabbed the smallest 2, (Lyla & Noah) and let Emmalee lead the way, while Owen waited patiently, in the doorway. I put them down on the driveway, and ran back in quick to grab Owen & closed the doors behind us. I come down the last step and Noah & Lyla are already to the grass, they move so fast! They played so nicely for about 10-15 minutes, all staying close by me, and then Lyla found some rocks. I guess we don't feed her enough delicious food, so she started stuffing this handful of small rocks into her mouth!!! BLECH!!!! I scoop them out and meanwhile Noah is as far as he can go, luckily we have a fenced-in yard, and clutching sticks in both hands, while he has another clenched between his teeth. I assess Lyla's mouth, it's empty, except for some dirt, eh, she'll live, and I run over to Noah. I pull the stick out of his mouth and get the little wood chips out of his mouth so he doesn't get splinters in his throat, and look back to Lyla, who is sitting on the ground straddling a patch of green that has grown through the driveway. I run to her, she has onion greens hanging out of the side of her mouth, we have wild onions growing somewhere, and in this random little spot in the middle of the driveway...and she thought it was hilarious! So I held onto Lyla for a little bit. Emmalee and Owen were playing nicely, not eating anything they shouldn't, so I went to sit with them, Lyla in my arms, Noah, still clutching his sticks, followed close behind. Lyla squirmed her way out and I let her run, and she went right back to that patch of onions. Time for dinner. Emmalee wasn't happy about going back inside, so after promising we'd come back out after we had dinner when Daddy would be home to help, she came in.

Ugh, that was more work than it should've been. I can't child-proof everything, so hopefully they'll stop putting EVERYTHING in their mouths soon. Or we'll have to wait until Daddy gets home every evening to go outside. That'll make a long summer. At least I gave it a try! I think we'll stick to a walk around the block for now.

One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

So the flu bug hit our household, hard. And I, lucky for me, was the ONE and ONLY not to get it! This is wonderful for several reasons...I have to take care of all the sickly children, whether or not I'm sick, and it fairs much better for everyone if I'm not! Mr. Herzog got very sick, and when that happens, he's of no help, luckily he recovered quickly and took an extra day to help with the sick kiddos. An among other things, I have a girls weekend planned this upcoming weekend with my mother & sisters! (Unfortunately my mother also go hit with the bug, hopefully she's feeling better come Friday morning!) Sickness is never fun, but even less fun when you have several sick children and there's not much you can do, except hold the bucket, and try your best to keep them hydrated! We made it through, everyone's back to eating normal food and hopefully we'll never get it again!!!

1+1=8???? WHAT?

Today's a blog-worthy day! We had our first get together with another set of triplets! I met another mom through a facebook group stemmed from thebump.com, and we met up for a triplet mom dinner when she was pregnant with her little ones! She's got boy/boy/girl just like us, and a 4 year old son! We have had dinner with other local triplet moms on several occasions, but this was our first visit with all of our kiddos. She came to our house, since we didn't have daddy backup, and my kids would just run a muck! It brought back lots of memories of the 4 month old stage, and I sure don't miss it, minus the immobility part...I do miss that! This will hopefully be the first of many "play" dates to come!!!

Noah & Lyla loved Austin!!!

One of the Scariest Days of My Life.

I wanted to get into more detail about Owen's initial reaction to peanut butter, but that was too much for my last post...it needed it's own.

JAN 5, 2013 Andy's on call for work, so it's like any normal weekday for me & the kids at home. Owen always had an aversion to PB, whenever I'd offer it on toast to the kids, he'd spit it out and refuse to eat it. So I just started giving him an alternative, buttered toast or whatever.

For lunch I gave Owen a bologna sandwich, which he disassembled and threw on the floor. Lyla & Noah were give PB&J, with strawberry jelly. Owen took a quarter of Noah's sandwich and tasted it, I never gave them jelly before (who needs that mess when you have 4 kids to clean up?!) and he loved the jelly, and continued to eat the sandwich. I thought nothing of it, actually was pleased that he'd finally started eating PB, and this was how to get him to get that extra protein in his diet!

I cleaned them all up and they were playing before nap time. Owen's face at this point was getting red around his mouth, and he was rubbing his eyes a lot! It was close to naps, so I was holding him and he kept putting his head down. When I would put him down he'd get irritable and rub his eyes and soon, within 10-15 minutes the redness spread all up his face and there were white blotches around his eyes. This is when I knew something was wrong. I had no Children's Benadryl, which is what some of my mom friends in an online group suggested I try, so I called the Pediatricians office...NO ANSWER. Mind you, this is a Saturday afternoon, 1pm-ish, and they have closed for the day, but they are supposed to have an on call service who can get you in touch with an on call nurse! NO ONE ANSWERED! I called my sister in law, who ended up coming over, because Andy was out on a call.

I didn't want to take him to the ER, he wasn't struggling to breathe at this point, just irritable and had a crazy face rash. So my niece & I took him to Immediate Care, who we called on the way to make sure we were doing the right thing by going to them and not the ER. We get there, I sign him in & we wait. After only a few minutes he's getting very fussy and then he vomits all over him & me. We get as cleaned up as possible, they take us to a room b/c now we are stinking up the waiting area, and Owen is starting to wheeze.

Andy shows up, fills out the paperwork for insurance & meets us in the exam room. His rash had spread to his trunk at this point maybe 30-40 minutes after he had eaten the PB&J. They gave him steroids, Benedyrl, and he had to do 2 nebulizer treatments. It was so scary. We spent a few hours there, doing the treatments and just waiting to make sure everything was working. I just couldn't keep my emotions in check any longer, and felt like this was all my fault. I knew he didn't care for PB, why did I let him eat the sandwich? I know I didn't know that he had an allergy, but he could've died! I am so thankful we have family close by and they were able to come help me.

He now has an EpiPen we have to take everywhere we go. He had an allergy screening and he's positive for peanuts, tree nuts & eggs. We had him tested for eggs b/c he acted the same when offered eggs. We have had to change our shopping habits, making sure not to buy anything that was processed on machines or in a facility that uses peanuts or tree nuts.

It's going to get "easier" as he gets older, to manage his allergy. He will be able to understand one day what nuts can do to him, and he can make sure to be vocal about it. But for now, We're all he's got. When we go out, if some one had PB on their hands and pushed a shopping cart and Owen sits in it, he could easily get it on his hands and rub his eyes or put them in his mouth, causing a reaction. We never leave the house without his EpiPens, Benadryl & wipes, to wipe anything he may touch, or his/our hands.

It's always been something I asked when I bring dessert or any food to some one's house that I may not know that well, "Does anyone have any food allergies?" I never thought I'd be the one dealing firsthand with a food allergy. Now when we go some where I make sure they know of Owen's allergies. I haven't gotten to the point to feel ok asking some one to make sure their menu is homemade, etc...such as a birthday party, there's cake/cupcakes, from a bakery, where nuts are used. Owen cannot have those cupcakes, because what if? It's not worth the risk to me, for him to have a cupcake. This is why I bring food for my children that I know is safe.

Looking ahead, we'll have to figure out how school life is going to work out. I know that some schools have tables for the allergy kids, so that's good. He will obviously be bringing his own lunch from home until he's old enough to know not to eat certain things. I hope that parents of his classmates and his teachers are supportive and understanding. I know how inconvenient peanut allergies are in the school setting...but this is my son's life we're talking about!!! We'll cross those bridges when we get to them!

Let's Try This Again!

I guess you could say I'm not so great at this whole blogging thing. Well, I'd like to make it a goal to become better at it! I am going to write at least once a week, if not more. We'll see if that happens!

My last post was back in August of last year. It's now April, and A WHOLE heck of a lot has happened in the past 8 months!

Emmalee turned 3 right after my last post, on August 25th, and she has changed so much! She's a good big sister, even though sometimes it's quite obvious she wishes she had me all to herself still. She started a little preschool class in March and she really loves getting out of the house for a couple hours 2x a week! She is also taking a dance class every Saturday. The class is 3-5 year olds, all girls in her class, and they do a little tap and ballet. It's really good exercise, and she really enjoys it, although she really doesn't seem to be cut out for dancing, just like her mother wasn't! HA! She challenges my patience every single minute, but despite that, she is my favorite 3 year old, and she always makes us laugh!


Owen is just amazing! His vocabulary surprises everyone around him! He's so observant and inquisitive! "What's that?" "Ohh, look at that!" are his favorite phrases to date. He said yesterday as we watched 2 large wild turkeys walking through the yard behind us, "Wow! Look at that! Where'd they go?" (Emmalee kept asking where they went, and he joined in!) His curly hair is hilarious and adorable, and still has a tint of red to it! In January we discovered that Mr. Owen has an anaphylactic allergy to peanuts. Such a life-changing thing it is, to have a food allergy. Checking all the labels, making sure there's not anything in this food that could potentially KILL your child. We watch our little man so closely now, and make sure everyone around him knows not to share food with him.


Lyla is a free-spirit! She flits around the house with one arm leading the way, humming and singing her own tune! She always has a greeting ready, "Hi!" Short and sweet! She recently has started answering me if I ask her; "Lyla, are you sleepy?" "Yes." "Lyla do you want to go to bed?" "Yes." It's really funny, I'll have to try to get it on video! She clings to my side for most of the day, which makes my job a little difficult! It's hard to do the dishes and such when you have a screaming child with snot coming down her face looking at you! So I choose snuggles!


Noah is the personification of ENERGY! He just never stops moving!!! He's here, he's there, he's EVERYWHERE! He loves to climb furniture, and if you're in it, he'll climb you too! He has a whole lot to say, but just doesn't have the words yet. He's got a few of the basics, "Hi" "Bye" and even started saying "All Done!" recently. Once he can talk, he'll be just like Emmalee, never quiet, and always moving!

Life is never dull in our household, that is for sure!