I'm Getting The Hang of It! (Well, sort of)

So, I've been getting a little brave and actually taking the kids out more by myself. I have always been a little nervous about taking them somewhere by myself, but my friend and fellow triplet mom, Lani, gave me some great advice: "Hope for the best, but expect the worst!". Hey, at least you're prepared with that advice! I guess I started to think, what's the worst that could happen? So what if we have to load back up in the car and go back home. First of all, let me be honest with my motives for wanting to get out of the house. As you may know, since the babies came home we have basically "lived" in the bonus room that is completely baby proof and loaded up with toys. But, over time they realized that there was a lot more to explore downstairs and were to the point where they hated being in the bonus room. So, we baby proofed the downstairs and let them have at it. At first they had a ball playing with the tupperware cabinet and walking around and exploring. But within a week they were already starting to wreak havoc in the kitchen and living room. They were not really interested in playing with the tupperware anymore....they just wanted to completely empty the contents of the cabinet and scatter everything all over the place. Then they thought that it would be fun to take all of the cute farm animal magnets off the fridge and throw them all over the floor. Then, they discovered that the highchairs were easily portable and were pushing them all over the house. So, if I wasn't tripping over tupperware or magnets I would have a huge highchair blocking the sink or refrigerator. Now, all of this chaos will happen in about two minutes. I'm not kidding here. So, I'm left with not only a completely wrecked bonus room, now my beloved downstairs is a disaster too. So, I thought, hey, if we leave there will be no mess to clean up, we all get out of the house and get to see some new things. It's a win win for all. So, last week we went to Peek-a-boo Playtown which is a really cute little place with a pretend bank, grocery store, post office, lots of blocks, train tables, etc., but they also have a little separate toddler area which is what I had my eye on. It has a ball pit, toys and some foam blocks to climb on. I even sweet talked them into only charging us for one child ($7) instead of having to pay for all three. They loved the ball pit! In fact, that was about the only thing they wanted to play with. In other outings, we have also been to the bookstore, the mall, the grocery store and (my favorite place in the world) Target. With each outing I gain more confidence in my abilities to take them somewhere by myself and that makes me happy. I think some people look at me and think that it looks like too much work to take all three of them out, but I truly believe that it's worth it. The kids love to get out and they are quite social which is good because a lot of people stop to talk to us. They will smile and wave and say "bye bye" when we move on. My ultimate outing will be to the water fountain at our local outdoor shopping area. I'm okay with them being confined in the stroller, but having them run around in a public place like that scares me to death, but I just know they would love it. Maybe when we get closer to the end of summer we'll tackle that....

Finally, here are a few pics that were taken last month at their cousin's birthday party.....