Half a year on (15 weeks corrected)

This time last year, I was pregnant, but I didn't yet know it, and I was about to fall down a flight of stairs. We still joke that that's what 'knocked me up'. I was also about to go to a conference out of town (with a bad back), throw up on the train, assume it was travel sickness (it wasn't) and have a glass of wine after the conference which would then knock me for six and make me the drunkest I have ever been in my life....one little tiny glass of wine. I can't help but keep re-living last year, so much has happened that I feel like I catch glimpses of my 'old life' running parallel to this new one. When I think about the past, and what's happened now, well, I'd never have seen it coming. But enough about me! Let me tell you about how my little darlings are doing.

Leaps and Bounds

For such tiny babies of 3lb, 2lb 4 and 2lb they have really come along. I can only guesstimate their weights now (how very scientific of me) as the recent snow has prevented me from getting to the weighing clinic. (Thanks nature, getting out with baby triplets wasn't enough of a challenge, now I'm supposed to what? Ski there?)
I would guesstimate I now have two 10-12 lb ers and a 15lb er. They are so big now, and it's only when I look back at photos of them in NICU that I can see just how tiny they really and truly were, and it breaks my heart just a little bit.
Their health is fantastic, partly I'm sure down to me and 'the wonders of' breast milk', but I also think a lot of it is just down to them and how hardy they are. The worst we've had is a cold/flu ..... that's it. It's awesome. (I seriously hope I'm not jinxing myself)

They are all so very different and so very smart for what was, this time last year, just a few dividing cells.

Gaius

Usually the first to 'do things' he's found his voice and after a month of ooooh oooh ooh he has now learnt to babble and can make his voice go up and down musically. While this new found trick sounds fantastic and it is great fun to hold nonsense conversations with him, it does come with an unfortunate side effect.
He won't shut up and he can now express his joy, unhappiness, excitement, frustration, enthusiasm and boredom by shouting at me.

Yes I didn't see that one coming. He may have been bored with a toy before but at least I didn't have to hear about it over and over while I fed his sister. He's also decided his siblings are not worth talking to. Apparently they are so far behind his amazing talking skillz that they are unworthy of his attention and he completely ignores poor Ayla when she tries to babble at him.

He's started to focus and concentrate on actual objects now, he starts looking down his nose studying them in great detail while he tries to manouver his hands to grab, touch and point at the things he is looking at. I can now sit him on my knee with a teddy and he'll try stroking it and touching it's face. He's obsessed with faces, and eyes and he loves it when I sit nose to nose with him.

He's also ticklish. His first laugh came from me doing 'this little piggy' and tickling his feet and sides. Since then I haven't really stopped tickling him. His laugh is more like a deep chortle but it's very infectious.
His favourite game now is a mixture between row, row the boat and horsey, horsey. He's definitely happier with bigger, rougher games now. He has become so big that he rides on my hip rather than over my shoulder, which feels lovely to have him gripping and snuggled into me as he explores the world from my arms.

Ayla

Dear sweet Ayla is my 'grass is always greener' baby.You can be the most interesting and sought after thing in the world, she is desperate to be near you, you can see the sheer excitement in her eyes that you are going to hold her and then *poof* she has you and suddenly everything else is more interesting. She will all but break her little neck to look at anything BUT what she already has.
If dada has her, she wants mama, if mama has her, dada sure looks interesting. Don't get me wrong, she doesn't cry or demand these things, she just instantly loses interest in who or what she has.
It can be a bit frustrating at times so I now cradle her when I feed her so she is forced to look at me, or when I play and read with her I do it without holding her. She still has a great deal of fun but I don't feel so ignored.

Ayla's first laugh appeared mere days after Gaius'. D was busy bouncing around the living room which she found hysterical. Her laugh seems to be a combination of fear and excitement making an extremely infectious and uncertain-sounding high pitched giggle. It really is the personification of the word giggle.
She laughs at the strangest things, the word ' chomp', me dancing her around like she's holding a microphone on stage at a concert, things that make her jump and being tickled.
Her favourite game is one I devised from the song 'soft kitty' off of the big bang theory. She adores it, her whole face lights up and she makes quiet "oh" noises while I stroke her face and jiggle her.
She also loves story time, but instead of listening uses it to chatter at me with her new found "oh oh" skills.

She is very aware of her brothers and spends a great deal of time looking at Gaius and trying to get his attention, or watching me as soon as she sees me or hears my voice. When I make eye contact she beams at me in delight.

Zarek

How he has come on! I was recently rewarded with his first ever smile and laugh (while he was sat on my knee looking at me) and he hasn't really stopped smiling since.
What a difference it has made to our little family! We both feared he would never stop crying, whimpering and being miserable but he's found the funny side to life and now coos and squeals at objects and us.
His giggle is like a proper little baby laugh and his smile is just a little bit goofy and completely endearing.

His favourite activity involves reading or singing directly to him. He, unlike the other two, sits mostly quietly lapping it up and completely absorbed in my voice. We don't have to dance or bounce, we can just enjoy each others company and attention.
While pregnant he was the baby stuck under my ribs nearest my voice and as such has always seemed to respond to my voice more than the other two. (Gaius was so low down I doubt he ever even heard my voice!)

When I first met him he had been whimper/crying off and on for days, I finally had a skin-to-skin cuddle with him, sang him a lullaby (which still works to calm him down) and after that point he stopped whimpering in his incubator. He is definitely my cry-baby, having perfected the art of moaning and whimpering without even opening his mouth, but it's still the cutest cry ever. He sticks his bottom lip out, crocodile tears roll down his cheeks and he reasonably quietly says "wah". He's been doing that from birth, constantly, and he's lucky its the cutest and funniest thing I had ever seen or I may have lost my mind. As it was he would start up and I would just laugh at him, scoop him up and deal with it while smiling at his "but mwummy i'm so swad" face.