Due to triplet needs, house moves, pets, fund raising for our local hospital and just life in general my blog post is a little late this month. I honestly have no idea what I did with my time before I had children!

If I could use three words to sum up our last month they would be messy, fun and hectic. Our weaning experience so far has been both messy and fun. The boys are eating pretty much anything that I shovel into their little mouths. Of course being typical boys they like to spread it all over their faces and clothes too (my washing has doubled!). They now know that when the little red bowls, the bibs and the spoons come out it’s dinner time and they get terribly excited. I let them hold their own spoons and then I will feed all three of them with one bowl and one spoon. They will often shout at me to hurry up with their brother’s and get back round to feeding them. They are becoming much more dextrous and beginning to put their spoons and sippy cups in their mouths (rather than their eyes or ears).

I have to say, much to my surprise, I am loving the whole weaning thing. I love preparing all of the food and freezing it; I feel quite a sense if achievement when I see pots full of food cooling on the kitchen side. The boys eat things like butternut squash and papaya, which I have never even had in the house before – let alone peeled and prepared. I had no clue what a squash looked like on the inside before weaning!

We have been having fun with Oscar and Lucas rolling onto their tummies and Harry talking for England at anybody who will listen. They seem to change more and more every day now and I am so excited to see what is coming next. I find it intriguing that despite being identical and sharing the same environment they all develop new skills at different times and they are all interested in different things. It just goes to show that they are all very individual and it is so important that we treat them as such. They seem to be really enjoying each other’s company now too and they will bounce in their various bouncing devices whilst talking, smiling and giggling.

I am always conscious to make sure that we get out and about as I don’t want any of us missing out on fun and games just because there are three of them and one of me. This month we have been going to messy play, story time, twin/triplet clubs, friend’s houses, picnics, long walks and even a trip to the NEC in Birmingham where we nabbed lots of goodies at The Baby Show. Don’t get me wrong, it can be very hard work getting everyone ready and out of the house on time and dealing with baby meltdowns in public, but everybody seems that little bit happier after a trip somewhere new. The only thing that I am desperate to do is take the boys swimming, but rallying together two more people during the week is not easy when all of your friends and family work or study, but I will make it my mission to do it before my next blog post.

In order for us to get to all of these places we have to drive as the amenities (and pavements) in our little village are nonexistent. We have, therefore, taken the big decision to move house to a nearby town which has a wonderful Sure Start centre, library, country park, beautiful shops and lots of pavements to stroll along. The house will have more space for all of the toys that we seem to have accumulated and we hopefully won’t need to be moving again anytime soon! John and I are both very excited as it will be our first home that we have chosen together and we are looking forward to creating lots more happy memories there. I now have four weeks to pack up the whole house whilst doing all of our usual daily activities…wish me luck!

My maternity leave will be coming to an end later this year and after speaking with my friends it would seem that I was somewhat behind on sorting childcare. One of my friends had her little boy down for the local nursery, which teaches French and Maths well before he was even born! It seems more like some sort of executive club than a fun place for your little monsters to play for the day. Anyway, after doing a bit of digging and negotiating it would seem that it would cost me the tidy sum of £1300 to place all three of the boys into nursery or with a childminder for three full days a week. I was actually horrified! Unless I can get the help of friends or family who would be willing to look after three toddlers (just a small ask!) it would seem that we would be worse off if I went back to work.

I want to go back to work part time just to give myself a bit of a break, but not if it means that we have to pay for me to go back. The whole system just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m sure it’s not just me that is going through this dilemma and I wonder how I would feel at the possibility of not going back at all. On the one hand it is not ideal, but on the other it will allow me to spend time raising my boys and start a completely new chapter in my life…not that there was anything wrong with the last chapter, but maybe a change would be good?

Finally I just wanted to thank you for your lovely comments on my previous post and I have now joined the Facebook group for triplet and quad mummies, as you suggested.