Carrying triplets came with an extra chest of worries. 

When I was eight weeks pregnant, an acquaintance told me not to rush out and buy that triple stroller quite yet because she knew someone who was pregnant with triplets and they died in-utero.  There were others who were more tactful and didn’t tell me those terrible stories until after my triplets were born safely.

Then there were the worries that came with premature babies.  All weighing in the 3 pounds, Chris and I worried about Elsa, Violet and Preston’s physical and mental development.  We wondered if there would be developmental delays or physical handicaps that we would deal with later.

Violet’s speech was delayed and she has been in speech therapy, but it was never the serious kind of speech problem.  We worried about how Preston was behind the girls in certain milestones, but he always managed to catch up.  We were told Elsa would probably be developmentally delayed because of her bad case of acid reflux as a baby, but that never transpired.

So when Chris and I sat down for the triplets’ end of year preschool assessment on Monday,  it marked a special milestone for us as parents.  We were so proud and relieved to hear their wonderful teacher talking about how far Elsa, Violet and Preston have come in the last two years.  Their teacher said that all three are more than prepared to start Kindergarten in August, and that Preston is the most improved student this year.

Along with academic achievement, what makes me most proud of all my children is how kind they are to others in the classroom, and how well they do socially with their peers.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have plenty to worry about.  I worry about helping four children with their homework every night.  I worry about having three crazy hormonal teenage girls in my house at the same time.

But that is to be left in the future.  For now, I will appreciate these milestones and I will be grateful for these children.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.

Central Park

My friend Sarah and I decided a few months ago that we would go on a weekend girls’ trip to Manhattan.  We made reservations a month in advance for some of the best restaurants in the city based on recommendations and word of mouth.  We bought tickets for the Broadway play Wicked.  The rest of the trip would be spontaneous.

Our dinner picks turned out to be fabulous. Here is a brief synopsis of where we dined so when you go to Manhattan you can visit these restaurants:

ABC Kitchen

ABC Kitchen is located between Broadway and Park Avenue.  You walk through a small unassuming door and the restaurant opens up to a huge dimly lit room with displays of colorful fresh fruits and vegetables set against white tables and chairs.  Sarah and I ordered two drinks that night: the blood orange Bellini and the basil lime daiquiri.  We started with the roast carrots and avocado with a crunchy seeds and sour cream; an interesting combination that proved unbelievably flavorful combining soft carrot and avocado textures with the crunchy nuts. For dinner I had the fried chicken and mashed potatoes, which was delicious but gave me a stomach ache because of its richness.  Sarah had the Halibut dish that was slow cooked rendering it moist and flavorful.

L’Artusi

L’Artusi is one of the top restaurants in New York.  It is Italian and offers the whole package of impeccable service, beautiful ambience and incredible food.  The tables were situated very close to one another and the restaurant was very loud (especially with the drunk woman behind us cackling all night).  I had orecchetti with sausage and pecorino. It was both Sarah and my favorite meal in New York.

Buddakan

Buddakan was a recommendation from Sarah and my hairdresser who declared it to be the best f*#cking Chinese you will ever eat.  By far the most amazing item we ordered was the steak dish which melted in your mouth and had an amazing Asian sauce over the top of it.

Blue Ribbon

Blue Ribbon Bakery Kitchen in the West Village offers an amazing brunch. By the time the restaurant opened at 11:30am, patrons filed in and filled all of the available seats.  I had an eggs benedict which was Coto Ham, Jarlsberg and tomato on toasted Challah topped with poached eggs.  The restaurant was housed in an old brick building on the West side.  It was very charming.

Is it even possible to get a bad meal in New York?  I have been to major cities around the world — London, Paris, Rome — and I never eat as well as I do in New York.

Sarah and I walked to the Guggenheim, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  Across the street was the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We decided to go in to see the artifacts from around the world.  The museum was also doing an exhibit on photographs from the Civil War, which sounded extremely interesting.  Entrance into the museum is $25 or whatever you want to pay, opening up this huge building of historical archives up to everyone no matter what your socio-economic status is.

The museum has beautiful displays of ancient pottery, jewelry, tombs, hieroglyphics, and statues from cultures around the world.  They also had a section about photography in the modern world where photographic art was retouched or even completely redesigned using Photoshop.  It really made me wonder what is real genuine photography and what is just an average photograph digitally altered.

Buddha at the Met

The civil war photography was different than I expected. I was hoping that someone had taken pictures of the battlefields or actual fighting during the Civil War, but it was mainly photos of wounded men, Abe Lincoln and the aftermath of the battle.

That night after dinner Sarah and I just happened to be walking by the Empire State Building around midnight and decided to check it out.  The Empire State Building is open til 2am every night. It costs $25 for the elevator ride up and once you get to the top you see the lights of the entire city.  Anyone visiting NYC should go to the top of the Empire State Building at least once in his or her life.

While the ladies were away the men did a fabulous job taking care of the house and the children.  All six of the children are not only alive still, but they are thriving.  Thanks to a couple of real stand up guys. Thanks to Gigi and Gramps who filled in the gaps where needed; you are appreciated.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.

Although that crowd is not my crowd, I reserve my judgement because they provided me the best people watching EVER yesterday as we spent the day with our family and friends by the river.  No magazine or book necessary by the American River when there is so much riveting conversation to eavesdrop on, as well as entertaining visuals.

Did it make me a wee bit nervous when those beer touting Coloma natives were throwing sticks into the river for their off-leash pit bulls to fetch, only two feet away from my children?  Yes, a bit.  Did I see way too much skin on the men and women at the river yesterday?  Yes, a bit.  Did we have a fantastic time out there with our friends picnicking and exploring the river?  Absolutely.

It is just simply beautiful picnicking by the river, surrounded by mountains in the place where gold was first discovered.  This place holds a special place in my heart because I can still remember the year gold was discovered — 1848 — which may be the only nugget of knowledge I retained from my grammar school education.  I also remember when I was in junior high an older gentleman brought his gold collection to school to show us. He had collected each and every nugget of gold himself in Coloma at Sutter’s Fort, and divided them into their own little glass containers for our viewing pleasure.  At the end of his showing he went to collect all the glass containers and one was missing. Naturally, the old man with the gold was furious.  He ranted and raved but there was not a single 7th or 8th grader who confessed to the crime.  We all had our guesses about who did it, but the gold thief is still at large.  He is probably in jail for other crimes now.  The gold man never came back to show the children his gold collection.  And that is my gold story. I hope you enjoyed it.

We brought scooters and the kids were able to ride around on a path that encircled a large grassy area.  Of course my kids who like to live life a little on the side of danger insisted on climbing down a steep embankment to a place where the river rapids were moving a bit faster. Here they stood on a log in a shallow bit of water and threw rocks in.  I stood right by them for fear they would slip off the log and get carried down river.

Here in Northern California summer is already upon us.  Happy days!

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.

Last night the bubbles got a little out of control at bath time.  We have a jetted bathtub and when you turn the jets on, this is what happens.  I posted this picture on The Hip Mothership Facebook page last night and my mom asked me where Preston went and if maybe he is hidden in the bubbles somewhere.

Usually Preston does take a bath with his sisters, just like he eats, sleeps, plays, works, and goes to school with them.  They are always together 24 hours of every day. So when Preston is not present with his sisters, it raises questions.

The reason Preston is not included in the bubble bath fun is because he was not welcome there last night.  When Violet saw Preston motioning to join her in the bath she said, “NO PRESTON!  I want some privacy in my bath today.”  I was perplexed.  I had not been faced with the privacy issue in the bathtub yet.  But Preston was naked and ready to go in.  I asked Violet if Preston could please join him because he needed to get clean and he was cold standing there in all his naked glory.  Violet said a definitive NO.  I asked Preston if he would be willing to take a shower.  He said NO.

This is when Violet offered Preston a bribe to leave the bathroom for good.  She said, “Preston, if you don’t take a bath with me I will give you five of my candies from my birthday party Piñata bag.  Please don’t take any of the chocolate ones though.”

SOLD!

Preston will do anything for sweets.

I did notice that when Elsa came to get into the bath, Violet welcomed her with open arms.  Sometimes brothers can be annoying.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.

1.  The triplets got into California Montessori Project

2.  I got a job

3.  Preston started Karate

4.  The girls started ballet

5. And all this while Chris was gone for work for a week

I will start with California Montessori Project.  Chris and I felt that we would torture ourselves by going to the lottery pull two weeks ago.  If you have ever watched Waiting For Superman, this movie features a great example of school lottery pulls complete with anxiety ridden parents waiting for the results.  That was us.  Except for the fact that I realize we are very fortunate to live in a community with outstanding public schools, so the stakes were not as high for us as they were for the families in the movie.  However, we have been trying to get Ava into California Montessori Project (CMP) for three years, and our best chance of succeeding was getting the triplets into kindergarten this year, which would then put Ava on the top of the priority list for 4th grade.

As we waited, chip after torturous chip being pulled from the jar, my heart started to beat so fast I felt it might explode.  I was embarrassed that the neighbor to my left was hearing the loud pounding coming from my chest.  Earlier in the week I had a dream that Elsa got pulled first, and sure enough Elsa was pulled at number 33. Violet was the last to be pulled at 43.  Preston was not pulled but was admitted after someone declined their entrance into the school.  Now we find out if Ava will get in during the May lottery pull for other grades.

The list of kids that got into to CMP for kindergarten. Elsa is number 030 and Violet is the last at 028.

The nerve-racking lottery pull process

Why was it so important for my kids to get into CMP?  I love the Montessori way of teaching and learning. I am convinced that if I was taught the Montessori way, I would not have had a hard time learning in school.  The CMP campus feels just like home with quaint little buildings in a rural setting.  The classrooms do not have the traditional desk set-up, but instead they have couches and rugs and cozy corners to work in.  Most importantly, I hear through a network of friends whose children already attend CMP that the teachers are all phenomenal.  The teachers work at the school for less salary than they would receive at a public school, but they are there because they believe in the school and in Montessori.

That same week I got myself a job.  I am now the Communications Assistant for Hands 4 Hope, a youth charity organization in my County.  I am working 5-10 hours a week managing the volunteer database, writing the newsletter and handling the PR.  It will also provide me a great opportunity to get my kids involved in charity work.  If you live in my area and are interested in getting your family involved in giving back to the community, I strongly suggest you sign up to volunteer for Hands 4 Hope.

Last Monday Preston started Karate.  I just love watching him yell “Yes Sir!” and “No Sir!” at the top of his lungs. I like watching him karate chop even when he isn’t asked to.  I like Karate because along with learning skills, they learn discipline. I would never want to take the class clown out of Preston, but a little more discipline and listening skills certainly wouldn’t hurt the kid.

On the same day as Karate and my first day of work, I took the little girls to their first ballet class.  They have been asking me if they can take ballet for an entire year and I finally made it happen for them.  Being in the ballet studio brought back fond memories of my many years in dance.  Helping the girls try on their ballet shoes was thrilling for me.  Peeking through the little window to watch my beautiful girls dance around and explore the studio space is priceless.

Enough about me, I want to send out immense love and support to friends in my community who are dealing with challenges that life brings: divorce, cancer, a hip transplant.

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
―Ram Dass

And to the people running the Boston marathon today, as well as the spectators cheering them on, my heart breaks for you. I am in disbelief that another human being would want to take a beautiful moment in time that is filled with pride, endurance, strength and passion, and destroy it with bombs.  Shame.  Shame. Shame.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.

Therefore, we felt it would be apropos to take them to see the dinosaur exhibit at the Los Angeles National History Museum.  We got there when it opened at 9:30.  Parking was easy. It was a beautiful 70 degrees out and Preston was sporting his new Gap dinosaur shirt.  Conditions were perfect.

The highlights of the Natural History Museum were as follows:

1.  The insect and dinosaur puppet show that is free with museum admission tickets.  The information was presented very well for small children and it was the perfect length to hold their attention.  The dinosaur used in the dinosaur show was extremely realistic and at the end of the show the kids got to hold and learn about real fossils.

2.  The dinosaur exhibit is amazing.  There are man-made replicas as well as real fossil bones of dinosaurs and both are equally interesting.  Violet especially enjoyed looking at the dinosaur bones.

3.  The different rooms with replicas of animals from various continents was well done.  It was sad to read about so many beautiful animals nearing extinction.

There were lots of knowledgeable people wandering around the dinosaur museum there to answer any questions.  Ava had two very good questions to ask the dinosaur expert:

1.  How do dinosaurs find their food: though their eyes or nose?  Answer: dinosaurs use their noses to find food, although they do have good eyes so it is possible they used both to capture prey.

2. When they excavated the dinosaur teeth, how did they know where to place the teeth in the dinosaur mouth when recreating them? Answer:  all reptile teeth are in the same order.

Next, we headed to an IMAX of Blue Planet.  The kids were pretty interested in the views of our beautiful planet from the vantage point of a space shuttle, but Preston was disappointed that there wasn’t any “hot lava”  shots.

We wandered through the Science Museum, which houses the IMAX theater, on our way to see the space shuttle Endeavour.  Our take-away of the Science Museum, which is free to visit, is that it is very old and out dated.  Perhaps it may be time to start charging some admission money to renovate it and make it a bit nicer and more interesting.

Lastly, we took the kids to see the space shuttle Endeavour which is parked at the Science Museum.  It costs $2 a person to check out this space shuttle.  By this time the kids were a little tired and probably not enthralled with the site of a gigantic space shuttle.  They were in disbelief that we couldn’t go inside the shuttle.  I was also disappointed.  Nevertheless, the Endeavour was quite a sight to see.  A lot bigger than I even imagined.  We got a nice family picture with the shuttle in the background and we were out.

On the way out, of course the kids needed to go into the hurricane simulator.  And of course we needed to take a picture of it.

Until next time, the mothership is singing off.

As far as I know, it all began around St. Patrick’s Day.  Pinners on Pinterest were going crazy pinning their favorite St. Patty’s Day crafts and decorations.  All my kids would talk about for a week was wearing green, getting pinched and what the leprechaun’s could possibly be bringing them this St. Patrick’s Day.

The kids would come home talking about what friends were doing at their homes to celebrate. My friend invited Ava over to play with her daughter one afternoon.  This year, for the first time ever, my friend had decorated a table in her house with shamrock lights and scattered some shamrocks about. In their house, there were charming stories told of mischievous little leprechauns who left confetti and coins in people’s shoes and broke into a box of Lucky Charms where he left a Shamrock. Well, when Ava saw these decorations and heard of the naughty little Leprechaun, she said with a heavy sigh and an intense eye roll, “The leprechauns don’t come to our house.”

Oh yes, I had nipped those Leprechaun dreams in the bud days before.  ”No way!  There are no leprechauns and we do not celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in our house!” I exclaimed with all my mighty mom power.  I had really had enough of the holidays blazing in with their bright colors and stratosphere of expensive shit leaving only candy wrappers and stomach aches in their wake. “But there are rainbows mommy,” Elsie chimed in.  ”Oh. Um. Yes rainbows are real and they are beautiful,” I agreed.

Only a few weeks before, Valentine’s Day had nearly catapulted me into insanity when I created 120 printable cards for my kids to pass out, only to realize that Valentine’s isn’t like it used to be when I was a wee kid.  In Ava’s 3rd grade class kids were showing up hauling large cardboard boxes filled with goodie bags and boxes to celebrate this lame holiday.  I felt inadequate.  I asked Ava’s teacher what happened to just passing out some cheesy cards with TO: and FROM: written on the back?  She said that she doesn’t know what happened but she though Valentine’s Day should be more like that still.

Before us moms are even able to boot those leprechauns out on the rainbow they rode in on with one swift kick, the freaking Easter Bunnies have hopped onto the scene.  Now I will say that the good thing about Easter are the Cadbury Eggs which I delight in each year with reckless abandon.  Other than that, it is another holiday with high expectations from the kids where I am required to fork out big money for stuffed animals bunnies and chicks and baskets of junk that they will obsess over for the next week.

I’ve been reading some other great blogs on this topic and I know I am not alone in my desire to stop the holiday madness.  This is why I hereby declare the launch of my new group called:

“Mother’s Against Youth Holiday Exploitation and Manipulation” otherwise known as MAYHEM.

Here are the rules:

1.  No one is allowed to distribute anything at school other than cheap cards at Valentine’s Day . No candy or gift boxes allowed. There will be an exception for the boxes of disgusting candy hearts with illegible sweet nothings written on it.

2.  St. Patrick’s Day may be celebrated in full in Ireland or by people of Irish descent, but the rest of us get a free pass. Wearing green is a fun tradition, but lets leave it at that.

3.  Pi Day may only be celebrated by mad scientists. Leave us proletariat out of it.

4. We will stick to the traditional Easter egg hunt, egg decoration and Easter feast on Easter.  Plastic eggs filled with jelly beans.  Ham.  Deviled eggs.  That sort of thing.

Let’s get this movement in motion and free the parents from unreasonable expectations at holiday time.  If all the mothers and fathers abide by the terms of MAYHEM, the result would be less frustrated and financially compromised parental units.

Come on! Get on board. Leave me a comment with your support.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.

Last Spring Break we took the whole family to Maui, Hawaii.  When I say “whole family” I am talking about 4-year-old triplets, a seven-year old, three car seats, one booster seat and eight pieces of luggage. In the end, we had a fabulous time and it was well worth the challenges, even if it did start of rocky when my husband had a manly  meltdown in the Maui Costco parking lot.

This year we are off to San Diego for Spring Break. Getting there is the easy part since we are driving.  Finding the right accommodations can be worse than having a hangover and a sunburn simultaneously.

The main goal in the vacation accommodation search is to find that home away from home; that place where your family can have their needs met and everyone is comfortable.  For a family with more than two children, it is imperative that we get creative to find a place with two rooms and sleeps six people.  My kids are asleep by 8pm while my husband and I enjoy another few peaceful hours of quiet, so a room for kids and one for adults is awesome.

Traditional hotels offered up by Google do not work for our family; too much money for too little space.  Then, a moment of genius: I would  find an App for my iPhone that would allow me to search for our perfect rental while out and about. I started with VRBO (the popular vacation rental website) because we used that website to find our Maui resort (which we did not love). I found two: the first was a free App run by VRBO which gets low ratings from customers for poor user interface. So I skipped that one.  The next App that came up was Vacation Props, coming in with 4 stars but costing $4.99.  Forget that.

Then I remembered the newer vacation website Dwellable, which actually posted a couple of my posts on Maui on their website last Spring Break.

When I find a good thing I need to share.

It turns out Dwellable recently launched a new highly rated App for the iPhone and Android…and it is FREE.

Screen shot of the App

Here are my top three favorite things about the new Dwellable App: The pictures are clear and easy to scroll through; the descriptions are concise and informative; and contact information for the property manager is easy accessed.

The key for me is that the Dwellable App is impressively easy to use.  Dwellable doesn’t have rentals for all destinations, but they have many of the great places we like to visit, such as Hawaii, Lake Tahoe, and San Diego to name a few.  I typed in “San Diego” and from there I was able to use the “filter” component to narrow down the 1,184 rentals down to a manageable few. The result was a list of properties that included only the condos or houses in certain parts of San Diego with 2 bedrooms in my exact price range.  From here, pictures of each property are easily viewed and there are long descriptions provided.  The phone number, website and email are listed toward the top so I could easily contact the owner/manager to see if the property was available during my travel dates.

The only improvement I would suggest for the Dwellable App would be an availability calendar for each property.  At the top of the screen there is an icon called “Dates” that is supposed to provide a calendar of availability, but when I clicked on it is said “Sorry – sadly we don’t have the exact calendar dates . . .”

With five-year old triplets and my wild eight-year old, it is important for me to find new technology tools that will make my life easier. It is also Über important for me to find great places for my family to stay on vacation so we can all be comfortable and happy at our temporary home away from home.

In two weeks you may find this family of six in Mission Beach, San Diego, comfortably lounging in this two bedroom house on the beach.  Of course, I found this gem on the new Dwellable App. Now maybe vacationing with my kids doesn’t have to be a contradiction in terms.

If only I had a new iPad Mini to browse vacation properties on a bigger screen. . .  a girl can dream.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.

Disclaimer: I was not paid to write this review of the new Dwellable App.  But, if my post is deemed the best post submitted, Dwellable will award me with a new iPad Mini.  

Here is a list of chores that I find are appropriate for children 5 and up:

1. Set the table
2. Help fold laundry
3. Put away all of their own clothes
4. Feed animals
5. Pick up their own toys and put them away
6. Clear dirty dishes from the table
7. Make beds
8. Help carry groceries up and put them away
9. Sweep and vacuum
10. Wipe things down
11. Make my coffee/pour my wine (too soon?)

If I’m being honest, one of my goals in life is to one day take a glass of wine and sit on my couch and read a book (or pass out) while my children clean the dinner dishes.  I am a few years away from this, but when it happens I am going to celebrate in big ways.

Another dream of mine is that one of my four children will be very interested and talented in the art of food preparation and I will not have to make dinner every night.  Perhaps this is why I dedicated my entire Sunday to cooking with Elsa in hopes that I can brainwash foster a love of the culinary experience.

In all seriousness, I think it is so important for kids to learn that everything will NOT always be done for them.  Meals don’t magically appear on the kitchen table each night; I plan, shop and prepare them and it is a lot of work.  Dishes don’t wash themselves, somebody needs to clean them after every meal and it pretty much sucks.

If the kids finish a short list of responsibilities each day, they are rewarded with video game time or money to use toward new Lego sets.  This makes them really excited to complete their chores.  The chore/reward system also teaches kids that they cannot just have whatever new toy they want; toys cost money and they need to earn it.

Leave me a comment with your chore suggestions for young kids.  Oh and I was just kidding about having my five-year olds pour my wine. I will wait a few years before I turn them into bartenders.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.

Today Momcomm published its critique of my blog, and I wanted to share.  Melissa specifically critiqued my About The Mothership  page.  I have not yet made the changes that she suggested, but I will.  I am very grateful to have the opportunity to make improvements on my blog.

Click here to see the critique on Momcomm.

If you ever have any suggestions or feedback on my blog, always leave me a comment!  I welcome them.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.