And the rest is history..

Mommyfriend is my inspiration for this post! It's for Project Marriage! So here it is, the story of B and I.

I grew up in suburban Atl, and decided to move to WYOMING of all places to go to college. Well, then I moved to Western Nebraska, which was nice because a lot of my extended family live out here. I was hanging out with my cousin, Katie, and her then boyfriend, Ben. I went to get her from work one day so we could have lunch together, and I was telling her about some thing that I can't remember, but seemed really important at the time. She and I walked through the back so she could clock out, and she introduced me to some of her co-workers, I was wrapped up in my own drama or whatever, so didn't really pay attention to the introductions (whoops!). Not too long after, I was at a party at her house, and one of her co-workers was following me around, being super flirty and making me extremely uncomfortable. He asked for my number. I didn't want to flat out say no, so I told him that since I never called myself, I didn't know my number, if he wanted it, he had to ask Katie. I then instructed her to please not give him my number. So after that, she asked if she could give her friend, Ben, my number. I was confused, since the only Ben I knew of that she knew was her boyfriend, she told me I met him when I was at her work.. the introductions I paid no attention to. I wasn't really comfortable with the idea of her giving my number to any of the guys she worked with after the guy at her party was so creepy, but I eventually gave in and told her she could give him my number.
We started texting. And flirting. And eventually we made plans to hang out. I showed up, he didn't. I was annoyed but really kind of liked this guy, so figured I'd give him another chance. We made plans, I showed up, he didn't. This happened a few times. I had really hurt feelings, and was ready to just write him off, but decided I would torture myself and give him one last chance. This time was different, we were meeting at his place and from there would go hiking. So we went hiking with his roommate and his roomie's girlfriend. It was rainy and muddy, but fun. Not too far into the hike his roommate twisted his ankle so he and his girlfriend went back to the truck while B and I continued hiking. The thing I remember most about that first time hanging out was that we were going down this steep drop, and I decided I'd lead the way, B slipped on some rocks and fell down the drop and landed on me. We had a good laugh about that. After we got back to the truck the roomie and his girl decided we'd all go out to eat. I was covered in mud, but out to eat we went. B and I continued to hang out a lot but it wasn't until months later he officially asked me to be his girlfriend.
Not long after making our relationship "official" we were sitting in his jeep after his night class, and I bought him a little stuffed pig and gave it to him, he looked at me and said, "I love..... your hair!" He later admitted that he almost slipped and told me he loved me, but as it was coming out of his mouth, he thought it might be too soon to say he loved me. The next week, we were hanging out at my place having the "I like you more" cutesy pukey argument, and I accidentally let "I love you more" slip out instead of "I like you more" and then I tried to cover it up by saying that I was thinking about my dog and I really love me dog, and I was thinking about him because I heard him in the laundry room.. ect. The first time we intentionally exchanged the "I love yous" was on post it notes.
A year later we were married with triplets on the way. And the rest is history..

So sick of it.

Let me just begin this post by saying that I love my children, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.

That being said... The worst thing about having triplets is, everyone wants to be able to say they know someone with triplets. It stinks. People try to buddy up to me, but never actually take the time to get to know me. What makes Bonnie tick, what are her interests, people are fascinated by multiples, and so when people are acting like they want to get to know me, or be my friend, all I end up doing is answering everyone's million questions about the triplets! What's worse, is that it's not even strangers that do this. Even family makes me feel this way. I feel like we're only invited to gatherings so they can show off the boys, and everyone can pretend they have such a great relationship with my boys, when in all actuality, the only time any of these people are around my kids is when they want to show them off... and here's the thing, it doesn't even average out to once a month that they're around us.
I'm so over it. I've been over it for a long time. I also hate how people pretend around their friends that they've been there with us every step of the way. They try to answer questions for me, when they don't know what they're talking about, they say they remember moments they were never even around for. I hate how fake people are, for what... popularity's sake?
I don't try to exploit my kids, or the fact that they just happen to be triplets to gain friends, get people to like me, or for anything. You better believe that it really gets to me when other people try to exploit the fact that they know triplets for their own gain.
I wish I could take my kids anywhere without the sea of questions. What I hate more of the sea of questions is when someone is with me, who for whatever reason, feels like they have to indulge people's curiosity.
I know the my kids will always have to deal with this. And my kids have such humor and sass at just 2, that they'll be able to combat the questions with their quick wit and charming smiles, but for now, I really just want to move away to some secluded part of the world where my family and I can go about our lives without the fake interest in being my friend so people can satisfy their curiosity about triplets, and without certain people pretending they have these great relationships with my kids and I so people will think they're interesting.

Does "safe" really exist?

I live in a small, rural area. The kind of town where everyone knows everyone, or at least knows of everyone. Yes, every populated place has crime, but I was pretty blind to the seriousness of crimes in this area until today. I don't know many people in this town, since I'm not from here, however, someone I had an acquaintanceship with today was shot and killed.
Although I didn't know this man very well, I could tell he was a decent person. He seemed to be filled with kindness and really cared about his friends and family. He had a wife and a baby girl.
I didn't know him well, but am overwhelmed with sadness, anger and confusion. I don't know why someone would have taken his life. I don't understand how murders can be committed so casually, in the early afternoon. I don't know if the person responsible for this terrible crime knew this guy personally, but how can you take away a child's father, a mother's son, a sister's brother, someone's husband...
This happened to someone I knew, someone who knew my husband, and my kids. This absolutely terrifies me. When I moved here, I knew it wasn't some perfect place, but I've always felt safe here. I don't feel like my family is really safe here anymore. I don't know if any "safe" place exists on this earth. I have 3 kids whom I am suppose to take care of and protect, and today was a reminder that it's not an easy task.
My heart goes out to this man's family and close friends. My heart especially goes out to his baby girl, I can't imagine how this will affect her as she grows up. There is just so much tragedy surrounding this incident, as I'm sure there is in any incident of the kind. I've never heard a bad word spoken about this man. I just don't understand this at all. My heart is heavy tonight.

Cute Kids

A toddler shower?

So, I guess technically I did have a baby shower. It just didn't really feel like it with the lack of guests. I know there were a lot of factors at play, but I still sometimes get these really bad feelings about it, despite my boys being 2 now.
My sister really tried to plan and pull together a nice shower for me. She was living in Arizona at the time. Still being fairly new to Nebraska, I didn't know too many people here, so other than my husband's family friends, and our families, the people I wanted there lived in far away places. The only people who were at my shower were my grandmother, my mom, my sister, my uncle's ex-wife and her daughter (who arrived very late and didn't stay long at all).
I'm not trying to throw a pity party here or anything. I just still get hurt feelings when I think about it. This was my first pregnancy, and I was having triplets. It just really hurt that it didn't seem to matter to anyone.
I was, and still am, very grateful to my sister for flying in from Arizona to throw me a shower. I was also very grateful to Kara Palmer for sending so many of her son's hand-me-downs. To this day, I still haven't met Kara in person. It was very touching that someone who I've never even met was so helpful and giving.
I know it was hard for my sister to plan my shower on a day that would allow for people to be able to make it, and she ended up having it the day after Thanksgiving. But I'm still so hurt that people who were local couldn't even manage to make it to my shower. And I don't mean to slight the few that were there. I'm glad that my grandma, mom and sister thought having triplets in the family was of more importance that Black Friday shopping. My grandma didn't mind making the drive.
So now that I have a few good friends in the area, and I think I have a better with some of the other people who didn't come to my first shower, would it be selfish or ridiculous to throw a toddler shower? Instead of diapers, bottles, baby moniters, etc. can I ask for big boy underwear, potty training supplies, cups, plates, toddler-friendly cutlery, and things of that nature?

Kitchen Help

We have a very small kitchen, so to avoid accidents and messes, we don't allow the boys in the kitchen except going to and from the bathroom. We have a little gate up to keep them out. So this morning I was feeling adventurous, and decided to let the boys help me make us all elephant ears. The boys were so happy to be in the kitchen and get to explore, I got no help with the baking. Ethan managed to kind of get into the dishwasher, the boys pulled all the canned foods and pastas off the shelves we have in there, they pulled magnets off the fridge, brought in their toys, got into the spices, and basically destroyed my previously spotless kitchen. They had fun, and the messes cleaned up easily enough. But with all the chaos going on around me, it's safe to say the elephant ears didn't turn out so great. We'll still eat them, but I think from now on, I'll let them help with the no bake stuff in the dining area and wait until they are older and the novelty of being in the kitchen wears off before letting them "help" me again.

How blogging is like middle school...

In middle school we all feel a little awkward, don't we? I mean, we're all moving on from elementary school and things are different. We're growing up, and finding our clique. I feel awkward as a blogger. I want people to read my blog, I want people to think I'm interesting, but I feel kind of invisible in the blogosphere.

I thought being a mommy of triplets would give me an edge when it came to blogging. I also thought I could find other moms of multiples who blog and feel less alone in the parenting world. Don't get me wrong, I have mommy friends, and they are wonderful, but sometimes I wonder if some of the issues we've had with the boys are unique just to us, or are common among multiples.

I try to network. Follow blogs, follow fellow bloggers on Twitter and facebook, leave comments, get word of my blog out there. Am I missing something? Do I need some sort of gimmick like giveaways and prizes? I feel like I still know so little about blogging. But I just don't feel like I'm generating much traffic. So I am asking those of you who do read my blog, how can I improve? What would you like to read about, or what would make my blog better?

Now, on to mommy stuff....
The only way we can get the boys to do any sleeping is by having no furniture in their room. I feel terrible about that, but it's what keeps them from injuring themselves so much. They figured out a very long time ago how to flip out of their cribs, so we upgraded to toddler beds, which they did great with for awhile, but then they figured out the toddler beds aren't very heavy, so they started flipping them on each other and pinning each other under them, so we took the beds out, and set up pack-n-plays which they figured out how to halfway disassemble, and they were flipping them and getting tangled up in them, so now they have mattresses on the floor. At least they can't really cause too much bodily harm that way, right? I wish we had the room that we could put them each in a room of their own.
We bought the boys water guns last week. They love them. I was a little surprised that they needed no lessons in how to use them, so I'm not really sure where they learned how to use a trigger, and how to aim. They have really good aim. Their daddy told them to get me, and next thing I know I'm getting hit with a stream of water right between the eyes.
Daddy also taught them how to shoot my elastic headbands. 100% boy stuff. I love it though.
You would think I would have learned by now to not underestimate how smart my kids are. They are always surprising me though.