The Big Send Off.... Courtesy of the Trio

Wednesday afternoon at 5pm when Scott called the Reserve unit he is going to Iraq with to find out if he was, in fact, still going with them, he was told..."yeah, where are you, you were supposed to be here two days ago". The efficiency of the ARMY astounds me!! I wonder how long they would have waited to send him those orders if he hadn't called them?!?

So after all those days of waiting with no word or orders, we were forced into flash packing mode on Wednesday evening as he had a plane to catch on Thursday. Needless to say, there was a little bit of stressing going on over here, and the girls all certainly felt it.

I am certain that children sense the stress of their parents and the adults they are around because when Scott and I finally crashed into bed around 12:50am after finding, washing, and packing all his gear, we heard the noise of one crying baby.

Now, we were both tired, but I could tell that Scott was just then realizing how much he was going to miss out on over the coming year, so I encouraged him to go and take a peek to see who was crying. I assumed he could pick up the crying baby, snuggle her for a few minutes, and then get back to bed. Otherwise I would never have suggested he break my '5 minutes of crying before investigation at night' rule.

A few minutes later he came walking down the hall, but I noticed that the crying had not stopped.... it had gotten even louder! He was carrying one baby and then I realized that I now had to go get the other one. By the time I got in there, the one crying baby had become two, so we all five ended up in the living room at 1am. Thank goodness Ella slept through it all.

The rest of the night was a horrible blur of lots of crying and us scrambling to try and find a way to salvage it. We tried all our usual tricks to no avail, and finally around 3am I just made myself a bed on the couch, put on a Dora video, locked the girls in the living room with me, and sent Scott to bed. I was finally able to put them in their cribs around 4:15am without too much fussing, and then I crashed.

So our last night with Scott here for a while was not the best, nor was the following morning, but such is life with triplets and stressed out parents. At least we got photos of Scott and the girls before we left for the airport, and you will all now understand why we look so tired. We left the babies behind to nap because they sorely needed it, and just Ella and I dropped him off.

Ella and Daddy

Maggie and Daddy

Kate giving Daddy butterfly kisses

Sarah and Daddy

The whole crew.... boy do we look tired!

We've stayed very busy the last two days. I'm giving myself a little bit of a break until Monday, but after the weekend I'm hoping to put this little household on a great schedule that will help us get by until Scott comes back home. We miss him already, but as I've said before, now we can start the countdown until he returns. Thanks to all of you who have called, emailed, and commented to let us know you are thinking of us and praying for us. We really appreciate it!