Congratulations!! 35 weeks is truly amazing for triplets. I'm so glad you're all doing well. As a mom of baby twins, I bow down to moms of triplets (and quads, and quints . . .). :hurray:

My 3.5 year old has a pacifier in bed, so at night or anytime he wants to go lie down. I nursed his older sister until she was 4.5 years old, so this only seems fair. I think with your DD, I would start by allowing the pacifier at home only. Then try keeping it in the bed only. We have friends who have had the child's pacifier sewn into a stuffed animal or doll, so the child can keep the comfort object. My oldest would never take a pacifier and I was, and still am, her comfort object. It is a double-edged sword! No object to wean from, but ask me about the many years I attended children's church classes and preschool with her, just so she would even consider going.

Most ordinary carseats have an expiration 6 to 8 years after manufacture, so I'd say yours still has some good years left in it, since it's never been in an accident. As long as the straps haven't been submerged, etc., it would probably be very safe for another special needs child. I would definitely pass it on to another family.

Oldest is getting some National Geographic picture books about animals and a few Magic Schoolbus early readers. She is 6. Boy-o (3.5 years old) is getting a book about trucks and a Mo Willems pigeon book--I think it's a new-ish one? Twin girls (10 months) are getting The Very Hungry Caterpillar (for some reason, we have not owned this before?!?) board book and a board book about fruit. I haven't looked at what I ordered in a while. :)

If the room is at all humid, you will want to either pick up and air out what she uses each day (as the Japanese do), or put slats or some minimal frame under it for air flow. Otherwise, you can grow significant mold.

Yes! I had my twins in a hospital after having my first two singletons at home, and I found an OB who agreed to be there to catch my twins, unless he was out of town or otherwise just absolutely unable to do it. I did not have to utilize the rotating call schedule. I also had all my prenatal appointments with him. I was not comfortable with rotating through providers. It worked out quite well.

I love Buy Nothing Day! We're celebrating!

Oh, I am impressed and jealous! It needs to happen around here, too.

Congratulations and hugs. Last September, we discovered that our planned and wanted baby #3 was actually babies #3 and #4. I was upset, to put it mildly. :) Lots of tears, lots of anxiety, lots of changed plans. It took a little while to get used to the idea of *two babies* and to prepare for them, but it has turned out to be so wonderful--and crazy.

My first baby was my hardest, too--waaaaaaay harder than my infant twins (#3 and 4). I knew how to care for a baby, and had no health issues or breastfeeding problems or anything, but the reality of day-in, day-out, your-life-is-no-longer-your-own was very, very difficult. It was like an identity crisis, wrapped up in extreme sleep deprivation and wacky hormones. It is hard. Hugs to her.

I have gotten one box and I kept two items from it. I actually liked four out of the five items I got a lot, but two of them weren't very practical, so I only kept two. I was astonished and pleased that the pants they sent fit me! (But they were white, so I didn't keep them . . . .) I'm going to get another box sometime. It was worth it for me.

Yes! They protect the mattress from any number of bodily fluids. Essential, especially if there are children in the house.

I just read some references to Plaid Friday and was wondering what it was! We "celebrate" Buy Nothing Day instead of shopping on Thanksgiving weekend--but buying local and from small businesses would be my next choice.

First of all, I want to say you are my hero and an inspiration. I am 39 and we want to have another baby sometime, so I need examples like you instead of all these young whipper snappers saying they're soooo ooooooold having babies at 28. :) You might look into Katy Bowman's work on the pelvic floor to help with your leakage. I have been reading her work for a few years and it helped me a lot with hip and back pain in my twin pregnancy--my first post-Katy-Bowman pregnancy. It is, as the human body is, very complicated, but more natural movement and alignment might make a big difference. Here's a KB post on stress incontinence: http://www.katysays.com/a-wee-problem-with-crossfit/http://www.katysays.com/a-wee-problem-with-crossfit/ Here's another about body alignment in pregnancy: http://www.katysays.com/mama-baby-alignment/ There is just so much . . . . A good starter on body alignment to help with pain and incontinence with step-by-step do this, do that info that can be done in pregnancy is the MuTu System. They have a big Black Friday sale, which I hear will be around 40% off.

I am just on the path to frugality, but one thing that's helped me is allocating each dollar of our monthly income to something--whether that's savings, groceries, clothing, or spending money for me or DH. There is no money without a specific responsibility. Then, I have to prioritize the best way to spend that money. Sure, I could take money from the home maintenance category to buy something fun for myself, but then I remember that, for example, several of our appliances are about 7 to 10 years old, so they may need to be replaced in the next year. The bank account looks like it has all this extra money in it this way, but I know that money has a responsibility to cover future needs.

This is what we do, too. I only fill the next day's cube the night before so that I can choose an activity that fits with whatever else we have going on, plus what I feel able to accomplish.

My experience was that in the initial evaluation for EI, the majority of it was a lot of questions for me: Does your DS do this? Can he do that? There was some of it that involved having the child do certain tasks, but a lot of it was questions for the parent. IIRC, there were two appointments involved in the initial evaluation. One involved a nurse coming and weighing and measuring my DS and asking about his gestational age. They also brought a portable hearing screening device to that appointment.

In our state, at least, you don't need referrals for Early Intervention, if you decide you want to try the state's program (ours is sponsored by Easter Seals). You call EI directly and set up the initial appointments.

My DS was in Early Intervention for gross motor skills, and I think their little rule of thumb was 20 words (or signs, or a combination of words and signs) by 20 months. Our EI therapists are great at engaging little ones and encouraging them to express themselves (or do whatever they are supposed to be working on), and giving parents tools to continue all of that at home. It is all play-based at that age, or it should be! Don't wait until January for your DS. Start right now. The waiting period and evaluation period may take a while, depending on your state, and you don't want to lose that valuable time.

Once he gets used to using it, he will likely be pretty miserable and sleepless without it. My DH can't sleep without his now. DH takes his on the plane in his carry on baggage--it's one of the most important things he travels with.

I am nursing twins, and I get headaches if I don't drink enough water. I am almost down to my pre-pregnancy weight at 8 months postpartum. I am not really dieting, but I do try not to eat everything in sight--which is hard, because nursing makes me ravenous. But I don't really limit my food consumption.

I should add that a different nephew of mine had phase one braces (involving a palate expander) and then he and my sister decided they were happy with the results and did not continue to phase two. Phase one on just the front adult teeth he had and his palate made enough of a difference.

I think part of this may be a misunderstanding of what type of orthodontic care 8 year olds are getting. The 8 year olds I know are getting jaw and palate adjustments made that happen most easily at young ages when the palate is more malleable. My nephew had work done at a young age with techniques that were not used when his father had the same jaw issues as a teen. As a teen, his father had to have his jaw broken to correct it and eat pureed food through a syringe for weeks. I think less invasive care at younger ages is a benefit. If we're talking about how many people could be fed for the cost of orthodontia, well, we could pick just about anything and make a statement about that. There isn't really anyone who isn't spending money on something that someone else finds wasteful.

I think two rounds of braces is really now just developments in the field of orthodontics. I had braces 20+ years ago in a small city, so probably not the state of the art care. I had adult teeth pulled, which is simply not done now, and it now seems to be causing some issues. I think I would have had a better outcome if I had had a palate expander as a child and then second phase braces as a tween or teen. Starting earlier and doing two phases may just be better care, KWIM?

I was in early labor with my twins (39 weeks 2 days!!) and tried to get things rolling a bit more with pumping and nipple stimulation and *nothing* happened. I also carried my second baby to 40w 6d while nursing big sister.