The Gear. On the go with triplets! Part I

A shot I couldn't resist, the triplets posed in their Tripledecker near a Murcielago Lamborghini.  The blue was exceptional!

This is Part I of how we get our triplets around when we want to be out and about. There aren't a lot of options for getting around with 3 kids the same age but we have been very pleased with the options we did choose. Our picks have made things easy, the last thing you need is to be wrestling with gear when you have 3 kids on your hands. 


The baby stroller -  I'll call the first form of transportation the baby stroller since this is how we got our triplets around during their first year.  We LOVED our tripledecker stroller, it was purchased through this company called DoubleDeckerStroller, pretty straight forward.  This company offers strollers for families with twins, triplets or twins plus a singleton.
It was important for me to feel like I could easily take the kids out on my own.  The tripledecker was so easy to set up, light weight and hardly took up any room in the car.  We have a Nissan Murano so it was important for us to be able to fit 3 car seats across and found that the basic Graco infant seat fit perfectly side by side.  This worked out nicely w/the tripledecker Graco model.  I can't tell you how nice it was to get the triplets in their snap & go car seats, carry them to the car, snap in, drive to destination, set up stroller, snap out of car, snap into stroller!   Why is that any different or easier?  because I only ever had to buckle the kids into one seat, no buckling them out of car seats, into stroller and back out again. 

We were gifted this stroller by family but worth the price, you really don't need more things to worry about and life with triplets means things need to be efficient.  Also, it had good resale value on Craig's list when we grew out grew it.

Spot like - chewable children's medicine

 *I am not a Doctor nor recommending under what circumstance you should give medicine to your child.  Please speak with a medical professional*

If you have kids you've been through all that ails an infant or toddler, fevers to teething, sometimes things are just uncomfortable.  With triplets the amount of times during the night we may have to get up and give medicine because it is just clear that the wee one is uncomfortable are, well triple that of the average parent.  The last thing you want in the middle of the night, is to be up in the middle of the night.  The second thing you don't want is to have to turn on lights.  When your kid is sick the midnight wake up call can't be avoided. Also, with the infant ibuprofen & acetaminophen suspension medicines turning on the light also can't be avoided since you have to use the syringe to pull the right amount of medicine into the syringe. With the triplets being very different weights it was always necessary to confirm the dosage and also to pull to the correct line, awake yet? 

Enter recent shopping excursion when I was stocking up since we have a lot of 2 year molars coming in right now.  I took a second look at the box I was holding 'chewable, quick melt!', checked the age range and put the box back.  I stood in a daze, staring at the selection again, not a dream, this was for real,they sale children's chewable medicine!  Sometimes I have to think things through when out shopping with the triplets, things can get a little hectic.  I tossed a box into my shopping cart thinking there is no way this could be true or work as expected.  I was wrong.  It was a few nights later one of the kids woke up with a fever and I made the dreaded trip to the medicine cabinet.  On my way I remembered the recent purchase and woke myself up more from the excitement. It was genius!  Quick, easy and administering it was so simple, no dripping, sticky medicine all over them or me, something that seems to happen more often then not when you are in the half dark trying to feed someone medicine.

We now have ibuprofen, in grape flavor, and acetaminophen in bubblegum flavor in chewable, melt quick tablets.  I choose the two different distinct flavors to better distinguish in the middle of the night which one I'm grabbing, again trying to keep thinking to a minimum so I can actually get back to sleep easier.  These tablets definitely get a thumbs up in our house.

Peanut Butter cookies with Nutella

A few months ago I made this nutella banana bread.  It was quite yummy to say the least.  Craving something that would be a little different and yet fairly quick and easy to cook, I thought mmmmm.... good ol' fashion peanut butter cookies with nutella!  Ultimately the picture in my head was the PB cookie w/the Hershey's kiss in it. Using my stand by Better Homes & Garden cook book recipe for the cookies it was then just a matter of how to incorporate the nutella.  I have no idea how nutella cooks so I went safe and baked the cookies for the first 8min of 12min total cooking time.  I had balls of dough that I either made a volcano like depression in or used a fork and did the criss cross pattern that I grew up with.  At 8min I pulled the cookies and added the nutella, a dollop on each, I figured the criss cross pattern would make a little place holder in the cookie to keep the run off contained should the nutella just melt.  Since I was additionally worried about the melt off I went ahead and stuck a non nutella cookie on a couple, sandwich like. 

Admittedly I'm not a huge fan of peanut butter or nutella like my husband, he loved both varieties.  I liked the sandwich one better yielding to a nice balance of a peanut butter cookie with a nice surprise inside.

Spot Like - Full Press Cabernet Sauvignon

Being American ex-pats that have recently relocated to Canada we still have sticker shock on the cost of alcohol.  We fell in love with wine while living in California prior to our move to Vancouver.  There is sometimes an almost double mark-up on the cost of wine here, ouch.  I have been struggling to find wine at a reasonable (cheap) price and have it, well, drinkable.  I thought I found the answer in Gray Fox, a cheap, drinkable California wine but am now very impressed, for the price of $8.79CAD, and quality. The Cab works, the Merlot & Shiraz I'm not quite as impressed with.  I have now discovered that they sell the Cabernet Sauvignon in a box, good for 6 weeks once opened and the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine, $29CAD even better!

*there are no kickbacks for talking about this wine, just sharing what I like!