getting out

Last Friday I took all 3 girls to the mall by myself. I went to bed the night before thinking, if we have a good night and everyone sleeps well and I feel up to it, then I want to try and take Lucy to the mall to play for a while.  Poor Lucy, she's really gotten a raw deal over the last 4 months. I've felt so guilty because she's been cooped up in the house with me and the girls. There were so many days that I wished I could bundle her up and take her outside to get some fresh air, but couldn't because of the babies. She only got to play in the snow once or twice this winter and I hated that I couldn't just take her out.

It's been a long and hard time, but I'm finally at the point where I am feeling confident to make more attempts at getting out of the house.  It's not something I will do everyday. I think probably once a week will be my limit for awhile. It's exhausting just getting everyone ready.

 Last Friday, I was up at 6 and fed the girls, then while I got ready Lucy took a bath and played. Then the babies napped while I finished up Lucy's bath and blow dried her hair, then Lucy and I ate breakfast and I got the diaper bag ready, then the babies were awake and needed to eat, so I fed them and when done put them in their carseats, made Lucy use the potty and then Molly pooped so I had to take her out of her seat, change her and put her back in, get Lucy's coat and shoes on, load everyone up in the van and finally at 9:50am I was leaving the house. Now if that doesn't exhaust you just reading it, then you need to come live it.  Believe it or not, but there are some people  I know that think getting out of the house with twins and a 3 year old is easy and no big deal and something I should make more of an effort to do. It'd be different if Dan where there to help, but on my own, I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen. It's going to be a gradual progression and each time I do it, it will get easier. But people need to understand that they are not the ones having to do all the work that it takes to get somewhere. So they just need to keep their mouths shut!

So, all that being said, I felt really proud of myself last week because it was the first time in 4 months that I left the house by myself with all 3 girls. (I don't really count our little mini outing to the car wash 2 weeks prior)  It was the first time that I felt confident that I could go somewhere and be ok with 3 small children. It was good for Lucy to run and play in the children's area at the mall. I felt good that she was getting some exercise.

We ended up being at the mall till the girls next feeding so I had to feed them while out. I called Dan at work and he was able to run up to the mall on his lunch break and meet us. We just got some Subway sandwhiches and enjoyed getting to see Daddy in the middle of the day.

I will say though that it was probably too long of an outing for the babies. They didn't nap well in the stroller and by the time we got home, both were crying and tired and I had a hard time with them for a while.  Again, the whole 2 babies crying at once thing is hard to deal with. I am only one person and I can only do so much at one time, but it never feels like enough.