Week 30 with Triplets

New toys at Umpa’s triplet daycare.

Reading these blog posts, it quickly becomes apparent that I adore my triplet grand babies (don’t worry, they are our only grandchildren). So much so that I happily serve as daycare provider for my daughter and her husband.

When they have a need — or maybe just a perceived need this week — I spring into action.

Keeping the Toy Box Entertaining

I’m not a child psychologist, so I have no idea if or when babies their age get bored of certain toys.

What I do see is these three playing with certain toys for shorter and shorter periods of time. As a grandpa, and having them all day at my house, I want to keep them exploring new things.

Okay, so it’s also advantageous to keep them engaged and distracted by an activity for as long as possible. This week I decided it was time to add some fresh toys.

If this was garage sale season I’d simply load up on slightly used toys while I’m making the rounds. Seeing as we’re in the middle of winter, it was necessary to go with Plan B.

Honestly, I did walk through the toy and baby isles at my local Walmart looking for actual new items. There just wasn’t anything that caught my eye, or that they didn’t already have at home.

The next best thing is our local children’s resale stores. If your not familiar, these are stores that buy gently used baby clothing, toys and accessories and resell them at a discount. The prices are good and you can frequently find some real bargains.

This time around I found a couple grab bags of handheld toys that looked interesting. Came out to about $1 per toy, which is similar to garage sale pricing.

No Disappointed Babies Allowed

The daycare does have one large exercise item that was starting to cause me stress.

Our triplets have come to love their jumpers. Primarily because jumping is definitely their most favorite thing.

I had picked up a half dozen of these jumpers and exersaucers at garage sales over the summer. Some went to the baby’s house and the rest stayed at mine. Keep in mind this was back when they were infants.

The daycare has two jumpers and an exersaucer. Up until this week the exersaucer was fine, having lots of fun activities for them to play with. The downside is that it only has a springy disk under their feet that offers minimal jumping enjoyment.

One day it became very clear that the babies in the jumpers were having a roaring good time bouncing around. The baby in the exersaucer, to me, clearly looked left out.

That’s not okay in Umpa’s daycare.

As soon as the triplets went home, I hit the baby resale stores looking for a good deal on a jumper. Finally came across a slightly older one for a fantastic price because of its weird electronic activities, but there was plenty of jumping potential.

It was an instant hit. Problem solved.

Mom Can’t Stand It

Lastly, I wanted to share a picture of Baby C that mom did not appreciate.

From time to time I try things with the babies even though I know it’s way to early. To me it puts the idea in their head that this is something they could, and eventually will, do.

All the babies like to stand but Baby C is the most brazen with wanting to let go of your hands, so I showed him what it might be like to stand on his own.

This is clearly a ways away since Baby C is currently the furthest of the three from even crawling, but it made a good picture to freak out mom.