San Francisco Part 2

Where were we? Oh yes. Abe and Klarissa had just abandoned Newland and then he was all OURS. It's true. Whenever we were at the apartment, Newland would hopelessly wander throughout the house repeatedly mumbling, "mama mama dada dada." And any door that was closed was automatically assumed to be hiding either mama or dada, and then he was all sorts of disappointed to find neither mama nor dada hidden behind any closed doors after all.

To calm Newland's nerves, we had to get him out of the house. We made our way to the Children's Museum, and crossed The Golden Gate Bridge on our way. As we were crossing it, Eli said with great concern, "But Mom. Why does the Golden Gate Bridge not have any gates on it?" That's a valid question, son.

The boys enjoyed the boats while I enjoyed glimpsing the bridge for the first time.

It's hard to take a good selfie. And it's extra hard to take a good selfie with a bridge strategically placed between two faces. And it's extra extra hard to take a good selfie with a bridge while preventing three children from running into the street, or jumping off a ledge. So I'll consider this a success.

We made it to the Children's Museum! You know what's great? Eli loves pushing strollers. It made for an easy way to keep track of two of the munchkins while keeping my hands free!

My boys were immediately captivated by a bubble machine they found a few steps into the museum, while Newland kept wandering over to this one room while he was chanting the same word over and over. "Newland, let's wait for Eli and Carson." I kept telling him, but he kept charging straight for that one room.

During one bolt, he successfully made it all the way into the room, and I realized he had been chanting, "Train! Train! Train!" I walked in the room and saw a huge train set. Boy heaven! Eli and Carson were quick to join.

It was here I realized I was grateful to have three boys. They all stuck together at the children's museum because they were all interested in the same activities. Made it easy to keep everyone happy at once!

The other favorite room was the "Fix It Up" room. Everything was broken in the room and needed to be fixed. Eli was in a frenzy to get everything put back together.

We were going to go to a park for lunch, but we ended up staying at the museum for so long that we were there far beyond lunchtime and nap time. We threw the kids their sandwiches to eat in the car, and they were all asleep within minutes. Jeff and I took the opportunity to go on a little scenic drive along the coast.

With a little time to kill before dinner, we went to Golden Gate Park.

The key to success with three boys three and under in a busy city is to always have at least two of them strapped into a stroller.

This was one of Eli's favorite places of our whole trip. He loved jumping on the rocks across the water. I wish we could have stayed there longer, but I didn't trust a certain someone to not fall into the water, so we didn't tempt fate for too long.

We made it back to the house so Jeff could cook us up some hot dogs, and so that the boys could have their daily bath popsicle treat. Then we closed the evening with a movie and popcorn.

My main concern with three babies in a two bedroom apartment was the sleep situation. Where would they sleep? What would happen when one of them woke up? How would Newland react to me putting him to sleep? What would he do when he woke up in the middle of the night to find me instead of his parents? I had so many concerns.

The kids went down without a fight as I braced myself for a night of wakefulness. I fell asleep at the same time the kids did, eager to seize any chance of sleep I would be able to get. And then I woke up at 7:00 in the morning.

Everyone slept completely soundly through the night. Carson doesn't even do that for us at home. It was a San Franciscan miracle.

Waking up fresh and well rested, and no longer fearing having to endure a weekend without sleep, we were ready to face another adventure filled day...