repeat after me

While we were at the beach on our recent relocation (as in ‘not a vacation, but a relocation,’ a term I picked up from a mother of twins), I (the triplet mom) was introduced briefly to my friend’s Aunt Melissa, who happened to be staying nearby. She said to me, “You must be really tired.”

“You can say that again.” I said. And I went on to tell her the story of how just the day before I had been sitting on the beach with my trio and my niece who is the same age as they are.

My niece said, “Aunt Kim, do you want to play paddle ball?”

I may have been imagining it, but it seemed like the question stopped my three girls in their tracks. Cinderella, who up until that point had been quietly building sandcastles, answered for me, “No, my mommy is tired. You’re tired, right, Mommy?”

The thing is that, whereas my niece was an experienced paddle baller, my girls had never really played the game before—especially not on the beach, and it would be fun for them. I felt so bad that they had not even thought of asking me themselves that I got up and played paddle ball, complete with the requisite dives into the sand as well as the appropriate interventions when fighting ensued over whose turn it was, for what seemed like an hour with the four almost-five year olds.

Aunt Melissa shrugged in response to my story, saying something like “if playing paddle ball is the worst thing that you don’t do because you’re tired, it’ll be a miracle.”

And then, she went on to explain something I have been trying to articulate for nearly five years, “You're tired because you have to do everything three times.”

That’s it exactly, I thought as I remembered how I had taken the time that afternoon to show each of my girls one by one with the same level of enthusiasm and patience and interest how to hold the paddle and hit the ball. Doing three different things is hard, but it is the repetition of the same activity (insert discussion or comforting session or explanation or peptalk…etc.) three times that for me is indeed exhausting.

And then we were off to try putt-putt.

knock, knock

Cinderella loves to make people laugh and consequently is fascinated with jokes and riddles. All summer long she memorized, rehearsed, and retold the riddles printed on the sticks of the bubblegum swirl popsicles she gets for dessert at the pool. And, in an effort to cultivate her raw talent, my mother bought her a book of jokes for kids. Of course, we are the ones that have to read it to her over and over and over again.

After studying, analyzing, and repeatedly telling knock-knock jokes and riddles of all sorts (like What’s the most musical bone? A trombone and How do you keep a fish from smelling? Plug his nose), Cinderella made up a riddle of her own:

"Why are kids faster than grown-ups?

Because grown-ups are always tired."

hoping

Another night of dinner at the pool. If it sounds like we eat there every night, it’s true…almost. It is just sooo much easier for me, no cooking, no cleaning up, happy girls, and the food is good, too. Being able to have meals there during the summer literally saved my life when the girls were younger—there was really no other place we could safely and comfortably eat out with three two year olds.

But back to tonight. I didn’t see what had happened, but Cinderella ran up to me crying. Apparently, another little boy, a six year old, had thrown ice at her back. She wasn’t hurt, just upset. What I should do in response was unclear: do I talk to the boy or to his mom or just comfort my daughter?

Well, S. Judy knew what to do. She grabbed a handful of ice herself and ran after boy, shouting his name. He turned to face her. She raised her fist full of ice threateningly and gave him a mouthful about not throwing ice at her sister.

Again, I didn’t know what to do. The boy was bigger and older. Then he turned and ran into the men’s locker room, knowing that S. Judy wouldn’t follow him there.

Sometimes people ask me if my triplets stick up for each other. The answer is yes, but S. Judy takes on that role the most often.

She also, it so happens, wears hearing aids for mild-moderate bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. The aids are difficult to spot under her long, curly chestnut hair, and her speech is clear enough that most people don’t notice any issue. We are counting on her assertiveness and physical strength to work to her advantage.

For example, we are hoping that the ease with which she acquires new athletic skills—she was the first of my trio to ice skate, swim, and ride a bike—will lay a foundation from which she can draw confidence when/if she struggles with some hearing-related task, like learning to read.

And, we are thinking that her self-assurance will help her out, too. I was so impressed as I watched her participate by raising her hand to answer questions and offer observations during weekly presentations offered by our local library as part of its summer reading program. Among a group of 25 kids, most several years older, S. Judy almost always had her hand raised. It got to the point that Cinderella, sitting next to her, would quickly, casually, and inconspicuously pull her sister’s arm down whenever she noticed S. Judy was the only kid with an arm up. But, though spoken softly, S. Judy’s answers and comments when called upon were consistently on-topic and age-appropriate.

Might I add, hysterical? When a presenter from a natural history museum held up a menacing skull (it was in reality just a cow skull) and asked the group what they would tell others if they came across this skull, S. Judy answered, “Run for your life!”

My father believes that inevitably one day she will be the butt of jokes or teasing from kids at school…and he hopes that the first time someone calls her a name she punches him or her right in the nose. I’m not saying I hope for that, too, but I will say that it is absolutely possible and it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen.

girltalk

Last night during dinner at our pool, Jasmine turned to our friend Jeff and his four and a half year old son Josh. Pointing to a line she had drawn on a piece of paper with markers we had brought from home, she said, “See this line? It’s fuchsia.”

With a puzzled expression, Josh whispered something in his father’s ear. Jeff responded out loud, “What! You don’t believe it’s fuchsia?”

“No, because it’s purple,” Josh insisted.

Jasmine was unfazed. She simply picked up another marker, held it up so Josh could get a closer look, and said, “And this is lilac.”

mom v. dad

This morning I caught a few minutes of a discussion of Mom v. Dad parenting styles on the Today Show. I think the point of the spot was to say something like, if moms want dads to participate, then they can't try to micromanage every moment of interaction...let dads be dads. The discussion triggered a lot of funny memories for me because, from very early on, my husband has HAD to participate.

When our infants were triplets, he realized right away that he was going to have to help out a lot more than he had expected. I remember the moment vividly. It was the first night that two of my girls were home from the hospital. My husband went to bed at his usual time because he had to go to work the next day--while I stayed up alone with the two fussy babies. I didn't mind. I was excited to have them home, and I knew that Anthony had already taken so much time off of work when the girls in the hosptial.

The girls basically cried and fussed continually, while I alternated between the two, changing one then the other, feeding one then the other, rocking one then the other. I later learned that in the hospital the babies often got the same amount of stimulation at night as they did during the day, sometimes even more from the night shift nurses who often had extra time on their hands. According to my babies' schedules, midnight to seven was party time!

At some point around maybe 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Anthony apppeared in the babies' room where I was still awake and frantically changing another diaper, desparate for the girls to settle down, and without saying a word he just picked up one of the babies and brought her back to bed with him. He took responsibility for that girl for the rest of the night. That was the beginning of months of our either taking four hour shifts each night with the girls or splitting up the responsiblities at night--he would take one girl, while I took two, and vice versa.

The only way we survived that period was by sharing the workload. However, sharing meant that I had to relinquish some control (easier said than done) and accept his style of parenting. One night when my husband was taking the first shift--10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., I woke up to find my three month old girls in the living room, all of the lights were on and bombs were exploding on the television, not to mention the obvious evidence that diapers had been changed on the coffee table. His rationale was something about if he had to be awake anyway he might as well catch one of his favorite WWII movies...

After that, the two of us did finally reach an agreement (we were both too tired to argue anyway) that the girls would never learn to sleep through the night by watching war movies. Now, nearly five years later, I still think about that night. Although my husband would never believe it while I'm telling him not to throw the girls so high in the pool or not to buy donuts after every trip to the library, I actually do bite my tongue quite a bit and try to remember that we indeed have different styles, and my girls are probably better off because of it.