speak!

Why is it I'm the only one NOT hearing my children say words. My mother in law, husband, nannies, and apparently everyone else are convinced they've heard words come out of my childrens' mouths and all I can think is...."wishful thinking." I hear a close approximation of a syllable that may or may not be them imitating what's coming out of your mouth but I wouldn't call it a word folks. You say 'shoe' A says 'so' or 'sho' and you call that saying 'shoe?' Hmm.

Am I just too hardline? Should I accept a marginal syllable as a word? I mean we are getting pretty desperate here with almost a year and a half gone by and not a word to be found. Other than the usual 'mama' and 'dada' which can be used for at least half a dozen different things other than mom and dad. Sure, triplets take their time and it's quite clear that they understand one another and follow directions and know the parts of their bodies, so I know they aren't 'slow.' But this lack of words is starting to drive me nuts. I keep counting down to their 18 month dr appointment saying we have to get some words by then or we're going to look bad!

I do not want to need intervention, my kids are clearly smart, but perhaps we're just so good at interpreting what they need without words that they have little need to try them. Sigh. Is it time to whip out the flash cards? I am so not a high pressure mom and our pediatrician is just the same and always makes me stop worrying but come on kids! I need a word! Not just 'ba' for ball, I need a complete word like 'up' or 'baby.'

Speak dammit! Speak!

Triple the fun

"You've got your hands full." As people have said this a million times to me in the last 16 months I have given it much thought. Do you think that I could find any parent of toddlers or even one single toddler who doesn't think their hands are full? I have had a theory for a long time that life with baby or babies is just like having a purse. You know that no matter how big a purse you buy you will fill it to the brim with crap. Suddenly you need one of those tissue packs, an extra pencil, perhaps a note book or a small book to reed if you get stuck in line, a little extra make up for touch ups and so on. If you had a clutch, you'd be fine with an id, lipstick, credit card and a few dollars.

Well having kids in your life is similar, if sort of the opposite way. If you have one kid you find that there are a million things you need to do for them. You will spend every waking second chopping food for home made baby food, sterilizing equipment repeatedly, plotting graphs of diapers and bottles, and staring into their eyes lovingly. If you have three infants at once you economize your time. Your infants are lucky if they get some rocking, one nap on your chest, a clean spoon in their mouth, and organic food processed by a corporation. You just have to adjust or you can't survive.

If you try to do everything for triplets you would fall down dead. So, triplets seem to adjust, they get used to soothing themselves sometimes, spend a lot of time in swings or bouncy chairs while someone else has a 'greater need,' and share every single cold with one another because of shared spoons. Now, do they suffer for this? I don't know. Because I believe most parents with more than one kid will admit that child #2 got less stuff and attention than child #1. "First child syndrome" which I have heard it called, means the first child sleeps in your bed until they're 2, rarely touches the floor for being held so much, is practically attached to you by the umbilical cord still. Child #2 gets less partly because you have to spend time with #1 as well but also because the novelty has worn off. It's not the first baby smell, the first co-sleeper, the first burp. So, do triplets suffer for never having been an only child? I suppose not more than second children suffer. But we won't find out until therapy begins.