Things I've learned while pregnant

1. Not all desserts without chocolate are without merit. While pregnant, chocolate becomes unattractive to me so I try desserts I never would have otherwise. They are good!

2. Large is relative. Thought I was large before? Huh uh girl.

3. Tequila should be drunk whenever possible. You don't know what you've been missing until it's gone.

4. 9 months is really 40 weeks. That's 10 months people. How fair is that?

5. Small portions can satisfy. Although you'll have to eat again in an hour and a half, but you know....

6.  I'm not usually that short tempered. Compared to now that is.

7. Fresh fruit is damned good! Why can't I remember this when I'm not trying to eat well? Why can't the pre-cut stuff in the store taste as good as good as the stuff I have to peel and dice?

8. Things that look and smell bad? May actually taste great. Don't trust your nose.

9. Massages are necessary for existence.

10. Anyone can make you cry. Anyone.

11. It's bad to be a needy cat in a house with triplets and a pregnant mom. You're screwed.

12. No mattress solves every problem. Don't spend the money.

13. Men find any distortion of your body attractive. You're a girl. With boobs. Get over it.

14. You think your boobs hurt when you're on your period? Try pregnancy. Exponential growth is not your friend.

15. Big boobs will get you stared at on the street, regardless of the size of your abdomen. I mean really?

16. I apparently get obsessed by boobs myself.

17. Thoughts about what you would do if your husband died 4 days before you gave birth are bad for getting to sleep. Would I get Cobra coverage? Who would I scream at in labor? Why am I even thinking about this?

18. Sleep is the nectar of the gods. Don't take it for granted!

You feel calm, veeeery calm..

"They" say that when a kid is defying you by not listening or even reacting to the fact that words are coming out of your face that the worst thing you can do is yell. They list a bunch of other things you shouldn't do, but they actually said yelling was the worst. Because, of course, the little bugger is trying to get a reaction out of you. And yelling? Doesn't scare him yet. He doesn't know that in a few months, when he's emotionally ready to understand punishment? Yelling will be the warning that its comin' on and you'd better get ready for some pain. Emotional pain that is of course. You know, the suffering that comes from sitting on the naughty step and all.

But, really? How am I not supposed to yell? J is grabbing B by the collar of his shirt and pulling pulling yanking dragging him down to the ground because he feels like it and I'm all "J....J.........J.......J.... GODDAMIT J I'M TALKING TO YOU!!!

Because I know he can hear me. He passed his hearing test just fine. He hears the call to dinner just fine. He hears me tiptoeing through his room at night just fine. That boy just wants to kick his brother's butt and there will be no stopping other than physically prying his tight little fists finger by finger from his brother's shirt. This sibling rivalry starts early and it ain't pretty.

I'm just kind of concerned about how it's going to go down when they're 8. Because they'll know judo and ninja moves by then. How many trips to the hospital am I in for between the two of them fighting over stuff? Not to mention the usual silly boy antics that crack open skulls on a regular basis.

But not yelling? That might send me to the hospital. The mental ward. I am a yelly person. If I have to maintain some sort of weird unnatural calm in order to have control over these kids? I'm doomed. And I'd rather screw them up a bit than end up in the padded cell.

I'm just sayin'. Listen to your mother. It's better for your health.

Where's the packhorse?

I just can't wrap my brain around how much crap I need to pack up and get ready for our trip on Friday. And I'm not trying really hard. I'm trying to get all the errands done this week and hoping that Thursday I can use my packing list to do a nice quick job of it. How does one even pack for 3 kids for 10 days?

First, there's the diapers, 6-8 diapers a day for 3 kids for 10 days. Just bringing a whole box. Wipes? We use a box of 700 each week. I guess I'm bringing a whole box. Laundry detergent, well thank goodness we can do laundry because then I don't have to pack 10x3 kids worth of laundry. Then there's the weather unknown. Is it going to be hot every day? Do we finally get to wear out the summer clothes that fail in San Francisco weather? Or is it going to be rainy some day, foggy ever, whatever?

Then there's the equipment. We have to bring toys, but how many? Books, videos, cameras, computers, pack n plays to sleep in, I mean why not just pack up the whole house? I do have a pretty large minivan. Then there's strollers, wagons, highchairs, baby pools, sand toys, life jackets......

I suppose the older they get the less we will have to bring. I have this fantasy that this house we are renting will be so great that we'll return year after year but I wonder. I hope they can play in the river, that would be a great change of pace. I hope the town is nice to wander through and has a park or two for the kids to play in while we eat lunch or something. I hope I get some time to read the apparently 8 books I will be bringing to read. I'd better not stay up late reading and make myself exhausted though.

I really hope this feels like a vacation. We will still have to cook for ourselves, clean, entertain the kids, put them down for naps and bedtime, bathe them, soothe their nightmares, and generally run a household, it will just be a different one. With fewer stairs. Let's hope that makes all the difference....

Oops, I did it again!

I played with my birth control, got lost in the dark....oh baby baby..

I mean, oops. I'm pregnant.

So, now that all of you have picked your jaws up off the floor. It's true. I didn't pay anyone and I still got pregnant! I have triplets, which means I get to have sex maybe once every 4 months? And I still got pregnant.

Silly me.

I am actually very excited. Apparently the universe must think I'm doing an ok job to throw another helpless infant at me. Or maybe they were caught looking the other way but how fun is this? I get to see what being pregnant with one baby is like! (So far? Sucks.) I get to sleep with a baby, possibly breastfeed, give birth 'naturally' (why am I excited about that? Who knows), and generally allow my children to do the bulk of the childcare. I mean, why else have three older kids? Babysitting? Check.

No really. I am terrified too, but if you must know, I wanted another one. Pregnancy is weird and woman hormones are weird. It wasn't too long after I gave birth that I wanted to be pregnant again. Which is pretty pathetic considering I spend every single second of every minute complaining while pregnant. Triplet pregnancies suck. But this time, lucky for you, I'm finding the second trimester to be a bit nicer on me. I'm only 3 days in, but forgive me for enjoying the fact that the first trimester exhaustion, nausea and mood swings have been gone for 3 days.

And count yourselves extremely lucky that you missed all the whining that went with that period. Expect, however, third trimester to be a nightmare. Especially as I get closer and closer to the possibility that a large sized baby (this family makes none other) will be exiting by a method I have not experienced as of yet.

Ok, let's hear it. Only, if you're going to berate me for being pregnant again? Don't bother. I'm too happy.

The Tao of caring

Careless:

1. not paying enough attention to what one does

2. not exact, accurate, or thorough

3. done or said heedlessly or negligently; unconsidered

4. not caring or troubling; having no care or concern; unconcerned

My husband and I had a 'discussion' last night about carelessness. We didn't agree what it meant and so I'm still thinking about it today. I refuse to be called careless. Sure, I'm a klutz, distractible, a multi-tasker who sometimes needs to slow down, but not careless. Because my definition is #4 up there and some of #3. I think it's a pretty negative thing to not care. It sounds like I'd be running through life kicking over vases and smashing my car into the car in the parking space in front of me who took up 1 and 1/2 spots with his tiny Yugo while I try to fit into what remains of my parking space.

That's so not me. I spend endless hours of the day caring 'too much.' I agonize over peoples opinions, try to anticipate their needs, smooth the wrinkles out, clear the pathways and hope that no one ever has to ask me to do something for them that I haven't already done. When someone is waiting for my parking space? I haul arse to get out of that spot, even if it means spilling coffee on myself in the rush to stick it in the holder. If I knock into someone while passing them in a store? You can bet I apologize, even if it's their fault. (And can I ask why people don't care to move out of MY way once in a freakin' while? I mean, I am not large in diameter by any means. My purse is of average size. Give me a few inches!)

But the endless bruises on my thighs, shoulders and sometimes head gives my klutziness away. I consider it an inherited trait as my mom couldn't ride a bike without wiping out at least once every time. And it was always when she borrowed my bike. Not that she'd tell me she'd fallen on my bike again, I'd just walk out the next day to ride it to school and the handle brake would be knocked over to the inside of the handlebar. Hmm. Wonder how that happened? Anyway, I consider the klutz also to be due to my multitasking mind. I'm usually off to do something rather quickly when I do run into the baby gate/doorknob/doorframe/nothing or trip over the steps/doorjamb/completely flat floor. Does multitasking make me careless? I don't think so.

My husband, on the other hand, has cultivated a personality characteristic that I think took him years. I'm not sure you are necessarily born 'careful.' I think he chose, early on in life, to carry himself so carefully through the world that he is not only highly unlikely to ever trip or run into anything, but he is also preternaturally quiet when moving through a 1914 house where every floorboard squeaks. I respect this talent. But I think it takes a lot of effort. By now it's second nature to him, but I imagine at the beginning he had to think all the time about where he put his feet, where his arms and hands were as he walked, how to navigate tight spaces and whether every hair on his head was in place or not. (Just kidding!) Just thinking about that exhausts me.

I won't do that and in a way I respect my life choice. I run through life talking a bit too loud, feeling free, laughing at my bruises, arms flying in whatever direction. It doesn't mean that when I break something or dent the minivan for the 715th time on the stupid narrow garage door opening I don't feel bad. I do feel bad. It sucks to have dents. If I break something truly important like an family heirloom I do agonize. But I can tell you that if it's a hole in the wall that can be repaired, a glass that can be replaced or heck, even a nice object that can't be replaced, I will not be beating myself up for days. Life is to be enjoyed. Houses are to be lived in. Things are to be used and sometimes broken. And apparently, minivans are mine to destroy. Life goes on. Does that sound careless?

About that award

So I am honored, nay, amazed and gratified, to find myself the recipient of an award. Not just any lady gave me this, but a fellow blogger. JennyMac at lets have a cocktail who has at least 8 billion more readers than I and yet finds me interesting. A blogger who writes and follows some of the wittiest and smartest blogs I've ever read and yet found me worthy of mention on a short list of her faves. Shocking really. The award is called Honest Scrap for honest blogging. I don't hold much back I suppose, so it fits.

And would I be a mother if I wasn't so self denigrating and humble? Pshaw. No really, I don't feel worthy because on a daily basis I write whatever comes out of my head and a lot of her other examples seem to create very intricate blogs with well thought out premises. Not I. Pretty much barf onto the keyboard. Ah well, to each their own, and I am not against accepting awards. However, they do come with work. And I do get to pass them on to other worthies, whether they like it or not. Now you get to see who my 'read every day' bloggers are, although that column on the right side of the page might already have given you a clue.

Here are the rules: First, the recipient has to tell 10 true things about themselves in their blog that no one else knows.

Second, the recipient annoints ten other bloggers with this prestigious award and advises them of their famed status.They in turn give you a proper nod for recognizing their brilliance, and then pass the award along.

Ten things NO ONE KNOWS? Impossible. Everyone knows everything about me. Well let's see:

1. I was completely correct in guessing the genders of my triplets the morning of the ultrasound to find out. I mean exactly, not just 2 boys and a girl but A was a girl, and so on. Impressed me.

2. I really have a big problem with spiders due to one appearing on my shoulder while drying off from a shower when I was like 8. Actually it's not fair because it was a daddy long legs but sorry spidees. However, I will not kill one. I will leave the room and give it time to disappear.

3. I really wish I had the willpower or drive to be a vegan but I don't. I hate that animals suffer.

4. Breakfast is my favorite meal.

5. I inherited a bunch of money when I was in college but I donated most of it away (to the animals!) and then I put a downpayment on a house and that was the end of it. Did choose worthy causes mind you. Just felt guilty being handed a dead person's money.

6. I'm absolutely certain that God put the wrong color hair on my head and thus I dye it the 'correct' color which really does look better. When I was a little girl I also thought God forgot to put fat on my brother so he slapped it all on me. You should see the pictures that convinced me of this. It sure looks probable.

7. I was called 'megamouth' after a game they sold in the 80s when I was in grade school. Those who know me I'm sure can NOT imagine why. Sure sucked.

8. I used to be a christmas sweater and earrings wearing woman for quite a while. I think I was recapturing my youth, or rather recreating the holiday to actually be fun since it never was when I was growing up. I still wear the earrings so sue me. And I will wear a halloween t-shirt now and then. Whatever.

9. I talk to an astrologer once in a while so she can tell me life really will get better soon. I'm counting the minutes. She was right before when I needed a boost. Life did get better. And who doesn't need someone reassuring them sometimes. So shaddup.

10. I would have been a bio major but I refused to sit in labs all freaking afternoon on warm spring days. Really. That's why I chose history. No really.

So on to my list of 10 bloggers (I don't know 10 bloggers!) who deserve this award. Here's my best attempt:

1. Andrea at Smart and Sassy who probably doesn't want more readers, but too hilarious not to deserve some.

2. Ellen at Wear at Work who writes fashion advice and some very funny rants regarding fashion mistakes. Do NOT end up one of her fashion victims. She will get you.

3. Dumb mom over at Parenting by Dummies who is not just funny but supportive and a SITSta.

4. ck at Bad Mommy Moments who will not want this award but really is crazy funny and makes me hope my kids do the same nutty stuff she writes about. Even though it sucks sometimes.

5. Gibby at Lost in Suburban Bliss because she tells it like it is about mommyhood too.

6. I'm all out again.

Really, I read other blogs but they're not trying to get more readers I think, they're family blogs. I love all my triplet mommas but there are too many to list here and, again, I think this award is more for people trying to get a following? So don't get all whiney if I missed you. It's not that I don't love you. And if you want, comment and complain. I might remember I forgot to add you.

Thanks again JennyMac!

Smile yourself happy

I've finally bitten the bullet and plunked down a lot of cash to book a house for a 'vacation' with the triplets. I picked a lovely 5 bedroom house on the Russian River, which is only about an hour and a half from here. It's also only 30 min north of the grandparent's house in Petaluma, so I'm not stretching too much. All hell breaks loose and we can come scurrying home with our tail between our legs. Being only 30 from the in-laws also means if we forget things we are easily in reach of it or a walmart at any time. And if they fall and crack their fool heads, we are 15-30 from the nearest big town with a hospital.

Now where the nearest mental ward is I am not sure.

Triplets preparing their lounge chair act

In any case, I am trying to put a positive attitude on for this, since it scares me silly to be 10 days without a nanny to help out. I am contemplating ways to have help come but other than conscripting friends, I'm not sure. But I'm certain I have to be the positive one or it will go to heck for sure. If momma ain't happy....you know? So I'm going to try an experiment. This might shock some of you who know me well, but I'm going to try not to think of everything that could go wrong and I'm going to put a smile on and arrive like we're going to have the best time ever.

Think it'll work, this brain transplant idea? Because I never think of my worst case scenario thinking as a truly bad thing. Just know I'm always prepared for the worst and if the best happens, how great. Is it really worse to think the worst and then truly enjoy when you're wrong or than to think the best will happen and sometimes be disappointed? I don't know. In high school I was voted most pessimistic. So I believed I was. But in recent years I figured out it's not actually true. I am quite the optimist in most situations. What people misunderstand about me is that my sarcasm and dry sense of humor picks out the terrible things, the possible nightmares, the dark stuff, and uses that as fodder. So my jokes are negative, dark or possibly pessimistic. I'm not.

There are a few people in my life who have just not gotten this. They are not my friends ever if for long. If you think I'm just a complainer and griper, why would you want to be my friend? But is it their lack of sense of humor that is the problem or am I sometimes too much to take? Hard to say. Sure it annoys me when someone tells me I'm too negative or to lighten up. But I usually am just shocked. I'm sitting there at a wedding saying I hope the bride doesn't notice that the waiters just screwed up and someone thinks I'm being negative. Um, I'm empathizing with the bride? Or possibly I'm having a little fun making fun of the waiter? Or possibly I'm just making conversation? Or, heck, maybe I'm being a little snarky, but that's not a crime.

But I digress. I am a positive person or I would not be surviving triplets. I am a positive person or my mom would have me in the psych ward right along side her sometimes. I am a positive person because despite my misgivings, in three weeks I am packing up my entire house into a minivan and heading north for a week. Wish me luck.

catastrophic diaper failure

Dear Huggies,

I have been a fan of your overnight diapers for probably about a year now. My three gigantic triplets have worn them every night with much success, even though I had to use a size larger than recommended on your package to comply with their needs. Even my son, B, who holds all of his urine during the day just so he can fill up one of your diapers until they weigh at least 8 lbs in the morning, has been a success story. I mean we could probably squeeze his diaper out in the morning and find 5 gallons of pee. Seriously. I don't know why he pees so much at night, perhaps he dreams of waterfalls a lot.

However, recently we have been having problems. I consider the fact that I have had to wake up 8 of the last 10 mornings during the 4-5 am hour because one or more of my children is soaking wet a problem. I do not mean a little spot of leakage. I mean these children are usually wet from just under their ribcage to their knees or lower. I consider this an CATASTROPHIC. DIAPER. FAILURE. The fact that it is happening to a boy and a girl means that this is not a gender specific design problem. The fact that we are using a diaper a size larger than you would recommend means that we should have covered our bases. But, the mere fact that I am writing this missive at 4 am tells me and you that there is a problem. This morning I had the joy of changing two children in the dark. Whether the diaper replacement ended up properly applied or the region in question got properly cleaned has yet to be determined in daylight hours.

This, my friends, is unacceptable. I am a tired mom. I have had sick or disobedient children for about 8 weeks now, which, due to the level of complaining I've been doing, you may have already heard about through the grapevine. What is more unacceptable is that there is no overnight diaper one size larger than we use. That's right. Perhaps it never occurred to you that anyone should need an overnight diaper larger than a 6, which according to your package (which I might add, I might have to sue you for as it is false advertising at it's worst) is for children 35+ lbs. Now admittedly, my children are only hovering around the 30 lb mark but what am I supposed to do? Put rubber pants on over your diapers? Double diaper them with your already bulky overnight diapers? Wrap their entire lower halves in cellophane?

Because I am telling you right now that 4 am is a time I do not like to see. I do not like even more to have to change diapers and pajamas at this hour on one of more children. You must find me a solution. Immediately. While my in the dark diapering skills are improving, this is not a useful skill outside of raising toddler triplets. Seeing as how we, with our gigantic triplets, use approximately 1894 diapers a month, we are quite a valuable customer to you. So let's hear some brainstorming, or perhaps you could just make a freaking size 7 for me. Please?

Your crabby mamma,

Mira

Kids and cats, the same?

How my kids are like my cats. Or vice versa naturally.

1. They chase each other around the house.

2. They fight with each other regularly, over me or random crap.

3. They all want to pile on me at once and none of them wants anyone else on me at the same time.

4. They prefer to play with garbage or wrapping more than the toys we spend so much money on.

5. I have to clean up their poop, pee and vomit on a regular basis.

6. They hate the doctor and practically claw me to death trying to get away from him.

7. They turn their nose up at half the food I serve them.

8. They destroy my furniture.

9. They want attention in the middle of the night.

10. They cry constantly while I'm fixing their meals, apparently not fast enough.

11. They writhe in agony while I'm trimming their nails even though I am NOT hurting them.

12. The Dr has to constantly explain their odd behaviors to me.

13. According to them I never spend enough time with them.

14. They tend to drool all over me.

15. They all have different personalities.

16. Oh heck, I love every messy, annoying, demanding one of them.

Birthed child pains

The pain of children doesn't end at childbirth. Sure, it was more direct during that pregnancy thing. Bladder kicks, stretching muscles and tendons, hemorrhoids, and the usual discomforts, not to mention the actual birthing process, I don't care how the baby or babies come out. It all hurts and it hurts a. lot. For some reason we choose to subject ourselves to it more than once quite frequently but we don't realize what we're in for in the long haul do we? The whole stinking process of raising kids is painful, and I'm not talking about the mental stuff!

First, there's the back breaking lifting and carrying and toting and rocking and walking of the baby or babies. My back hurt like hell during the first few months! I still don't now how women wear those baby carrier things, my shoulders would ache for days after. Sure, I had huge babies but people wear those with their babies all kinds of sizes and I just don't see how.

Next, at some point you baby proof and baby gates are in half the doors in the house. Baby gates are not for keeping kids in or out of a room, they're for torturing parents! Every time I walk in or out of a door I get a new bruise from knocking my thigh against the frame. I can't even open the things fast enough to keep from kicking the stupid gate on the way through. Unbelievable. Where's the stupid remote control that opens the door and slides the frame into the wall?

Then, inevitably, the kids decide you're a trampoline, punching bag, gym mat or whatever and start jumping on you, pounding on you, crawling all over you and generally treating you like a great big stuffed animal. Try telling them to be gentle when they realize that when they pound on your belly it jiggles in a very amusing way. Try getting them to stop jumping on you when they realize it's such a soft place to land. It just doesn't work.

Not to mention the endless round of unintentional head butts, book corner to cheek hits, plastic hammer whacks and random full on kicks by children not entirely sure how to coordinate their body parts yet. I have bruises all over, especially on my face, but that's probably because I'm stupid enough to lean in again and again while making smoochy smoochy noises to kiss bellies and faces and feet of flailing children. I suppose I'll never be able to resist. The learning curve is defeated by sheer hormonal attraction to baby belly. Ach.

I'm sure I've missed a few, but you get the general idea. Raising children is cause for many injuries, bruises, strains, headaches and general malaise. And I'm not even talking about the illnesses they give you. Cold after cold after flu after cold. Good gracious. I need a vacation.

Triplets or normal?

I see behaviors in my children and sometimes I wonder, is it because they're triplets, or could any kid be this way? I begin with the story of our first music and movement class we took today, your typical toddler music class with random instruments and made up music in a random dance studio. We arrived there a bit early so we could get parking and get situated and snack, and found it was just an empty studio with mirrors on one side and no props out or visible. My children began tearing around the room like they were in their own living room. A yelling out a greeting to anyone who was in the room, B and C trying to destroy the teacher's paperwork, A beating on the mirrors like she was in grandma's house, I mean they were nuts! Meanwhile, the other kids trickled in, clinging tightly to their parent's or nanny's legs. Shy as all get out. One cried and B went over and sat next to her! Triplets? Or did I just get three extroverts? I'd argue triplets. We are in a constant state of socialization. If you can't handle a lot of people or kids around, you aren't going to make it as a triplet, right?

The other possibility is that I am just a laid back mom. Now daddy would disagree but he's missing the point. I am a controlling nightmare about naps and scheduling the kids, sure, but you try having triplets and not being one. What I mean is that I never pushed the kids out of their comfort zone even though they have been exposed to a lot. When they needed to be left alone, they were left alone. I fiercely defended them from poking and prodding by strangers. I made sure the extroverted child was put into the visitor's arms first, usually held the shy kid myself. But there must be something I'm doing right. They aren't addicted to binkies/pacifiers. They fall asleep within an hour of bedtime (well don't hold B to that but pretty soon after!) and have accepted that I am not coming into the bedtime before 7:20 am. They are off bottles, drinking milk, eating some veggies and fruits and growing like weeds. And apparently, you can take them anywhere!

I think this post has turned into a 'yay me' post. How about that? Amazing what a little music class can do!

On sleep

Speaking of evolutionary principles, what is the point of fighting one's bedtime till all hours when you know perfectly well you will be up at 6 am no matter when you fell asleep? It seems mighty counterintuitive seeing as how doctors have shown that inadequate sleep will affect you negatively in many ways. So why do toddlers fight their parents, sometimes for hours each night, about falling asleep in their beds and then spend the next day all bleary eyed and crabby for all to enjoy?

Of course it's not just the toddlers is it? How many of you adults out there fight your bedtime constantly? I say almost every day 'today I'm going to go to bed early because I feel like crap.' Does it happen? Oh no. Despite the fact that I know that my impatient, tired toddlers will be rattling their cages loudly and screaming starting as early as 6, I watch one more crappy show, read one more magazine, send one more email. I know I feel like my justification these days is that once the kids finally go to sleep I need a couple of hours to decompress but really? I'd feel better in the morning with less decompression and more sleep. And honestly? I didn't go to bed on time before I had kids.

So what is this about human nature? I'm a morning person and I still can't get into bed on time. So I spend my days dragging around trying to find the energy to play with three wildcats and rueing the lack of sleep I got last night, because in addition to my stupidity one or more babies may have had a bad night and awakened me 3 or 4 times for comforting, and I think to myself that there must be a reason we do this to ourselves? Perhaps the saber toothed tiger was on the prowl in early evening and we needed to be up to watch for it?

In contemplation of the noble tantrum

What is the evolutionary principle behind tantrums? Can you imagine, just imagine, cave mamma Ugg with child #1 standing just outside cave mouth #43 on Cave Mouth Street grinding corn or preparing to go out and gather and little cave kid Ugg Jr throws himself to the ground and pounds his tiny fists and kicks his tiny legs and screams like a bear to get what he wants? Do you suppose she rolls her cavelady eyes and hands it to him? Because I don't. I see cave mamma taking her club out and giving him a good whack.

Imagine, again, Mayan momma standing in the hot sun after harvesting corn (oh I'm not an indigenous tribe specialist get off my back) watching Mayan girl baby screaming to be allowed to play with that last ear of corn, because it had become her toy, and not giving it to Mayan momma immediately upon being asked. Do you think she might be tempting the Mayan god to select her for the heart sacrifice? I think I'd tread a bit more carefully if I were that kid.

And imagine, if you will, prairie settler family Miller just put prairie kid Joseph to bed and he throws a tantrum to the point of barfing on his bedcovers. Do you think that in an era of no washing machines and no multiple sheet sets he was allowed to do this time and time again for no apparent reason and not end up sleeping amidst his barf particles? I think not. I think he'd be washing his own sheets pretty soon in the river with bloody knuckles of his own. I think he'd learn pretty stinking fast not to barf in his bed. His mom wouldn't be running with his barfing self out of the nursery to try to stop the inevitable sheet change one stinking time. I don't think so. Heck, he'd be lucky to have a bed. And if he barfed in mom and pop's bed? I think he'd be hoeing a row of crops before he was 2.

I mean how did tantrums achieve anything until the current parental administration where we overindulge such children? In the last, what, 50 years there's been a sea change from children being a necessary production of help mates for the household to children being our entire reason for the sun coming up in the morning and goodness knows you better not wake/upset/scold/deny/deprive them. So I see how it's evolutionarily useful now. It works like a charm to lay your tiny little body down in the middle of a packed grocery store and go to town with tears and snot because you bet your mom is going to scoop your butt up and get you anything to shut you up so she can finish shopping because this is the one stupid chance she gets all week to get groceries and if she can't now you'll all starve.

Well not this mom. That kid and I will either be standing there annoying the rest of you until he's done with his theatrics or we leave and we starve. I know it looks bad to the other judging eyes and I've been them too, but you know once you're the parent that the difference between a tantrum and a true cry is so obvious to you at some point early on in getting to know this kid that you can not allow yourself to indulge the former. Because that only means more in the future. And those judging eyes? They can go have triplets of their own and then judge me. Well, maybe not even then. Because this is my kid, and for some unexplainable reason tantrums are there in the animal brain, even though I'm pretty sure that our ancestor apes used them to better effect and they should have been extinguished as a useful strategy somewhere around the 1300s, BC, and there is NOTHING. I. CAN. DO. ABOUT. IT. So smile sweetly and move on rubberneckers. Nothing to see here.

Holiday shmoliday

Long holiday weekends annoy me. Particularly because here I am exhausted at the end of one and everyone else is all fresh and, well, perhaps hung over. Fine, exhausted for a different reason. All sunburned and overfed and smokey throated from cookouts and sitting by pools and watching fireworks. See, I'm a holiday lover. Before I had kids who, for the first years of their lives, are keeping me from having any. Because what is a holiday if I lose my usual childcare for the day? That seems like NOT a holiday to me.

And I want to laugh about the idiot hooligans who set off firecrackers in my neighborhood half the night but I'm trying to sleep here. Why? Because my molar teething daughter has kept me up for 3 nights straight waking every hour or two to complain about it loudly. Because in the morning I have to get up, dress, feed and clean them and take the to the park singlehandedly. While at the park I have to monitor them on a jungle gym, catch B as he slides down the slide head first, A as she eats sand, C as he finds a step to just sit on and cry for no reason. But I also apparently have to monitor the 8 year old daughter of a dad playing basketball in the nearby courts for some reason?

First of all, this park is divided into two play areas with fences. The one we're in, for very young kids, and the other one for kids her age. Where does she choose to play? Here. How many times to I have to remind her that she has to close the stinking door behind her on the way in and out because I have THREE running toddlers trying to escape at every minute? And why does she have to bring in a cup of water to play in the sand with, leaving two wet sandy spots for my kid to sit in and walk in after she's abandoned them? No, I don't bring a change of clothing to the park with me, why would I? And how bad of a mom am I to have to let my daughter run around with a big wet behind on a 60 degree day?

Dad? Whomever you are? I don't think your wife's idea for you to take your daughter to the park was this exactly. I don't think she was supposed to entertain herself completely, do you see this as father/daughter bonding time? Do you think she'll look back on these days fondly? Oh, remember dad, how you used to take me to the park and abandon me so you could pretend you were still single and play with those loud sweaty men a testosterone laden game of basketball? Right.

So, I leave the Independence weekend a little crabbier than before. Shocking I know, but I think my transition to grouchy old lady may be completing. I'm the one at the window looking out at the neighborhood fireworks (and I'm not talking little tiny fireworks, I'm talking they got the kind that shoot up over their 3 story houses and explode, lighting up the neighborhood and echoing for miles) grumbling and moaning about kids and hooligans and where are the police. I'm the one sending dirty looks to the dad on the b-ball court ignoring his lonely daughter. I'm the one who can't wait until next year when the kids are old enough to take to a fireworks display and maybe spend the day cooking out and baking ourselves in the sun. Wait, what? That doesn't fit. Ok, fine, I have a little holiday spirit left in me. Even if it is all in future fantasy land.

Indentured servitude

Independence day means so much to so many people but independence is such a flighty thing. Once you have kids you are just never independent again, are you? It's a weighty thought, that once you give birth to this living organism you will never (if you're lucky) be without them again. Yes, they'll grow up and move away (18 long years from now) but they're still with you.

Not being alone is a positive reason for having kids, because who wants to be old and alone at the nursing home with no visitors and having at least one kid does increase your chances of having someone visit, at least on holidays. Now, having three simultaneously like me also increases your chances of having a next generation too, who might forgive you much more easily for your parental transgressions (seeing as how they were not visited upon them) and might therefore be more likely to visit you in your stinky urine smelling cubicle of hell. So it's definitely advantageous to decide to have children even if it means losing your independence.

Because what are the advantages of independence after all? Freedom to go anywhere you want, whenever you want. Well that's pretty appealing. But what if you have no one to go with? No one to tell about your adventures once you return? So, can you wait on that until they go to college? Perhaps. Freedom to sleep in, stay up late, watch what you want, answer the phone or not, walk around naked in the house. Well that's appealing too, but for how many years? We all stayed up late and slept in during college and some after. Was it really that great? Or was half the day gone before you got up and you were kind of groggy and out of place all day because your schedule is all off and it's hard to go to bed the next night and so on. So, perhaps we can sleep in on mother's day and when the kids are at camp and make it through 18 years that way?

Freedom to go out to dinner without hiring a babysitter, see a movie at the spur of a moment, run away for the weekend together and keep your marriage in good repair. Well, there's a lot of pull to that one. But what would it all feel like with no one to come home to who was missing you? No one who idolizes you, thinks you rock (well for now at least, leave me in my fantasy) wants to throw themselves upon you physically so they can slime you with snot and drool but make you feel like a million bucks? I don't know, it makes marriage hard, but it adds something too. You see a part of your partner you never would have seen otherwise. The nurturing father, the gentle caregiver, the guy who knows how to make them laugh while they're crying. The guy who took care of you while you were recovering from the worst c-section ever and never let on he was concerned. How would you have known about that part of him? You never would have fallen that much more in love with him without kids.

So maybe independence is overblown. I'm pretty sure when I sit and dream about what life was like before kids I might be rosying things up a bit. I'm pretty sure it wasn't all escapes to Napa B&Bs and moonlight beach walks. I'm also sure that I'm going to forget what it was like without kids soon and imagine that life without them would be pretty empty, just hubby and me. Sure I still fight for a few hours here and there alone, I will never not be independent in my soul. But every time I find my quiet time interrupted by these amazing, smiling, laughing, loving, hugging crazies I call my triplets, I forget I was annoyed by the interruption. Bah, independence. Let the revolution happen somewhere else. I'm fine with my servitude.

She's got legs...

Its amazing that day after day my brain continues to think I'm 25. I will be walking down the street on any average day, well not an average day because I usually dress and feel like some kind of schlumpf, but on a day when I've actually gotten dressed and feel somewhat 'together,' and I will see some young hot dude approaching or a set of them sitting on a wall that I will have to pass and I will girly up and get ready to suck in the gut and walk past feeling kinda cute.

But then it hits me. That voice of reality, which seems to be a young black girl for some reason, says "Giiiirrrrrlll, you ain't 25 no more. You are 37, post triplets, and in clothes with cat hair and toddler snot on your shoulders." Ugh. Might as well punch me in the stomach. I deflate, I try to manage the mess a little bit, stomach still sucked in, pull hair across face, put purse on mucus covered shoulder to disguise. But it's amazing how easily I forget! And the funny thing is that when I was 25 I couldn't wait to be 30. Apparently my brain got stuck back there though. I'm continually amazed to find lines on my face and, when the hair dye starts to fade, grey hairs prolific in my scalp!

I know that a lot of women love their 50s, at least according to Oprah, and I'm wondering does one's brain finally catch on to the age you are at that point? Because as long as my brain keeps thinking I'm 25 I'm going to keep being disappointed when I look down at the truth as I'm walking down the street. Or in the windows of the shops I'm passing. Which used to be a fun thing to do, see how cute I look walking by in my new miniskirt outfit and heels. Good gracious, no miniskirts now. No sirree. If I happen to turn into one of those ladies who tries to dress 25 despite my age? Please, I admonish you all to slap me. I know it might make me cry, but it's better than looking like an ass.

Calling Emily Post

Why is everyone's natural comment after hearing I had three babies, and especially after hearing I had one girl and two boys, "so you're all done now huh?" Is there some preset limit to how many babies a random person wants or should want? Or is the limit somewhat determined by how many you have at once? I never thought to ask a person after their third singleton child, "so I guess that's it for now eh?" Isn't it implying that the person questioning you kind of thinks you've had enough children for now, knock it off?

I am just curious if twin parents get this question if they have a boy and a girl. I assume that triplet parents of all girls or all boys tend to get asked if they're going to try for the other gender just one more time but perhaps not? Where does this preset limit of 3 kids per family come from? If I had four singleton children would that be too many? If I had only one kid is that too few?

And honestly, how many blog posts to I get to create using the stupid 'none of your business' questions people ask me because I've had triplets? Isn't it sad how much fodder I've been provided? Miss Manners would be horrified by half of the stuff that gets asked or said to moms of multiples. It's like we're all on Jon & Kate just without the TVs. Did we all sign the contract that allowed strangers to view our every move and question our every choice in life because we ended up with more than one baby exiting our wombs at one time? Somehow I missed that contract but I suspect it happened while I was recovering from delivery and high on vicodin. I can't think of another 'affliction' one might have in life that allows people to ask you so many invasive questions. People avoid disabled people, they don't query them on how they got that way and what they plan to do next. They pray for sick people, they don't ask them stupid questions. Or maybe they do.

Is it possible that Americans have just lost their manners? I wonder if I had triplets in Europe if the same stupid stuff would have been asked of me. I can probably extrapolate that in Asia I would have just been praised and congratulated based on the first generation immigrants in my neighborhood. But elsewhere, I wonder. Anyone have any ideas? Are Americans just losing track of how polite people behave? I suppose it's probably true since TMZ and US magazine make so much money off of celebrities' failures. Oh well. Here's hoping I raise mine better.

Bad, Bad Babies

Why do children make the scariest sounds all the time and think it's hilarious? Right now I'm sitting in my living room watching CNN's all Michael Jackson all the time tv and listening to the baby monitors whereupon my daughter (A) is making choking and gasping noises while B laughs hysterically. I had to mute my friendly MJ tributes to listen closer. What if she had started choking on an eye from a stuffed animal that she gnawed off in typical animalistic fashion? How would I know?

But the bigger question is, how many more months will they think that gasping/choking noises are funny? I mean they have the attention span of gnats, how do they remember this same 'joke' for months? And why doesn't it hurt their throats like it does mine if I try to emulate them? I suppose when one's vocalizations are limited to non-word utterances, one finds unusual ways to make jokes? Perhaps I should relish this time as the inevitable endless knock knock jokes are on their way and fart and poop jokes will follow shortly after. Three times. But when you're driving up the highway to grandma's house and almost drive off the road while whipping your head around to verify that your child (C) is not, in fact, choking on his spit, it is just not acceptable! Someone is going to get hurt. And I'm not talking about spanking.

Old faithful

You know, in a past life I was a wildlife rehabilitator. That means I medicated, stitched up, nursed, cleaned up after and got bitten by all types of native Maryland wildlife on a daily basis. I handled poop, blood, even maggots and sometimes watched necropsies while eating my lunch sandwich near the surgery table. I can't tell you where my strong constitution came from but I was relatively certain that there was little that could gross me out. I mean if you can pick maggots out of a deer hiney, you can do anything gross. Right?

Well, enter triplets A, B and C and their endless stream of colds. Oh, it's not their poop, diarrhea notwithstanding, that troubles me. It's not their barf, specifically barfmeister flex B who's repertoire includes a distinctly geyser like action usually just after being laid on his clean bedsheets and tends to then end up spread across my chest and arms as I have to gather him up and carry him to an appropriate changing area. It's not their gooey, partially masticated animal cookies that have turned into grey paste in their mouths just before they decide to give me a big kiss on the cheek. No, it's none of these things. It's snot.

It's stringy, sticky, crusty, gooey, neverending boogers that you try with kleenex after kleenex to remove in gobs from their tiny, yet prolific, nostrils that turn into miles long streamers of uncontainable ickiness. You think you've got the big one and you pull away only to find that it either bounces back, evading your grasp, or it stretches down into their toes and 8 more kleenex type objects are required to contain and remove said booger. Truly impressive. And I am thinking about this why? Because not more than a week and a half after then last booger invasion, we have the beginning signs of a new one. C is running at the nose like some sort of booger waterfall and I know it's just the beginning. It's never just one, and it's never just a little cold. Never.

Sure C looks innocent, but he's just busy mass producing boogers

Off to purchase more Boogiewipes!

Did I what?

Another one of the strange questions I get a lot when people hear I have triplets is "did you know you were having triplets?" To which I must say "huh?"

Do people really think, in this day and age, that a person can grow three babies inside them and not have a clue? Do they not understand the nature of ultrasounds? Do they not realize that everyone has an ultrasound at some point in their pregnancy? Do they not think about the fact that three babies takes up more room than one during the incubation period? Do they watch too much TLC and see those nutty women who didn't even know they were pregnant and think we're all oblivious that way?

Because you'd have to be pretty unaware, and by unaware I mean stupid, to not know that you're getting awfully pregnant looking awfully fast when you have triplets. And I don't just mean skinny girls, large ladies also can tell that they have triplets. It's a huge pregnancy. And you start to show at 6 or 7 weeks. "Normal" single baby pregnancies don't show until 4 or 5 months which is why they get to keep their pregnancies a secret from everyone first trimester. Here's what I looked like at the end of my first trimester. Think I coulda fooled anyone?

So, I tend to look really confused at people who ask me if I knew I was having triplets. I try to clarify if they mean to be asking me that other stupid question "did you try for triplets?" or if they really mean did I make it full term without knowing and find myself in the delivery room being told it was a boy, a boy and a girl. No, it was shocking enough at week 8 to be told there were three embryos. You'd have to live far far away from medical treatment to make it with a triplet pregnancy and not know it. So the fact that I live in the bustling metropolis that is San Francisco kind of would indicate that I was likely to have good prenatal care, wouldn't it?

It's a good think I'm actually quite pleasant in public because this kind of question is the type that makes you quickly put on a poker face to avoid looking at someone like they have two heads. I mean, asking me if I 'tried' to have triplets isn't much better because how exactly does one 'try' to have triplets but I guess someone who has never had a baby or had a friend have a baby (how cloistered do you have to be?) might not know anything about prenatal care? Or am I making excuses for plain old dumb people?