Everything New

Update 1/25/07

One Square at a Time

I set out just about two hours ago to update my website. I've encountered some considerable resistance from my computer. Uggh! But, that's the theme this month... encountering resistance. Our little ones are in the tumultuous twos and for them, what's black is white and right is wrong purely on principle. They have no idea why they must shut the dishwasher just as I open it to unload it. Or why they must turn off the lights at the other end of the room just as I turn them on. They have no idea why a clean floor must be immediately and thoroughly covered with sticky messy beans. They don't know why, but only that these things must happen. As I was cleaning up the floor after tonight's food-flinging fest, I said to myself, "one tile at a time." One square at a time and it won't seem like much. That's my life right now. One square at a time.

Well, we survived the dentist and now we've gotten the ophthalmologist appointment behind us as well. Thank goodness. I try to remember that when we, as a family with triplets, are out and about, we are ambassadors of multiples of sorts. For most people, they will only get a few glimpses of triplet life ever. So the impression we make on them quite possibly will be how they view multiples as a whole. We can easily take someone from "oh, how sweet!" to the stereotypical "I'd KILL myself" comment in just a few short minutes. As I took charge of having Max's eyes examined, I heard from down the hall, "GO AWAY, DADDY!!!! OKAY, DADDY?" What to do! Timeouts and tantrums in public, which will feed the frenzy for the others? Pretend that it never happened? Hide my head in shame? It was chaos! But it's nothing we've not been through before. For us, it was typical. For anyone else looking in, it was madness. Four little ones, bored out of their minds while their pupils dilated, slamming doors, cabinets, squealing, banging, jumping. Just another day in our lives. So much for the ambassador theory, huh?

This past week: Kristi finally got settled in with Paul and Camryn out in California. Kelli's trudged forward with homework. Kevin's been busy with school and work. Angus, who's been really sick all week, just tonight taught himself how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ruca, Max and Nadia continue to live in escape-proof clothing and are fine-tuning their bookshelf climbing skills.

As time permits, I'm going to be fine-tuning various aspects of my website. I've added a new page called Kelli and Me. It's a longwinded article of sorts about the shifting dynamic of my relationship with Kelli as it is shaped by triplets. There's a cute little video of my Beach Bums here. I'm working on a new video. More fun stuff.

That's it for now. It's 11:00 p.m. As I type this, my little Nadia is crying "I'm sad!" in her crib. She cried herself to sleep without her taggie blanket tonight. We spent a good hour tearing up the house looking for it. And the counterfeit taggie blankets weren't fooling her for a second. Poor little girl!