Everything New

Update 5/26/07

Life's Crazy Lessons

If someone had asked me fifteen years ago what I'd be doing in 2007, I'd have been pretty sure none of my answers would have included chasing after triplet two-year-olds. I envisioned myself with two grown children, one almost there and my first taste of adult-type freedom within my grasp. Hard to believe how different my 2007 reality is from where I thought I'd be.

But would that life that I envisioned have been better? Relaxing, gardening, reading books, traveling, sleeping. Mmmm, all of that sounds so nice right now. But, really - would life have been better? And I respond to that question with a very emphatic No Way! I'd have missed so many wonderful lessons.

Some of the recent things I've learned from my crazy wonderful little beasts:

Three two-year-olds screaming bloody murder at 7:00 p.m. can still be felt in your nervous system at 10:00 p.m.
If you listen to your two-year-old little girl say over and over and over again "I'm a pig head," ("No, sweetie. You're not a pig head.") you will eventually understand that what she's really saying is "I'm a big kid."
A mother does have the natural ability to hear four different children doing four different things in four different rooms at the same time and decipher exactly what sort of trouble each one is causing.
The 10-second rule with singletons does not apply to triplets - if it's food and it's on the floor, even twenty minutes later - pick it up and eat it, please. It's one less thing for me to clean up later.
The pictures on wipes, diapers and underwear are much more important than I ever really imagined.
Wearing the same dress, shirt, shorts, shoes, etc., day after day is not boring.
Watching triplet group hugs is one of the most heartwarming sights ever.

The trifecta of terror (and I call them that with the utmost affection) have taught me more about myself lately than I had ever learned in my previous years on this earth. They've taught me my breaking point. They've taught me how to go with the flow. They've taught me that I just still have much to learn about parenting. No matter what I learned from having four singletons before, nearly none of it applies to life with triplets.

Just don't ask me what I'll be doing fifteen years from now. I'll have three seventeen-year-olds about to enter their final year of high school, God willing. This time around, I don't want to envision what that will be like (yikes). Instead, I want to take this next fifteen years one step at a time and enjoy all of life's crazy lessons.

Updates:

Ruca and Nadia are completely potty trained and are enjoying changing underwear every ten minutes to match their mood or their outfit.
Max is next on the potty training list. He doesn't know it yet, but his diaper-days are numbered.
Angus is all about letters this month. He writes all of his letters now. His big passions now are Spiderman and Batman.
Kelli's out of school and will be getting a summer job after she gets back from her trip to Costa Rica
Kevin's in summer session at school - taking Latin and Statistic.
Kristi continues to work strange shifts, caring for Camryn and sleeping very little while she waits for Paul's return from Iraq.

New: To see the full story behind the book, Angus and the Triplets, click here.