Weenies

I am a modest man. I don't run around the house in my birthday suit, and I take great care not to expose my daughters to anything they don't need to see just yet. Up to this point, only Franklin (the dog) and I had anything to hide in our house, surrounded as we have been by females.

So we were quite surprised when Olivia came running into the room one evening several months ago and announced that she had burned off her weenie.

This, apparently, was the explanation one of her young friends had offered for the appearance of her girl parts. The messages are being sent, of course, whether we are sending them or not.

So, ok, my daughters already knew boys and girls were different, even if their explanation was a bit off-base. But they didn't know what they didn't know - until their brothers' first baths at home.

On Friday night, my wife stripped each boy down, one by one, and bathed them in the kitchen sink. It's a veritable ritual in our family, complete with a staged photo that is staged so as to make it appear spontaneous. Up to this point, however, there had been no audience.

With each bath on Friday, the girls hovered over the sink, pointing and giggling.

"I see his weenie," one would say. "Can I touch his weenie," another asked. "My weenie doesn't look like that," said another. Weenies are now among my young ladies' favorite topics of conversation.

It was funny at first. And then it made me uncomfortable. I wasn't sure what to say to them, so I decided to say nothing at all. And then I decided just to go with it - it was hilarious. How often, after all, do these kinds of discussions take place in normal households?

Plus, as the father of three daughters, I know the day will come when such conversation in my house will not be funny. Not at all.

I grew up with one brother, so this sort of intrigue never dawned on me. And until about three weeks ago, I have raised only daughters, so this sort of intrigue has never been an issue.

Still, it's hard to believe I didn't see this one coming.

Released - Part 3: Homecoming

My wife says the last couple of nights have been comparatively very good. The boys are sleeping nearly four hours a shot, and feeding them has taken only about an hour each session. We have a fairly efficient assembly line worked out - she changes diapers and hands them off to me for feeding.

After three rounds, we all go back to sleep for another three or four hours.

All three of the boys are home now. Ben was released from the hospital on Thursday, after a momentary scare that he might have to stay a few more days. He had satisfactorily managed his heart rate for almost five days - which is the threshold. And then, at about 3:30 in the morning, he had another episode. We thought that would restart the clock, and he would be in for five more days. But the doctors tell us there is nothing to worry about, and he was cleared for the long ride home.

And so, everyone came home three weeks to the day after we checked my wife into the hospital for 'observation'. As I write this, my wife has taken the girls to their Saturday morning ballet class, and I am home alone with the boys.

Not to worry. All three are sleeping to the sounds of Mozart. And, despite my wife's assurance that the last couple nights have been fairly easy, I am working on my second pot of coffee and thinking about the endorphin boost I'll get if I can convince myself to work out.

Our house got very crowded very quickly. On Thursday morning, everything was in its place, and general harmony prevailed. On Thursday afternoon, there were three car seats in the entry way, three bouncy seats in the kitchen, bottles all over the counter, and a baby swing by the stove. There's a crib with a built-in changing table where the chair used to be in the living room (there's another in my bedroom), and there are miniature diapers all over the place.

Except for the adjustment to all their stuff - and the constant reminders to the girls that the boys' heads really, truly are very soft and should not be poked - the transition is going very well.

This morning, Ben woke up early and demanded to sleep in our bed next to his mom. Jack was next, wiggling and whining until I put him in bed with us. Olivia was next, climbing in between me/Jack and my wife/Ben. Then Madeline, climbing up on me and assuring me she had washed her hands, so it was ok for her to touch the babies. And then Allison, crawling into the foot of the bed. When Luke began to stir, all eight of us were awake together in (or very near) our bed.

All eight of us. In our home. Together.

This is precisely how we envisioned it.

Released - Part 2

We will, from time to time, employ cliches in these posts. It's just easier. And now is as good a time as any.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

When little Jack was born, and for several days thereafter, we figured he would be the last to come home. He was the smallest, appeared the most feeble, and seemed to have the furthest to go. So much for our figuring.

Jack was released from the hospital on Sunday, and is staying with his mom and his brother Luke in Denver. Yes, that's correct, my wife is staying in a single room with two newborns and doing a terrific job of caring for both. And for herself. She is, in a word, amazing.

She'll stay in Denver until Ben is released, which we think will be later this week. That would mean mom and all three boys would be home within three weeks of their birth.

In the meantime, our little girls finally got to meet our little boys. I took the girls down on Saturday to visit their mom and meet their brothers. And, as expected, they were thrilled. The biggest challenge, as we also expected, was convincing them that no matter how cute their brothers' heads are, they simply can't squeeze and press on them.

A NICU in Denver wasn't exactly the setting I had in mind for the first meeting of all six of my children. But after waiting more than two weeks for that moment, it hardly mattered. The girls smiled, and held their brothers' hands, and gently rubbed their faces, and held them in their laps, and fed them, and smiled for the cameras.

When evening came, I had to drag the girls home. They did not want to leave. By Thursday, their brothers will be home, and we won't leave each other again for a while.

Released - Part 1

They made me wear a mask, but the nurses let me into the graduate NICU on Wednesday night so I could see my boys. I just couldn't wait any more.

So I drove down to Denver after work, took my wife out to a belated anniversary dinner, and then we went together to give the boys their 9:30 p.m. feeding. Ben and Luke were sleeping together in the same crib, swaddled like Glow Worms and making the little baby noises we haven't heard in almost four years.

Jack was still in his temperature-controlled isolette. But he has been eating well and gaining weight, and today he is sleeping in the open air with his brother Ben. By all accounts, both boys should be ready to come home by the middle of next week.

We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Brutish Luke, however, was released from the hospital yesterday, only 13 days after he was born. He spent the night with mom in Denver, and he is her travel companion as she treks back and forth to the hospital to feed his brothers.

A few months ago, I was standing next to my wife at a yard sale hosted by the Moms of Multiples Club from Fort Collins when I suddenly felt dizzy. For a moment, I thought I would pass out. I was watching the moms pushing the strollers with twins (or in one case, a stroller with twins and a third baby strapped to mom's chest), and the reality that we would soon have triplets washed over me. I literally thought I was going to fall down.

How in the world were we going to handle newborn triplets and their three sisters? Our girls are, of course, potty trained. They can feed themselves. They can climb in the car and buckle their own car seats. Are we really ready to start over - with three?

A few minutes later I was standing in the checkout line next to a man who looked like he might be someone's grandfather. Naturally, the conversation turned to our triplets, and my tone, or expression, or something must have revealed my worries. He stepped close, put his hand on my elbow, and told me that one of his three children had died at age 14.

"They are a blessing," he said. "Enjoy every minute. Every minute. You will be just fine."

Indeed.

We love you, Luke. We're glad you're here and out of the hospital. And we can't wait for you to come home. We'll figure out how to sleep through the baby noises.

Life Is...

A friend recently reminded me that life is what happens while you are making other plans. While we were making other plans, life was handing me a sinus infection.

Of course, people with even the slightest cough are allowed nowhere near premature babies. Nor, for that matter, are such people allowed near the mother of premature babies. Suffice it to say, then, that I spent Father's Day sick, at home with my daughters.

And not, as we had planned, in Denver with my wife and all six of my children. So the girls still haven't met their brothers. I have yet to spend more than a few minutes with the boys. And I haven't really seen my wife in almost two weeks.

When we first found out we were having triplets, the doctors warned us that our lives would change dramatically between 18 and 28 weeks. My wife would go on bed rest. I would take on significantly more daily responsibility. Life, generally, would turn upside down. Though my wife was slowed a bit, she was never really on bed rest. I did have to pick up more of the slack, but it was never overwhelming.

This, as it turns out, is the first really difficult experience. The doctors told us this would happen, too - we knew the boys were likely to stay in the hospital for several days, maybe weeks, after they were born. But I'm not sure we ever really thought through what that would mean.

The girls miss their mom. I miss my wife. She misses all of us. And the triplets are still somehow not quite real to anyone but their mom, who has spent every day with them since they were born.

They'll all be home very soon. And then the eight of us will get on with figuring each other out. And it won't be long before we have a hard time remembering the difficulty of these last several days.

This too, my grandmother always told me, shall pass.

The Vitals

So maybe we'll start with the vitals. The Bahmer boys were born on Friday, June 6, 2008, at about 3:20 p.m. It all happened very quickly. One minute the doctor invited me into the operating room, and a few minutes later, my boys were born.

They were scheduled to have arrived today, which would have been one day beyond 35 weeks into the pregnancy. But a combination of factors conspired to move their birthday up by an entire week. Despite showing up earlier than expected, they are all healthy and growing.

Here they are:

• Benjamin Bruce, 4 pounds
• Jack Robert, 3 pounds, 8 ounces
• Luke Daniel, 4 pounds, 9 ounces

Ben's middle name comes from his maternal grandfather. Jack's middle name comes from my father. And Luke's middle name is my middle name. I joke with my wife that the first names were chosen simply based on how they sound when announced through the loudspeakers at a baseball game...

And lest we forget, their sisters are eager to meet them. The girls and I have kept on keeping on at home while mom and the boys remain in Denver for, most likely, several more days at least. We're headed to Denver on Sunday, though, to celebrate Father's Day and our 12th wedding anniversary.

And to spend our first day together as a family of eight.

They're Here

I'm not a blogger. I don't pretend to be one. I don't know the customs, the language, or the culture. But I do know this: I've been asked one thousand times in the last week about my three sons - the Bahmer triplets - and their three beautiful sisters.

As much as I love telling the story of the triplets' arrival, I've decided to chronicle the adventures of our brood here. I'll post pictures, relate funny stories (there are sure to be many), and hopefully keep in touch with those of you who have offered your prayers, your assistance, and your friendship throughout this wild ride.

We're just getting started!