Instant Celebrity

Some months back I remember seeing news video, the kind that plays on endless loop on cable news channels, of Britney Spears stopped at a traffic light. While she was sitting there in her car, the cars around her emptied, and photographers rushed up to her vehicle, snapping as many photos as they could before the light changed.

Some held on and others chased even after the light had gone green.

That, minus the insane dysfunction that is present in every news story about Britney Spears, generally resembles what it's like to take triplet babies out in public.

My daughters look forward to Cheyenne Frontier Days for only two reasons: 1) Grandma comes to our house for a week or two, and 2) they get to go to the carnival. And since my wife and I vowed to work as hard as necessary not to let our daughters get overshadowed by our sons, we loaded up the Expedition and took all six of them on our annual trip to the carnival.

It rained a little, as it does every year at this time. And we ate carmel apples and ice cream, as we always do. Allison rode the carnival rides, as always - though she was tall enough this year to get on more of them than she has in the past.

Only our triplet stroller was out of the ordinary at the carnival this year. That thing is like a rolling neon sign that flashes the words "Britney Spears Inside". We walked barely 10 steps at a time before being stopped by a group of strangers who wanted to gawk at the babies. (Some even wanted to touch the babies. But as you can imagine, my wife put a swift, fake-grinning stop to that.)

And there were paparazzi, too. Well, sort of. One carnival worker asked to take a picture with his cell phone because he'd never seen anything like this. We tried to keep moving through the onlookers, but it was no use. There were simply too many of them. At last, we resigned ourselves to our instant celebrity and simply tried to enjoy still another dimension of triplet parenthood.

It happened again later in the week, when we took the family to Cheyenne's historic Union Pacific Depot Plaza to enjoy the evening and listen to music. This time, though, the photographer was a German lady who said she had twin daughters, and the kicker was a free beer given to us by a man from Nebraska.

In Nebraska, apparently, one demonstrates his pity by offering free beer.

I was surprised at how all the attention affected me. Self-conscious. Borderline embarrassed. I had trouble just looking around the crowd - for fear that someone would think I expected them to notice the triplets, and I expected them to stop and tell me how amazing it all is, and how beautiful my boys are.

Meanwhile, my wife, whose self confidence I find both enviable and difficult to emulate, simply beamed with pride. Once again, she appears to have taken the smarter approach.

Frontier Days is over now, and I think I'm glad for it. It is 10 days long, but for us it was really only two surreal days of pushing a triplet stroller and getting stuck in traffic. Stopping to let strangers take photos. Answering the same questions over and over and over again. Riding the Cliff Hanger with my 8-year-old.

Celebrity is exhausting.