Invincible - Part 1

Editor's Note: We didn't die, or move to a country without Internet access. We are still here. It's just that the boys can move around now. A lot. And we are tired. But we'll write more often. There is so much to say...


We could see it in their eyes.

And the closer we got to our gate, the more clearly we saw it.

The TSA officials in the security lines were fascinated by the spectacle. At first they wondered how would they get all of these people, and all of their stuff, through security. But they jumped right in, passing babies and carseats and the triplet stroller through the metal detectors, and reuniting us with our children and belongings on the other side.

Passersby were delighted, stopping us to look at the boys and compliment the girls. Triplets? they would ask. Yes, we would answer again. Fraternal. And no, their sisters are not triplets. And yes, we're glad they're ours, too (and not yours...).

It got a little repetitive, but it was wonderful. All of those people who were so interested in our little traveling circus.

As we got closer to our gate, though, their attitudes began to change. Their smiles were a little less open. A little short on the sparkle. A little more guarded. And worried. You could almost see them praying silently behind their fake grins that we wouldn't be on their flight.

It wasn't until we reached our gate that we really began to see it. Because that's when it hit them, those poor cursed souls sitting at the Frontier gate at Denver International Airport who had just realized that we were getting on their flight. All eight of us - three little girls, triplet boys, my wife, and me.

They were very nice. Cute family, they'd say. Adorable babies, they told us. And are these their sisters? Oh what a wonderful family!

I appreciated and agreed with everything they said. But at the same time, I was sure they were offering up that one last prayer, their final hope, the possibility - however slim - that we wouldn't be seated in their row.

Well, not to worry. We took up an entire row ourselves. My wife, two of the boys and our oldest daughter on one side of the plane. And me, one of the boys, and our two younger daughters on the other side.

It was our first flight as a family - slightly more than two hours in the air to Orange County, CA, for the TripletConnection Convention. And there were babies screaming on that flight, as well as on our return flight to Denver.

But it wasn't our babies doing the screaming. Nope. They slept most of the way to California, and they slept from gate to gate on the way home. Our advice: plan your flights around nap time.

So now we think we are invincible. There isn't anything we can't do.

I mean, we traveled successfully from Cheyenne to Orange County and back (and by successfully we mean that we returned with all of our children and most of our wits) with three babies, three bickering girls, four Hyundai-sized suitcases (one of which was packed almost entirely with food and booster seats), one triple-decker stroller, and three bags of seashells from Newport Beach.

And in the meantime, we spent five wonderful days on the beach and attended a terrific convention for families with triplets or more - there were two sets of quads and one set of quintuplets at the convention.

We understand the look in their eyes. We probably wouldn't have wanted to sit next to us on an airplane either.

But our kids were amazing. And we feel invincible.

Nature vs. Nurture

EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS POST BORDERS ON THE INAPPROPRIATE. BUT WE THINK IT IS CRAZY FUNNY, AND WE HOPE YOU ARE NOT OFFENDED :)

When I was in college, we called it the sleep button.

It was that magical place, just below the belt line, somewhere between your belly button and your nether regions. You'd slouch on the couch to watch David Letterman, slide your hand just under your belt - and fall asleep. Instantly.

Sometimes the sleep button was so effective that you'd be asleep before Letterman got to the Top 10 list.

And on any given night, you were likely to find one of the three young men who shared our apartment snoring on the couch with his hand on the sleep button.

This phenomenon is but one of the many mysteries of men that have sparked the classic Nature vs. Nurture argument at my house. It goes something like this:

"Look what you've taught your son to do," my wife might say. "He's sleeping with his hand in the front of his pants!"

So I did look, and Jack was indeed asleep in his swing, in front of the TV, with his hand in his pants. It was like a preview of his college apartment 20 years from now.

"I didn't teach him that," I'd say defensively, secretly wishing I could have taught him that. "It must be natural."

He fell asleep in front of the TV. With his hand on the sleep button. Manly. Perfect.

But it gets better, and more primal.

We learned the hard way that changing boys' diapers is operationally different than changing girls' diapers in at least one important way. With our girls, we just took the diaper off, performed the open-air clean up, and put on the new diaper.

Those of you with boys are already smirking. You know that when we used this approach with our boys, they peed on us, on their changing table, and often, on their own faces.

There was another peculiarity we discovered during the diaper changing, though. Luke just can't take his hand off of it. He grabs it, he pulls it. In some ways, he really is not very nice to it. And he giggles the whole time. He loves it.

Same thing during bath time. He sits up in the sink with his hand under the water, and he just laughs and laughs. We have to physically remove his hand from it in order to get him dressed.

I'm a baseball fanantic, so I'm open to the possiblity that some of this, ahem, adjusting could be learned. But not by an 8-month-old baby. It has to be natural.

Triplets are a great opportunity for biological and sociological experiments. They are all growing up together, in the same environment and with the same influences. So we should be able to draw certain inferences from their behavior.

As a 36-year-old man, here are some of the inferences I've drawn from my boys:

We didn't 'learn' to fall asleep in front of the TV. We didn't 'learn' to put our hands in places they ought not be, at least in polite company. It's nature, not nurture.

My boys taught me that. Thank you so much boys.

Just Being Honest

I'll be honest. I haven't always been happy about having triplets.

I have never done harder work in my life. And I worked in a lignite plant for a while in college. I delivered newspapers in hip-deep snow as a boy in my home town. I was a newspaper reporter.

I think I have a fair appreciation of hard work. So trust me when I say that unless you have multiples, you just can't know how difficult this is.

I remember the day we found out we were having triplets. We had been in to see the doctor a few weeks before, and the ultrasound had revealed that we were having twins. It was a bit of a shock, but we already had three daughters, so what could the difference between four and five children really be, anyway?

During the ultrasound at the follow-up appointment, the doctor just sat back in his seat and said, simply, "Oh my."

When he told us it was triplets, I decided right away that I could not go back for any more ultrasounds. Every time I went, more babies were discovered in there.

Shortly after making that decision, I think I slipped into a coma. I didn't say a word for the better part of an hour.

And then there was the pregnancy. We've forgotten most of it by now (a tip of my hat, here, to the fallibility of our memories), but it was extremely difficult. And then there was the sleep deprivation. And the restrictions on our lives that came with adding three babies at once.

And even after all that, our house is filled with baby gear. If your eyes don't bulge out a bit the first time you visit our house, you either work in a kindergarten classroom or a daycare. Otherwise, the bouncy seats, the baby toys, the boppies, the swings, the walkers, and the three-seat feeding table will take your breath away.

As it turns out, all that can take the space in your house away as well.

We had to buy a minivan. Enough said on that point.

I'm 36 years old, and suffice it to say that I was not eager to start over. To deal with mountains of poopy diapers, puke stains in the carpet, unrelenting crying, or children who can't buckle their own car seats.

My boys are eight months old now, and as it always does, time has provided me with a somewhat more informed perspective.

We do have a lot of baby stuff in our house. And yes, despite our best efforts, the trash can next to the changing table does occasionally overflow with messy diapers.

But we have three healthy boys. They survived a recent bout with RSV, and although the next round of sickness is never more than a week away, they are healthy now.

And happy. They smile and laugh constantly. And we learn new ways to make them laugh every day.

They never had colic, not even for a moment. We never spent a single moment walking the floor with any of them, trying in vain to get them to stop crying. Oh, they've cried. But any of you whose children have had colic know the difference.

We've never had a moment's worth of rivalry. We were excessively worried from the beginning about making sure the arrival of our boys did not overshadow the lives of our girls. And maybe we've avoided any sense of rivalry because we were so focused on preventing it. But our girls love their brothers incredibly. The hug them, and kiss them, and carry them around the house. They are, I believe, truly happy that their brothers are here.

We have terrific children. Most parents probably believe that, and count us among them. They are smart, well-adjusted, polite, loving, fun children. They make our lives full and happy. They give us so much more than they require of us.

I'll be honest. I wasn't very happy about the idea of having triplets. But after eight months of this exquisite chaos, I just can't imagine my family any other way.

And I wouldn't want to.

The Day Ben Blew Away

At risk of serious understatement, the wind blows in Cheyenne. A lot.

The Chamber of Commerce suggests that the average wind in Cheyenne is somewhere between 12 and 15 miles per hour. For that average to be correct, there would have to be days with no wind at all.

I've lived in Cheyenne for 14 years, and I have never experienced such a day. In fact, by my own measure, if you've only been slammed in your own car door twice in any 12-month period, you're having a pretty good year.

But you get used to it. You pull your hat down a little further. Cake the hair product on a bit thicker. Hold onto your grocery bags a bit tighter.

And never, never take your eyes off your small children.

One day not long ago, it was my job to get all six children in the car and get them home safely. My wife had an evening meeting, and she trusted me to get them home, fed, bathed, and to sleep.

No problem. I have done this before.

I've written in this space about the rubber-necking that occurs when we take the triplet stroller out in public. But I've never had occasion to mention that it, too, exhibits many of the same qualities as a sail. That's because until that same day not that long ago, I didn't know.

I had managed to wedge all the girls through the back door of the Expedition and into their car seats. And I had even gotten two of the boys out of the stroller and into the car (working from back to front, of course; if you take them out from front to back, the damned stroller will flip over with the remaining baby still attached...not that I have ever experienced that).

When I crawled out to grab Ben, who had drawn the short straw and was left in the wind until I could get his brothers fastened, he was gone. The entire stroller was gone.

I looked around the parking lot, and caught sight of the stroller/schooner just as it approached an eight-foot-high retaining wall, below which is an alley and all the dumpster-style accoutrement you would expect to find in an alley.

Ben was barreling right for it.

See, I normally put their baby bag in front of the wheels to keep the stroller from rolling away. But there was snow on the ground that day, so I didn't think applying the makeshift brakes would be necessary.

As I slipped and slid across the parking lot to catch Ben before he plummeted into a dumpster, I gently reminded myself that this could all have been avoided if I had only put the bag in front of the wheels. If only.

I caught the stroller a few feet before it reached the retaining wall, and I pulled it back to the car without looking to see how Ben was taking all of this. The wind had really whipped up, it was getting very cold, and I had five other kids waiting in the car.

So I pulled him across the snow to the car, and pulled the cover away from his face to check on him before putting his car seat in its base.

There looking up at me were the two brightest blue eyes and the gummiest smile I've ever seen. He even giggled a little when he saw my face.

The wind was still howling, and a few seconds earlier my smallest son had blown away. And he loved it.

I wish I had that kind of attitude.

Thanksgiving. Really.

Some of our friends looked at us as though we'd lost our minds.

It wasn't an easy decision, mind you. But in the end, we thought it was the right one.

So we loaded up six kids, one dog, and enough toys and clothes to get us through the weekend, and we headed off on a 350-mile road trip to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving.

When I told one friend about our plans, she just shook her head and laughed. Another's eyes popped wide open at first, and then began to slowly tighten as the realization began to set in.

"You're taking three, six-month old babies on a 6-hour road trip?" she asked. Yep, we were.

I'm increasingly convinced that context is everything. If you have one child, and you are faced with taking that one child in the car for six hours to Grandma's house, that appears to you to be a daunting challenge. So if you have one child, the thought of taking six on that same trip seems overwhelming. Outlandish. Ridiculous.

Stupid.

But we went anyway. And the first leg of the trip wasn't too bad. The girls watched movies and the boys slept, except for a brief, 20-mile stretch outside of Casper, during which they wailed for all they were worth, and had us wondering if we were going to make it.

Beyond that, the trip was just like any other. Including Grandma's turkey and famous stuffing. And playing in the park, and painting rocks, and going to the Christmas parade. And spending time with Grandpa, uncle Justin, aunt Cammy, Aunt Jan, Uncle Dale, and Great-Grandma Jo. It was terrific, and, dare I say, pretty easy.

Pride, however, truly does come before the fall. Put another way, the initial ease of the trip made us a little cocky.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we loaded everything back into the minivan (and by we, I mean my wife, because I am incapable of cramming that much stuff into that small a space), and hit the road for home.

And then it began. Imagine a baby in your car screaming from before Casper all the way to Wheatland. That's about 150 miles. That's a little less than half of the trip home. Got it? Ok, now imagine three babies screaming for that same period of time, and at least one of your daughters screaming too, because she's tired of sitting between two screaming babies.

I've suffered less hearing damage at Metallica concerts. And my nerves have been less wracked as well. It was, shall we say, not the most pleasant time our family has spent in the car together.

In retrospect, we are so glad we went. Our family lives quite a distance away, and we don't get to see them often. The trip was worthwhile just for that.

But the difficulties of the trip itself reminded me of how much we have to truly be thankful for. We are thankful for the boys' voices and the inescapable reminder that they are alive and healthy. We are thankful for the girls' irrepressible need to carry the boys around and the reminder that they are well-adjusted and love their new brothers. We are surrounded by such reminders every day. We truly do have so much to be thankful for during this season and all year long.

And although we may be rightly accused of pride now and again, we aren't stupid. We won't be making the trip to Grandma's house again anytime soon.

Family Pictures

Say these two words to the next parents you see: Family Pictures.

Then just watch and listen. Their eyes will roll, their jaws will tighten. They may clinch their fists, they may break into a sweat.

But the one thing you can be sure of (or at least 99% sure of), is that the words Family Pictures strike fear and frustration in the hearts of parents everywhere.

First, there's the preparation. Which, in our case, means dressing the girls early enough to get out of the house in time to make it to our appointment. But not so early that they have time to lie on their backs in the foyer and effectively sweep up dog hair with their dark sweaters.

And it means curling hair, putting on tights, getting everyone a snack (which has to be strategically chosen, so as to reduce the likelihood that chocolate will be smeared on their clothes), getting everyone into the car without a fight and without messing up their carefully coiffed hair. And then reversing the entire process when we get to the photo studio.

This year, we added 100% more complexity. Because Family Pictures now also means getting the boys changed, dressing them in clothes that look very cute but that are absolutely the least functional baby clothes anyone has ever produced, protecting those non-functional clothes from the puke that we know is coming, and trying to keep their eyes from getting red and puffy as a result of their protracted crying on the way to the photo studio.

Oh, and the adults have to get ready, too. Which, for me, means putting on whatever clothes my wife has selected for me and trying not to drench them in sweat as I execute steps 1 and 2 above.

At the photo studio, chaos ensues. The girls can't sit still, preferring instead to spin on the photographer's chair until one of them invariably falls off. Which requires an effort to minimize the puffy red eyes. And we have about a 15-minute window with the boys, a window which crashes down quickly if we dare to push to a 16th minute. Getting everyone to sit still, together, look straight ahead, smile like a regular human being (rather than a member of the Insane Clown Posse), and not throw up, is nearly impossible.

I try to avoid Picture Day with any excuse I can muster. It is, without exception, one of the most frustrating days and experiences in my life. I have rarely made it through without pitching a tantrum of my own.

But the results. Oh the results. They're totally worth it, don't you think?

Smiley, Cranky, and Lumpy

A couple of days ago my wife came across one of the outfits the boys wore when they came home from the hospital. It was, quite honestly, no bigger than the pajamas our daughters put on their dolls. It was so tiny, it hardly seemed possible that it could ever have fit them.

And that had us marveling at how quickly the time has passed. My boys are four months old now, and they barely resemble those skinny, miniature little babies we brought home last summer.

What an incredible four months.

I'm a guy who likes to stick a person with a good nickname. My college roommate: Buffalo Head. My wife: Tbird. My oldest daughter: Alley cat. My middle daughter: Boney Maroney. My youngest: G-bear.

And so, for a few weeks at least, the boys had nicknames too. Rusty. All of them were Rusty. Because their hair, such as it was, had begun to resemble my father's. Red.

But much has changed in these first four months. They've gained almost 10 pounds each since birth, with Luke tipping the scales at about fourteen pounds. They consistently sleep five-and-a-half hours each night - enough to make me think I've got the free time to run for office this fall! And they eat, eat, eat.

Of course, there's been sickness. A cold or two, and a couple of ear infections.

Most interestingly, though, their personalities have emerged and are unmistakable. Ben, who two months ago was a pale, shriveled little guy with a poor sense of humor, is now the wiggliest, smiliest child. He flails his arms and legs so aggressively that it's tough to get a diaper on him. And whether we're changing his diaper or waking him up to feed him, he always smiles a wide, gummy smile. Our Olivia has even started calling him the Smile Maker.

Jack, who was once our mild child, is no longer. He is still a sweet little boy. But let's just say that he's found his voice. And the rest of us have found it, too. We find it loud and obnoxious. Sometimes, no matter what we do, he just hollers. He hollers until he gets tired of hollering. Then he takes a short break, and he hollers some more. Doesn't matter, though. Those large, round blue eyes somehow help soothe the ringing in our ears.

And Luke. Well, he's Luke. He's hefty. Big and round and intense. He leans back in his seat, his belly arcing in front of his face, and he surveys the room, his blue eyes darting around as though he's afraid he'll miss something. And unlike Jack, who lets a good cry build up for a few minutes, Luke goes straight to the finish. Sometimes at night, all will be sleeping soundly, and suddenly Luke will unleash a piercing blast that shocks everyone out of bed. He's a lug, a big, solid hunk of screeching baby.

And so, the boys have new nicknames. Smiley, Cranky, and Lumpy.

All this in only four months. Can't wait to see what the next four will bring.