dear children

Dear Children (whom are aged 36 months):

A little over 15 months ago, I wrote a heartfelt post in which I said, if I could, I would have 20 of you. At the time of the writing, I was completely stricken by how quickly you were growing up and evolving from infancy in to toddlerhood. It was bittersweet for me and I wanted to have so many children that we would need a bus to travel on family outings.


Since that time, I've reconsidered.

A few weeks ago, before your third birthday, I started to jot down a few thoughts about sacrifices, that I had intended to turn in to a blog posting. I wrote how your father and I met. How we fell in love. How we were married and attended graduate school together. How we started our careers and excelled in our fields. How we tried for years to start a family. How we were met with failure and heart break, repeatedly. How once you came in to our lives - our careers were no longer paramount.

Once you came in to our lives, we made sacrifices.

We replaced our convertible European sports car with a minivan. We stopped taking lavish vacations and eating out at the finest restaurants. We reduced our income by more than 60% so that we could stay home with you.

I recently passed up an opportunity to transfer our family to Houston, Texas and your father passed up a big opportunity in petroleum exploration. Because in our opinion - it was more important for us to be home with you than to accept jobs that would take us away from you for more than 40 hours a week.

Children, your father and I miss the money that we were making. Especially since these days, it seems that there is a vacuum on our house literally sucking cash out the door. But we have had no regrets. Not even when as we were passing up promotions and opportunities that would allow us to retire as millionaires by the time we are 50.

Up until this past week, I wanted to resign my job and stay home with you full-time. I even considered home schooling you. We would have such fun traveling to various museums and I could re-learn algebra. Although I'd be sacrificing my career, I would much prefer to give it up, than miss out on any of your childhood.

A lot has happened since I first started jotting down my thoughts. We have been house bound for almost a week because of raging fires and poor air quality. Your 3-month old baby brother, who weighs more than you did at 12-months, has been keeping me up all night and you keep me running non-stop all day. You turned three and your personalities have blossomed, just like the atom bomb.

Since you've turned three, your favorite past time involves screaming. You also enjoy fighting. Hitting. Punching. Throwing yourself on the ground and kicking your feet. Particularly in public.

You enjoy whining. Loudly. Frequently.

Pretty much non stop.

Your afternoon nap that once was a solid two hours has reduced to 30 minutes.

You insist on helping me with everything I do. But your idea of "help" and my idea of "help" are at the opposite ends of the definition spectrum.

You like to climb on the counter and take a single bite out of every single apple, while I am cleaning up pee-pee that sloshed out of the potty receptacle that your sibling picked up while I was busy helping your other sibling put on their shoes ... and feeding your other sibling.

You like to grab things like say ... a broom ... and knock pictures off the wall and then tell me that you are dusting. For reasons that completely elude me, you are infatuated with the toilet. But instead of using the toilet for the purpose in which it was designed, you like to put things in it. Like your face. Or your sippy cup. Or your baby brother's teething ring.

Your father seems to think that you are just exerting yourself and testing your limits. But if you keep "exerting yourself", please understand that I am going to exert my hand across your bare bottom.

You can thank your baby brother for being here. Because if it wasn't for my ability to look in to his little eyes and remember that you were once vulnerable infants that I swore I would always love and protect, you'd be gone by now.

My fellow triplet mom, Debbie, has a blog and across the top is a passage that Mark Twain wrote in 1879. "Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind, don't ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot. And there ain't any real difference between triplets and an insurrection."

I love you, children.

But I am sorry to say that I don't like you very much at the moment. Your "violent uprisings" have taken their toll. Your constant screaming of "NO!" for anything and everything has worn me thin. And because I don't want to spend three back-to-back life sentences in a penitentiary, I am going to start looking in to preschool for you. Even if preschool is going to cost me the equivalent of a mortgage payment, I will find a way.

So help me God. I will find a way.

I also don't think that there will be any more of you. Because I have seen, first hand, how adorable little cubs soon turn in to flesh-eating beasts. Particularly when they are cooped up in a small house for days on end.

For the final time ... you cannot play with any sharp object you hijack out of the kitchen drawers. Dirty diapers MUST be changed. Sitting on my lap while I eat breakfast, only so you can assume control of my fork and spit partially chewed eggs back on to my pile of scrambled eggs is socially unacceptable and will no longer be tolerated. Those plastic covers on the handle of the doors are to keep YOU out. Naps will not kill you. I, however, might if you stop taking them.

With much love and hope for your continued success on this planet,

Your Mother

ps: It's been a tough week. A really, really tough week. Let's hope next week is better and the weather clears out all the smoke in the air. Now, let's go Sox!!!