the crush

Did you happen to catch the controversy brewing on my last post?

It all started out harmless enough, with an anonymous commenter suggesting that I write similar "month in review" posts for each of the triplets individually. Because as the children get older, I wouldn't want for any one of my children to feel that I loved them more (or less) than any other of my children.

I responded to the anonymous commenter that the effort that would be required for me to write similar month in review posts for each of my children would be rather extensive. Infact, part of the reason I have skipped a month here and there with Henry is because those posts take me a long time to write. And since we are transitioning out of naps during the day for the kids, the only time that I have an opportunity to update my blog is at night once every one has gone to bed and I've spent an hour or more cleaning up from the day.

And you know what??

Sometimes at the end of a long day, I don't want to gush about how much I love each one of my kids, individually. Sometimes I am so tired that it's a miracle I am able to update this blog at all. More times than once, I have dozed off only to wake up with my head collapsed on my keyboard and there are a few hundred rows of dgjhfkhjklldfgjk.

I do love each of my children. But I don't want to write about them all the time.

I've got other things to write about.

Like weekly weigh-ins. And favorite thing Fridays. And with what little time I have during the week, I'd like to eventually squeeze in a post here and there about closet organization; O'Henry bar preparation; the next steps in knitting; the snake I found in the girls bed last week; home school activities; what Charlie and I are going to do with the rest of our lives seeing as I need to return to work full-time in three months; and last but not least ... facial and toe hair removal.

Tonight I had intended to write about facial and toe hair removal.

But now, I am going to respond to the comments generated from my last post.

And not just the comments generated from my last post, but the TELEPHONE CALL from my mother this afternoon where she pointed out that during a conversation she had with my Aunt Grace earlier in the morning, they had both noticed that I no longer discuss the triplets very much on this blog and everything is about Henry. Henry. Henry.

So clearly he must be my favorite.

If I'm being perfectly honest, sometimes I do favor one child more than another. And this might trouble me, if I didn't notice that every day, my favor generally falls to some one new. From the time they were tiny infants, I have had a crush on any one of my children on any given day.

In so far as Henry ... he is still a baby in my eyes and he very rarely annoys me. He is just cute and cuddly and loves to be held. So my crush on him is rather constant.

As for the triplets, I'm currently crushing on all three of them. They are so unbelievably adorable right now with all of the observations and questions that they have about the world around them. They typically have me smiling all the time, except for when I am FREAKING OUT because they aren't listening to me and they are running about, trashing the house.

There's William who thinks he is Peter Pan and his sisters are Tinkerbell.

He'll stomp around calling for them, "Tink! Tink! Where are you?"

Much to my chagrin, for Valentine's Day, his father bought him an electric megaphone that has not been out of his grasp since Saturday morning. Yesterday he was up at 5 AM tapping on my sleeping head and looking for the megaphone that I had successfully (Thank God) hid the night before. Despite talking with him - for several minutes - he couldn't understand why I wouldn't give him his MEGAPHONE at 5 in the morning so he could go wake up his Tinkerbells.

William has the most vivid imagination, stocked with an imaginary friend named "Tresiam" that he talks about ad nauseam. Tresiam was swallowed by a whale. Tresiam was knocked off the chair by his sister and had to have stitches on his eye. Tresiam is going to be an astronaut. Then as if the most brilliant idea suddenly dawned on him, he'll yell out, "I AM GOING TO BE A ASTWONUT!"

After a long moment he'll ask, "You want to know what I want to be for Halloween?" When I enthusiastically reply, "An astronaut!" he'll shake his head and say, " NO! NO! I'm going to be Peter Pan!"

And then five minutes later.

"Do you want to know what I'm going to be for Halloween?"

"Um. Peter Pan?"

"NO! A SKELETON!"

And then five minutes later.

"Do you want to know what I'm going to be for Halloween?"

"Um. A skeleton?"

"NO! A FIREMAN!"

And then five minutes later.

"Do you want to know what I'm going to be for Halloween?"

"Um. A Fireman?"

"NO MOM! A ASTWONUT!"

And so it goes. On and on.

There's Carolyn who is a pint-sized version of me.

Not only does she look just like me, she loves sweets. Many a night I have been woken from a sound sleep to find her perusing the cupboards for a snack. After we discovered that she had eaten an entire bag of miniature marshmallows one morning while everyone was still in bed, we have had to hide various foods on top of the refrigerator. It cracks me up how she will innocently ask, "Why you put the chocolate chips up there? Why you not put those down here?" and then she'll point at the lowest drawer in the kitchen.

When she asked me that question tonight in regards to some oatmeal cookies we had bought at Costco baked earlier in the day that I was placing up high, I told her, "Because there is a little mouse in this house that likes to eat sweets. This little mouse will come out of it's hiding place at night when everyone is sleeping and it will nibble this and nibble that."

She looked at me with wide-eyes and asked, "A MOUSE? IN THE HOUSE?"

I nodded and continued, "YES! And it will tip toe around very quietly nibbling, nibbling." Then I asked, "Do you know what that little mouse's name is?"

She silently shook her head no, but when I reached my hand to touch her arm and whispered "GRACIE!" she screamed and jumped two feet in the air while giggling uncontrollably.

There's Elizabeth who is our sweetest child, except for when she's not. She is the most loving, gentle soul I've ever come across. All she wants to do is help. All she wants to do is smother her siblings with love and kindness.

But when she is over tired and feeling punchy, she is absolute hell on wheels, matched by none.

Tonight when Charlie and I went to the YMCA to squeeze in a run on the treadmill, I dropped the children off in the nursery and as I was signing them in, I overheard Elizabeth talking to one of the grandmother-aged nursery volunteers in a very soft voice. When I turned my attention to their conversation, I could hear Elizabeth telling her teacher that her friend was sick.

"My fwiend, Deana. She is sick. She has a bug in her tummy named canswah and she is in the hopital." She nodded her head before adding very matter-of-factly, "But I pway for her. And I pway for the people in the ambuwance. And I pway for the wittle babies in the hopital. Did you know I was a wittle tiny baby in the hopital? But I gwew up. I am gwowing and gwowing." As the teacher smiled at my little girl, I could see the tears brimming in her eyes.

Elizabeth just has that kind of effect on people. Whenever I ask her where she came from, she will smile and say, "Daddy says I am a gift stwaight from God."

She sure is.

They all are.