I gots owie!

Ewww, that's a lot of band aids.

Owie envy, common among multiples. One gets an owie, they all do. Then suddenly one finger in my face turns to three or thirty with no injury in sight. My favorite is when one falls, another gives a good fake tumble (this would mostly be a Sira thing). So slapstick. Such good physical comedians (again, mainly Sira).





Band aid obsession, common among preschoolers. I wouldn't dare buy the cartoony ones.

Fake sick, common among school children. No scoo morrow, I sick. I hear this everyday. But man, since preschool all of us have been sick and sicker like nothing I've ever experienced before. I mean our health runs are short lived and few. That's what happens when nearly sick-free country kids start public life. And I was so careful to expose them to all the germs of our messy lives in high doses.

BTW smarty readers, great advice on last post. All good ideas and possibilities. Wiffle ball, I love it. Haven't thought of those in years. I just hope it's heavy enough to satisfy. It has to be just so. You know, three year old rationale. :)

Strings

Three three year olds, a stool, and a string. From each end of the string two drag around the third on the stool all over the house. Not sure what to call this game . . .




(Sira leaps like no frog can.)

Speaking of strings . . . I never thought I would resort to banning strings from my children, especially strings that act as tails, and especially strings that act as tails that have balls tied to the end. It all has to do with Pinocchio. I love Pinocchio. Tsega loves Pinocchio like nobody. He even has a little wooden Pinocchio doll my mom picked up in, I think, Budapest (was a marionette, but we cut off all the strings) and Tsega loves his “nah-co-co” doll, formerly known as “kin-ee-kee-o”. (The doll makes an appearance in “Lettering” posted a couple of posts ago.)

(One dressed like Pinocchio doll.)



Yes, he is still full-on into the song and dance “Got no Strings”. But now another scene obsession emerged. Monstro Awakes. Pinocchio’s at the bottom of the sea searching for Geppeto as a whale swallows him. Pinoch has a rock tied to the end of his new donkey tail, the one he earned for being very bad at the wrong place and time, and so walks the ocean floor weighted down by the rock as he fights and swims frantically from the whale’s mouth. Tsega needs the tail with the rock and he flails his arms and runs in circles repeating about 2 lines over and over. He acts it out in the yard, in the house, with and without the video. Indeed, I have seen him spontaneously acting out several seemingly random scenes as he watches various cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Snow White (oh yeah, we have a collection of conventional toons, party at my house).

The thing is, it’s hard to sustain a ball or rock at the end of a string. It falls out. Or the weight isn’t just right. Or the position of the tail is a little off. You know three year olds, if a crumb falls off their bread they think it’s broken and suddenly they're screaming. This makes what’s supposed to be fun turn ugly. He gets too worked up. He whines. The tail makes him upset. And it’s not such a little thing that he keeps stealing shoelaces and losing them so that I keep buying more and way too many shoes in our house are unwearable. It’s pretty funny when you catch your three year old secretly unthreading your shoelaces behind closed doors and then tells you to go away when discovered. He’s a sweet kid, his brothers too, really sweet. They only tell me to go away because they want to get away with something I don't like. OK, so we are working on this. So now I am hiding shoelaces, shoes with shoelaces, and having heart-to-hearts with Tsega. The tail drives me nuts! I love the theatrics, I can't wait to expose him to more arts and classes, but the pickiness of the tail is too much.

I am like anti-Martha Stewart. I don’t even bother sewing buttons. So can anybody advise me on how I can make a tail that would carry a ball, or where I can get a small ball with a hook on it?? Like a ball and chain sort of dealy? Are we just weird or what? Pretty funny, huh? Us getting all worked up about tails. You gotta sit back and just laugh. :)

Kitchen Camper

It's what, 10:00, 11:00? Friday night. Boys snug in their beds, mom and dad partying like rock stars. Then, oops, I stumble out my bedroom door and run into this (Tsega) about three feet away on the kitchen floor.





No jammies. That is the usual way we find Tsega by morning. But in his room, sometimes our bed, not usually in the kitchen.

Party on, Sira.

Lettering

Bereket is The Letter King. It all started with a video my mom sent the boys eons ago. She doesn't even remember. Yeah, right, like videos teach kids, uh-huh. The only thing Sesame Street taught my kids so far is how to stuff food in their faces as fast and furious as they can while growling (it took us a long time to break Cookie Monster manners, I kid not). So sometimes there we are getting all crazy before school and I'll pop in a video, many times The Letter Factory. A perfect 20 minutes or so that allows us to finish processing the boys.

Something soaked in, because I'd hear Bereket singing to the tune of high-ho-the-merrio, The D goes "duh", the D goes "duh", blabber blabber blabber, the D goes "duh". (Or more like, de e oh duh). Then he started freaking me out by recognizing, pointing, and naming letters like within a few weeks of starting preschool. Oh, get off it, so your kid has been doing this before he walked. La-de-da.

OK, sorry about the attitude. Yeah, no, I don't school my kids much. Our particular triplet household is not conducive . . . we break down into wrestling mode at the slightest hint of organization. And I don't need to go into the language delays again, which makes his lettering extra special. Anyway, then he freaked me further by spontaneously drawing letters. His teachers didn't even realize he could do all that. Anyway, his love holds (Sira too, not so much Tsega) and his penmanship is lovely.



He sees letters in his body and objects too.

Look mommy, look. "Y"

(Did you notice those cute little teeth topping his cute little smile? I always liked that about him.)

Look mommy, look. "K"

(Dude needs improvement at drawing K.)

Look mommy, look. "I"


And to prove a point, learning morphs to wrestling. And this is why they separate into 3 different classrooms and why homeschooling is out (ha, as if I'd be up to task anyway).



In the words of Bereket, Uh-buh-by, Cookie, buh-by-eeee. (You got me.)
Side note: Cookie used to be Loo-la, as in, uh-buh-byeee Loo-la. (Again, you got me.)

Oh, a little over a year ago I videoed a certain cookie monster. Oh my, the chubbiness and short hair and bad manners, where did it all go?

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

4-0

Shhh, notice the cake? Mama, that'd be me, turned 40 last week. As Jerry would say, I don't look a day over 39.

I hate it. I feel it. I hurt.

Cute part is, the boys were too jealous to let me have a birthday all to myself, so I shared mine, which makes it a good thing they're triplets come actual birthdays in June. There are always enough beats to the Birthday song to accommodate everyone: Happy Birthday dear Mama, Tsega, Bereket, and Seeeeera . . .

Hey, don't be all like, man she's old! You are getting older just as fast as me.


Relax. Yes, my hand is where you think it might be, but my mom took the picture in front of children so it can't be that R-rated. ;)



This is something I do when I see a camera pointing at me. I angle my head so that I have this sort of angelic quality and not so much the used up 40 around the eyes thing.

Yeah, I'm one of those old new moms and that's OK. :)

Sooooothing

We escalate tizzies a lot. My neurons shoot off in ways that get me dizzy. I seriously feel motion sickness at times trying to tend to all the sweet little boys in my life. Imagine you are a pinball and the pinball wizard is playing a marathon; that's me, the ball. I've mentioned this before, but dinnertime is typically the height of craze. It would help if Sira ate dinner.

You know, this kid hates everything and after breakfast, during which he eats like a horse, he has little interest in food the remainder of day. This is the one area where Bereket doesn't follow Sira. Sira rejects new foods. He rejects vegetables. He even smells food first. I mean, it's pretty funny, smelling your food out of sheer suspicion before trying, I mean rejecting, it. It's a kid thing, I guess.

His short list of likes include (I mean beyond sugary delights): milk, peanut butter and jelly, toast, eggs with ketchup (or just ketchup but organic only . . . the o-word makes me feel a little better about it), cereal, oatmeal, pancakes, yogurt, apple sauce, pears, and that's about it. Huh, just noticed, mostly breakfast food. Baby food. Not a foody. Somedays pizza, pasta (only whole wheat rigatoni), and tostados/tacos/burritos (simply beans and tortillas, never cheese or sauce) . . . but not consistently (no pasta right now). What kid doesn't like cheese, or mac n cheese? Mine!

Anyway, back to our neurons. I am about to reveal a heaven-sent secret that calms our firing storm. A trick I stole from a 5 year old girl on the Internet: deep cleansing breaths. Yeah, not rocket science. Not pop psychology or heavily intellectual. At the height of chaos or upset, we huddle as I announce, time for deep cleansing breaths! And this is how it goes . . . in your best slow calm preschool teacher voice . . .

Everybody! Close your eyes! Think of something nice . . . the park, birthday parties, kisses, the dogs, trikes, the river, the sun on your face . . . now close your eyes, breath in and count to 3, and phhhhhhew, blow it out slowly. OK, one more time . . .

And poof, magic, the sea is calm. For 5 minutes anyway. Ewwww, try it!

Lennies

(Early morning after breakfast ragamuffins.)





"I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him ... and pat him and pat him ... and love him and caress him..."

If you recognize this quote and get my blog title, then you watch Looney Tunes and read Steinbeck. You rock.

If Tsega loves you, he has probably squeezed you to crying. If all three love you, run. Love does hurt. Especially in numbers. I kid. Savor it and consider yourself (*gasp, choke, sob*) too lucky for words.



See Tsega's tight lips? This means he is really feeling the love. You lucky Bereket you.

Tsega, stop pulling the dog's ears until he cries. I know, I know, they are sooo pull-able. Yes, you love him a lot, I can tell by your lips.

Mouthy

No, not Halloween. Mouse suit is good for all seasons.




I just noticed. The camera often catches the kid, Sira, with his mouth full of food doing odd monster moves. And that's why he is, currently -- because this could change any moment -- Silly Sira.




The exciting part of above picture is not just the long tongue (I always wanted one of those tongues that could reach the tip of my nose), but Sira is actually eating at a restaurant. And because all are eating, my kids aren't acting horrible in public. Yay for having yogurt as a side option! Yay for serving kid's food in cardboard cars! Yay for breweries in general (this was a lovely one in Hays, Western Kansas)!



Hey, live in Kansas and be easily entertained like me.


Nuggy on an ink pen. Nums.

Lolly

He's sweeter than a sucker. His eyes dissapear when he smiles. Sweeet. I'm not sure how we spiraled down this road (the TV, action movie, & fast food roads have all been hit) but the sugar has got to stop. That is, we've got to stop using it as a parenting tool. Oh, forget it, it works. But this I promise, in front of everybody, the video game road will never be traveled in my house!


How is it that Tsega's curls suddenly hang ? They used to reach out and kiss the sky and now he has . . . bangs. Go curls, whether up, out, or down.

By the way . . . have you noticed? . . . this kid is huge!

Baggy

He (Sira) grabbed these 3 bags from me (2 must have held wine?) and off he went. Minutes later I find this . . .



Clever boy. It's forever a costume change here.