Return to Me

Hurry back, hurry back
oh, my love, hurry back,
I'm yours

I'm weakly coming back, but I am here. Nice to feel your cyber vibe again. Need a smile? Watch my latest Friend Video. Ciao for now.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Back Soon

A blogging vacation is in order. Too busy to breathe right now, so stay tuned for my return around mid March. I always get annoyed with the American way of bragging about how busy we are: oh, I am just so busy, blah, blah, blah! as if the busy person is just so damn important, but hey, life happens and blogging takes a back seat.

Here is a list of my oh-so-important time consuming activities under way:

1. Dance
I dance in classes at our community theater, tap, jazz, and anything that comes along, and we have Showcase (like a recital) next weekend, and Spring Thing (theater fund raiser show) the weekend after. We're learning the We're in the Money number from 42nd Street and cramming it down in about 3 one-hour classes which is freaking me out.
2. Song
Oh God, singing? Why does singing on cue scare me so? I sing all day long but when the room hushes and ears prick up, I shrink. So I am taking voice lessons to hurdle fear and learn how to use my voice. All this in preparation for 42nd Street auditions this April.
3. ICD (Infant child development)
I take the boys once a week because of their language delays (still very delayed), and social and learning immaturities, let's say. It's a zero to three program so we are beginning testing to evaluate their abilities and decide our next course of action for life after two. If they qualify for Head Start this is good and bad. Bad because of course I want them to outsmart the tests; good because they will get free preschooling 4 mornings a week. I still say the Triplet Thing puts them on levels that the tests don't test for. They are creative, spirited, ingenious, smart puppies, they just don't feel a great need to verbalize and they walk their own paths. I am as worried as I want to be, but know that they are healthy, loving, beautiful people and that is enough for me.
4. Taste of Adventure: Ethiopia.
My dance (tap) teacher happens to be the marketing/development director at our local zoo and invited me give a talk about our travels in Ethiopia--also next weekend.
5. Work
Of course our annual report is due and of course I'll be a day late again. Got to finish up 3 tons of fashionably sciencey experiments as well, but that's business as usual. For you stay-at-home snobs, I work only 3 days a week and am My Kids' Mom (haha) full-time 4 days for the rest of the week (dad gets them one full day and nanny Hellena--a lovely Ugandan woman--enjoys them 2 days a week in our home). Sweet.
6. Home
The house is a livid disaster. I suffer from a strange anxiety which prevents me from putting laundry away and the kids keep breaking everything and seems all I can do is catch up on sleep when they sleep, and . . . and . . . oh forget it.

Positive ending: life is fun, beautiful, fulfilling, full of laughs, and my family rocks.

Peace out.

Urinetown

And so my most dreaded stage begins . . . the Potty Chair. Long chats about wet, dry, penis, butt, pee pee, and poo poo. One sided chats at that when your boys don't use words much. Yes, we have entered the mysteries and horror of potty training, although I am starting with only Tsega and we are proceeding slowly. I will not post pictures of him sitting on the potty nor will I describe in detail his personal moments of triumph and failure. Let's just say we are doing the Naked Butt Method and he is 100% perfect as long as he is bare. A pull up or undies on however (yech, boy undies). . . we're working on it.

Yes, I realize the pull ups in above picture are intended for girls. (Yes Grandma Betty, I knew before you pointed it out to me--you funny, but didn't he look cute in them?) They didn't have the right size in the alleged boys fashion but come on, what 2 year old boy doesn't want to look at a cute little ballerina on his bottom? (OK, maybe when I asked Tsega if he wanted to grow up and be a ballerina I pushed it a little . . .) Bereket walked around with the pull up package for 2 days but I couldn't tell if it was Dora or the cute thang modeling he fancied.

I digress and will end it here. I am hoping Sira and Bereket will do what they do so well and learn the art of potty control by mimicking. But won't this make my public life harder? How am I supposed to get all 3 boys into the bathroom and succesfully contain them while helping each do their business? They are like wild horses! (Confession: I don't know what the hell I'm doing and fear I am too lazy to get my kids trained.)

Like a Star

Just like a star across my sky,
Just like an angel off the page,
You have appeared to my life,
Feel like I'll never be the same,
Just like a song in my heart,
Just like oil on my hands,
Honour to love you
--Corinne Bailey Rae lyrics

Lately, and admittedly, most annoyingly, Tsega has taken his indoor restlessness to drumming. He lovingly attached to a turkey baster and spatula (seriously, he shouts Yay! when he finds one), or any kitchen cooking utensil as a suitable substitute and taps, or rather drums (more positive term), on anything we allow him too. At first it was a plastic tiger, then a plastic airplane. He doesn't play with these toys or many other toys, but he will drum them. He is not allowed to drum furniture, floors, cabinets, tables, or people. I have tried to transfer this bizarre behavior or need into something less bizarre or rather, something musical and creative. Bizarre you ask? Well when you see your son tapping on a tiger for much of the day it is a little worrisome (and if you are thinking autism, think not, he does not display other associated behaviors). It may be a case of mad cabin fever; nature is his preferred life element and the poor boy is suffering. Or maybe my baby boy is musically gifted. So assuming it is the latter, we encourage him to experience different beats, rhythms, sing songs to the beat, drum along with him, beat on our bongos (from Ethiopia), buckets, pots/pans, and Bilibos, instead of tigers and planes, and introduce different sticks for different sounds. And if it gets too annoying for the rest of us, we gently suggest he take his drumming to his room.

An example of his work below just after breakfast. . . He (the one in the diaper for you newbies) is singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, although it is hard to make it out over the drumming. Turn it up because the accompanying song is beautiful, but them turn it down because your ears will bleed. (Yes, in case you are wondering, it is hard to remain patient with so much noise!)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Remember to Breathe

Too quiet always means: better get in there quick, something is up. One Wednesday morning, I could not keep up with the whirlwind of boys. Here's the quick run down:
* Lipstick smeared all over the bathroom
* Umpteen times the toilet plunger was found in a hand (one nameless child kissed it, and I'm not talking the handle end! I screamed!)
* Folded laundry dragged off the table
* Clothes dragged out of drawer
* Plate over turned at breakfast, flown across room (thought we were done with this!), 3 little boys snickering
* Gallon of milk opened and upturned onto floor
* Handfuls of rice stolen from counter top
* Countless apples and bananas grabbed from the kitchen, half eaten, squished, and discarded onto the floor.
I really must learn to stop placing things within reach. New rule for Tsega: no more Tsega hands (the grabbiest, fastest hands in the Great Plains) allowed to touch the counter tops--yeah, right.
* VHS tape with film pulled out and strung across house
* Three boys on top of diaper changing table with lids of various containers opened and tasted (aloe vera anti-itch gel is not bad for you, right?)

Need I go on? I feel like a pin ball sometimes. And yes, every door has been fitted with locks (don't worry, they can lock me out but there is always a way back in with our maze of doors) but sometimes the boys are so fast, split up (on purpose?), and outwit me. Of course it's way too easy to learn that a chair can get you into and on top of anything (notice the chair in above picture--of course a willing diaper change is always appreciated); including into a bottle of clariton located about 6 feet off the ground inside a latched cabinet. The 30 little white pills I found in Tsega's mouth on another day apparently all made it safely out and down the drain. Now I know for sure, I am one of those who do the wrong thing under crisis mode, although I did remember to call the doctor and poison control. Apparently if your baby is going to swallow pills, clariton is the way to go.

If I had three Siras and Berekets, maybe only one of the above things would have taken place. That's right, one beautiful Tsega Mega is plentiful. :)

Moon

Oh moons, we love you, in the sky, in books, and in every circle, there you are. Moon! Even the sun is you, according to Sira (our first verbal disagreement). You are my boys' first crush. You are the last thing we say good night too. And if they see you and call your name, hearts break and tears flow if I don't answer, Yes, moon! Yes, yes, there's the moon. It's the moon!!! Hello moon! Night night moon. Oh lunar baby, full and crescent, our love revolves around your light.

Nice Dreams

They love me like I was a brother
They protect me
Listen to me
They dug me my very own garden
Gave me sunshine
Made me happy
Nice dream
Nice dream
Nice dream

(If you think that you're strong enough)
Nice dream
(If you think you belong enough)
Nice dream
(If you think that you're strong enough)
Nice dream
(If you think you belong enough)
--Radio Head lyrics

If you ask me what is the single hardest part of being a mother to triplet boys, I’ll answer this: realizing that having so much means I have so much to lose. (At least you can't accuse me of taking my boys for granted, even if I do posses a flair for heightened emotion.) Sometimes I wonder, why do we build up complexity only to make ourselves so fragile?

The most profound fear and sadness overwhelm me time to time whenever I worry about one (or all) of my boys. Scary feelings I sometimes wish I wasn’t burdened with. When one crisis passes, Jerry always reassures me. Don’t worry . . . there will be something to worry about next week. We are doing great, he tells me. And so we are.

When I was younger I sometimes day dreamed that I lived an unattached life, no family, and lived exiled from society, like Jeremiah Johnson or in some cave. All by myself, with nobody to worry, and nothing to deal with except Nature and me.

A memory. A few years ago, before the triplets, I was driving west through the Colorado Mountains during a snow storm; no chains, no anti-lock brakes, no four-wheel drive; just my little economy car with balding tires, frosted windows, and me (and very little experience with snow). I entered a long mountain tunnel leaving behind a few falling snow flakes and was stunned several miles later when I exited the hole into blizzard white. Panic. Snow filled the off ramps. No exits, no turning back. Cars over turned, flipping and spinning in front of me. The only calm came from Radio Head. I played the song 'Nice Dreams' over and over . . . and over . . . until the snow eased and juniper trees dominated the landscape, meaning I had climbed down the greatest peaks into safety.

How to end this post, I'm not sure, except to show pictures of my three little junipers. They dug me my very own garden
Gave me sunshine
Made me happy
Nice dream
Nice Dreams.
(Dramatic, aren't I?)

The Two Peas

Doing that identical thing again.


Wait, come back . . .

This always gets laughs at the playground.




Bereket kept coming up to me yesterday wanting me to show him how to connect his little car to a little trailer (little like hand sized). He finally got it and seemed happy with it. Then last night I walk into the living room and he had hitched up a red plasma car behind his blue plasma car (yes, the blue one is his so hands off) as if he was trailing it. And under his blue plasma car was a little buggy car that was trailing it . And there he was riding around like this, seated in the blue plasma car. Genius!


Of course Sira wanted to copy the exact thing and started fussing over it. I asked Bereket to help him out, show him how it's done, but he only succeeded in adding to Sira's frustration. It took me about 10 minutes to get Sira to stop crying over this failure. The red plasma car simply would not stay put.


This morning everybody wanted a baby blanket wrapped tightly around as they wandered the house. The blankets kept falling off and each child grew frustrated. Finally I put Sira's blanket on the floor and told him it's better to sit on it. Of course Bereket saw this and wanted his spread out on the floor to sit on next to Sira. I put a puzzle at Bereket's feet and he immediately repositioned the puzzle so that it sat squarely between him and Sira. They pieced the puzzle together in peace.

That's all there was in 2008

Grandma torture . . .

Good by old, hello new. As 2008 rolled on by it got me thinking of other milestone farewells we bade during the last 12 months. By by cribs, sippie cups (except on the go), chair tipping, size 5 diapers (hello size 6 . . . guess adult-sized diapers are next), 90% of food and utensil throwing, toddler-proof door knobs, sleeping in past 7:15 (pitter-patter is not a bad alarm clock), and Tsega said good by to size 2T and a whole lot of hair.

I've captured the greatest moments of 2008 ala video montage style. Excuse the weirdish first song. As I thought about what is life really like with 2 year old triplets, it struck my fancy. Keep on dancing, break out the booze, and have a ball.

Happy New Year!!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Triplets find zero uses for the Bilibo

Is this a joke? Some kind of mother sucking scam? Have I been bamboozled? I wish somebody had told me all that before I took this $27 toy seriously.

But The Bilibo received such high praise from a few blog friends out there, that I had to get it for the kidsos.

"Open ended fun!"
-Anonymous blogger #1

"Every time I think [Jane Doe] has done everything she is going to do with this one, she finds something new to do with it."
-Anonymous blogger #2

And isn't it Swedish? Of course they always do things better (except food & music) than most of the globe, so there must be ingenious weaved into every plastic fiber. There simply must be because it looks like a hunk of nothing to me (but I'm not Swedish so can't trust me).

We have had it for 2 weeks now and so far the triplets have enjoyed zero open ended uses from it. Just when I think they can't think of anything to do with it, they find another way to ignore it. Well, I guess I saw Sira sitting in it once while playing with his new barn on the floor. Then last night he nosed dived into it a couple of times. And I think I remember Tsega throwing it across the room more than once. Oh, yeah, Sira filled it with cars and then dumped them over his head about 5 times in a row the other night before I told him to stop (there's only so much our soft wood floor can handle and the plasma cars will be the end of it someday). And more than once we all played helmet head with it. But a few minutes of mild interest over the course of many weeks was not what I had in mind.

Oh well, it's kind of a cute piece of expensive junk to store little toys in. And wow, I have 2 of them. Lucky me.