Back down to Earth

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the videos on the Mompetition blog?  If not, I do.  I enjoy them quite a bit, and if you have about twenty minutes you should go waste them watching videos about moms' inhumanity to moms.

That being said, I haven't experienced much mompetition first-hand.  While I'm pretty sure that there are many aspects of my parenting style (in its infancy though it is) that are worthy of criticism, it seems that by being a mother of triplets I am somehow exempt from much of the one-upsmanship that seems to be inherent among the parents of young children.  I get high praise for getting out of the house with matching socks on and getting my children to see the outside world.  When I'm then asked the inevitable question, "Getting much sleep?", and am able to answer that yes, in fact, the babies have been sleeping through the night for X weeks now (knock on wood) ... ever since we got them on this feeding schedule where they eat every four hours...well, this is usually met with choruses of amazement, as well as the occasional dirty look from the parent of a two- to six-year old who has not yet slept a solid ten hours straight.

It would be easy to bask in the impression that we are the perfect parents and thus our children are developing into amazing and above par little people.  But, of course, that's not so.  I know it's not...I'm here when they all decide to scream at the top of their lungs at the same time, or spit up on the activity mat and rub their hair in the puddle.  Or when Caroline rolled right of my lap and face-first onto the carpet...and then LAUGHED about it after a brief screeching fit.  So, I know we are just very lucky parents with very sweet babies who are doing all the things that normal babies do.

They are not exceptional.  I was reminded of this recently when I saw an old acquaintance.  She has two older children and was trying to remember where in the developmental spectrum my kids (at 3 months and a bit) were.  "Oh - so they're rolling over and pushing up now, right?"  I told my adorable little story of how much Caroline likes her daily pilates routine and how good the boys are at their upward facing dogs.  And I shared that Caroline had recently started rolling from front to back, but that the boys, who had first rolled at 7 weeks old, had stopped when they put on too much weight to push over.  "Oh!  Well, when my child was just three weeks old she was already flipping over!  In fact, we had to stop swaddling her for fear she'd roll over in her sleep and not be able to get back."  I almost got caught up in it and said, "Well, since ours WERE four weeks early, I guess rolling over at seven weeks is just like your full-term baby doing it at three weeks," but then I thought about it for half a second and realized I really didn't care.  So I let her brag on about her amazing child and smiled and then went back to mine.

Another time I was talking with a mother of a newborn (much newer than ours).  She was expressing amazement at how we handle three and commented that we must just be feeding them "all the time".  I imagined that since her baby was so small she was probably still nursing her every two to three hours, so I explained that it was easier because we were bottle feeding the Salvateenies, and that they were on a schedule now and just ate four times a day - once every four hours during the day.  No chorus of amazement.  She just persisted that it must just take so long with three of them to feed.  Stupidly, I continued to explain that it just didn't take as long when you were bottle feeding.  Besides, I said, we usually have two people for most of the feedings, and if the third baby insists on being fed at the same time, they're actually pretty good at being propped up on the boppy with the milk in their mouth.

Now...I know this is a controversial topic.  A friend of mine who used to run a childcare facility mentioned to me that she'd always been "pretty against" propping bottles, but she had learned that with multiples it was like a godsend if they would take them.  Back when I was pregnant I was looking for information about Podee Bottles and came across a website with information on all sorts of bottle propping gadgets.  The comments at the bottom of the page were all by singleton moms who basically felt that if you were so busy that you needed to employ a propped bottle, perhaps you shouldn't have bothered to have your child in the first place.  At the time I thought it was ludicrous that anyone could be that judgmental.

Then I met this mom.

When I mentioned that the babies were pretty good at being propped with their milk, her jaw dropped.  "Do you at least rotate who you do that to?"  I let the "do that TO" pass and just responded, "Well, we try to keep track of it, but really it depends on who's in the best mood to be propped at that feeding and who will be the most successful."  Her: "Well, I hope you rotate it - I mean, talk about giving a kid a complex!"  And then she rolled her eyes at me!

Oh, the things I wanted to say...they all jumbled into my head at once and so none of them came out, luckily.  And really, what was I going to say?  "Yeah, well MY baby started licking his brother's head last week!  Bet your baby hasn't done THAT."

Did I mention I think HER baby was rolling over at three weeks old, too?  There must be something about babies who roll early that makes their moms competitive.

But now I'm past it.  My babies are sweet and adorable and healthy and anything else they do developmentally, whether it's early or late or right on time, is gravy at this point.

And speaking of developmental growth...Joe caught them really noticing each other during feeding time today.

And then there's just Daniel being adorable after his bath:

And Max, putting Grandma to sleep again!