Valentines Weekend

The kids got to go to an extra day of school on Friday the 13th in order to attend their Valentine's Party and exchange cards and tokens with their classmates.

Max in Daniel's Valentine's shirt from last year (which he has since appropriated)

Daniel showing off his Captain America "Captain Heart Breaker" shirt

Caroline is all hearts, from her shirt to her toes

Then on actual Valentine's Day on Saturday, Gingere and Dylan came down to visit us and head out to Chinatown (yes, five days before the New Year...good planning, Mom) to go shopping for a birthday present for Daddy.  We strolled down Grant Street and poked our heads into a couple of shops before settling down for a little dim sum.

Playing with chopsticks

Future percussionist?

Max was perfectly behaved

Daniel is trying out the chopsticks as woodwind!

Then back up the street actually making some purchases and visit the art along the street.

Posing with the lion at the Grant Street Gate

Acrobat Caroline is climbing the walls while the boys try to play the frog's ukelele

"Rock out, Man!"

Caroline thought it was especially funny that these monkeys were wearing shoes.

Trying to re-create "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil"

And then it was home for a nap before heading to Grandma and Boppy's for dinner.

Caroline and Max help Daniel put a cat mask on

Eating frozen yogurt

Sunday was Daddy's birthday, so we went shopping to get cake fixin's and came home to bake the cake, wrap the treasures they chose in Chinatown (a foot massager, a back scratcher, and a model of the Space Shuttle), and draw cards.

The kids wanted to make a baseball cake

But even a baseball cake can be improved with sprinkles

And with candles and cards, it was a big celebration!

And the weekend was capped off with a trip to Grandma and Papa's on Presidents Day (and a trip to the movies alone for Mommy!)

It's a stage, right?

With age four came the inevitable emergence of potty humor.  "Fart", "butt", "penis", and "poop" are the punch line of many a joke around these parts.  In a fit of frustration, I asked Uncle when they would grow out of it, and he responded, "They're boys, right? Yeah, probably never."

But another phenomenon - not new, but definitely intensified in the past six months, is the sibling rivalry/painful whininess vortex.

"That's MINE!"

"I had that FIRST!"

"That's MY spot!"

"I want to sit in the middle!"

"Mommy, he won't play with me!"

"Mommy, he won't leave me alone!"

"Mommy, he's being mean - get him!"

"Mommy, I want a turn! Put ON THE TIMER!"

(I'm using "he" and "him", but this should in no way be construed to imply that Caroline is not at fault equally with her brothers in these instances.)

"I want to take a bath with Daniel." "No! I want to take a bath by myself!"

And what do I want?  I want to pull my hair out!  I want to somehow be the mom who cleverly avoids the cliches like,  "If you can't share your toys, maybe I should just throw them out, how about that?" or "Oh, that's what you want?  Well, what I want is children who don't fight with each other all the time, so I guess we're just all going to be disappointed today," or "That's not your spot, that's MY spot - this whole house is MY spot, and I'm just being NICE and letting you borrow it!"

What I end up with is usually closer to, "Well, sweetie, can he borrow it for a little while?  (no, I had it first) I know you had it first, but if he asks you politely, can he have it? (NO, I'm playing with it!) OK, that's OK, (to other child) Sorry, honey, he's playing with it right now, can I get you something else to play with? (crying) I know that's what you want, but maybe you can play with it later.  Let's go look for something else. (more crying, followed by the stubborn possessor of the toy to all of a sudden turn magnanimous and say, "You can have it.  Here, Mommy, he can have it now.")  So, was he won over by his brother's pleading?  Did he sense Mommy at the end of her rope?  Or was he done with the toy all along, but just enjoyed stringing us along to see how upset everyone could get?  We may never know.

I know that these sibling rivalries happen in all households and are not unique to triplets, but they are particularly painful with triplets.  With mixed-age kids, you might be able to lean on the "good big brother/sister" angle.  With twins, you could do a timer/swap system that might actually work.  But three is an odd number and the minute I get two of them calmed down and playing nicely, invariably, the third will feel left out or will want to play something else or will just generally want to whine to get equivalent attention.

And before you email me positive parenting suggestions, I know them all.  I just don't have time for them.  Or energy.  So we bargain and dialogue and, if nothing else, when they're grown up into whiny, selfish teenagers they'll have good verbal skills!

But the fighting is not the only stage we're in, communication-wise - there's the flat refusal to say what they mean.

"I'm hungry."

"OK, what do you want?"

"I don't know - you guess."

"Do you want an apple?  Or an orange?"

"No.  I want something that's in the refrigerator."

"What?"

"I don't know."

"Then I can't get it for you, can I?"

"Hmm...I want something that is in the frigerator and is red."

"You want ketchup?"

"NO!  I want something that is in the frigerator and is red and is BERRIES."

or worse...

"I want something that is round and is a cookie."

or...

"I want something blue that is in the frigerator that is bouncy and looks like a superhero." (this was specific to the time around their birthday party when I was practicing the recipe for Super Hero Jell-O jigglers.)

And, of course, the attitude toward me is always a winner.  My favorite has to be when I bring them dinner or clothes that they haven't previously picked out.  The boys will scream, "NO! I did not TELL YOU to bring me THAT!"  As you can imagine, this is met with a good deal of sarcasm about what they get to "tell me" and whose responsibility it is to decide such things.  When they are not receptive to this, they will parry with all sorts of variations of "I don't like you," or even threats of "I'm going to kick you in your butt" when they're especially peeved.  Luckily, no butt-kicking has actually taken place.

Oh, and the irrational fears?  That's going to pass, right?

Just over a year ago, Daniel broke his arm and when his cast came off, he was bizarrely afraid of going up or down the stairs alone, insisting on being carried.  And then, one day, he was over it.  And then, just as unexpectedly, he was afraid again and needed to hold hands and to sit down on the threshold to scoot across it.

Max is afraid when he's alone in a room.  Never mind that everyone else is in the very next room and that we can all SEE EACH OTHER, he needs someone to be in the room WITH him.  And his siblings won't do - he wants "someone who is a grown up".

And there's being afraid to sleep through the night in their room.  When they break in and want to sleep with me, it's because they're "afwaid".  And when Daniel and Caroline have both come in, then Max will wake up and be afraid  to be alone in his room.

And I keep thinking to myself, "this too shall pass, right?"

Exhausto-pants

OK, before moving along, let me explain that title.  At some point as the kids were learning to talk, I unconsciously created the suffix "-pants".  I think it started with fussy babies, calling them "crankypants".  Embarrassingly, I think I used to call my middle child "Maxipants".  And I'm sure Caroline has been Miss Sassypants once or twice.  As they talked more and acted silly, I would tell them they or an activity were "crazypants".  And of course we were all thrilled every time we watched Frozen and heard Kristoff try calm a wound up Princess Anna by saying, "Hey, ho, hold on there feistypants."

So, obviously, when we are overtired, we are "exhaustopants".

The kids started talking about wanting to see a basketball game.  They pointed out that they'd been to baseball games (both at the Giants and A's a the major league level and at the San Jose Giants), and they'd been to a football game, but they'd never been to a basketball game.  They also said they wanted to go to a "soccerball" game.  So the next day, we watched a Warriors game on tv.  The kids watched for a while, focusing on the team's colors and digesting that we were rooting for the "white team" (it was a home game - wear your Warriors white!)

I couldn't arrange for them to see a soccerball game, but there was one final big Friday basketball game at Sequoia for the season, though it was actually on Thursday before a Friday holiday.  So I picked the kids up from school, slid them into their Sequoia tshirts from the football game we'd gone to (lucky for us, the game was against rival Carlmont, again, so the "Beat Carlmont" message on the back was appropriate), and hit the road back to Redwood City.

When we first arrived, we took a tour around campus, including seeing the swimming team practice. Then we moved on to the baseball fields to visit Mommy's friend (and classroom-mate) Carlos as he coached JV Soccer.  Carlos chatted with the kids for a while with the boys excited to answer all his questions and Caroline content to peek at him behind my legs.  I learned that their favorite sports are baseball and soccerball.  That Max thinks he likes the “blue team”, though when pressed, he said he liked the Giants.  He was also emphatic that he likes the football team with number 41, which Carlos was able to decipher as the 49ers.  As an added bonus, the baseball team was also working out and as we left the field, Caroline ran over to pick up a ball that had gotten away and throw it back to the boys on the infield (succeeding at throwing it over to deep short) and that made three teams we had seen so far. 

Then it was through the middle of campus to check out the mural and on to the water fountain.  We poked our heads in to the warm up for the wrestling match, followed by a moment or two at the girls varsity soccer game, and finally onto the snack bar at the basketball game.

Checking out the mural

As we ordered hotdogs and Sprites, the kids were spotted by a handful of the JV cheerleaders.  The girls squealed when they saw the boys and asked if they were twins.  When they learned they were triplets, the squeals mounted.  Caroline turned shy again, but the boys were immediately in their element, babbling on to them about where they go to school and who their mommy is.  I turned my back for a moment and Daniel had weaseled candy out of the cheerleaders who were in a semi-circle beaming at them.

Max and Daniel holding court

We went inside to sit in the gym.  It was the second half of the boys’ JV game and we did a fair amount of yelling “GO SEQUOIA!”  As the third quarter ended, Caroline asked if we could move to sit closer to “the cheer girls”, so we slid to the other end of the gym.  We sat in front of  one of my students who gave Daniel a whole bag of chips (even though Caroline pointed out that eating in the gym is "breaking the rules"). 

Sitting by the "cheer girls"

Hanging out in the stands with Mommy

A bunch more "GO SEQUOIA!" then choruses of, "I wanna go now," as the game ended so off we went to see the tile mural by the pool, then back to the other mural, then back to run around on the football bleachers, back to the gym to climb on the security cart, and finally back in the car to head to Burger King for smoothies and fries. 

Finding all the Nemos and Ariels in the tile mural

Playing hide and seek on campus

Max and Caroline fell asleep in the car and Daniel chatted with me until we hit the City at which point he was zonked out too.  This meant when I came home I had a bunch of trips up and down the stairs.  The first two trips were to bring in all of our stuff.  Then one kid at a time, as they woke up as they were jostled out of the chair into my arms, then fell back asleep somewhere in the living room.  And then I juggled them into diapers and pajamas and bundled them off to bed.

Now that is exhausto-pants

And the best part of all was that I had a holiday the next day and the kids were going to school for their Valentines party!

Boswick!

On Sunday, we had a choice between going to our monthly "Jewish Singing Class" or to a Valentine's Party sponsored by the Parents of Multiples club that was boasting treats, crafts, and a clown.

I think it's clear which option we went for.

I am proud to report that we have raised the Salvateenies to be the perfect four year old audience for an attentive clown.  It was raining outside and there were crafts and face painting and food to distract kids from the show, so Boswick the Clown seemed very pleased to have a contingent focused on him.

Check out those laughs!

Boswick's schtick includes getting the kids' names wrong and misidentifying their family relationships.  The kids walked away remembering that he thought Daniel's name was "Vanilla", that Max was "Minimus", and that Caroline was "Paradigm" and they thought it was hilarious that he thought Caroline was the boys' GIRLFRIEND and I was their mother-in-law!

Getting to be helpers

Make your animal face and ROAR!

Personalized attention

The kids got to volunteer a lot because of the distraction of the other kids (and the fact that a lot of them were younger).

Boswick also makes balloon animals.

A parrot!

A poodle!

A dachshund!

And then there was also FacePainting, by the same woman we've seen at previous events (and whose colleague worked the kids' birthday).  This was the first time the boys really wanted to get their faces painted.

Caroline chose a Valentine's Day rainbow to go with her Unicorn shirt

BATMAN!

Robin, the Boy Wonder

And a Valentine's Heart

It was a fun time had by all - until we went out in the drizzle and Max's mask started to run.  Then he fell asleep in the car and it smeared.  Then he got upset that it smeared and he cried.  All very tragic.  But, ultimately, a fun time still.

(For interested parents planning events, Boswick is available at http://www.boswick.net  and the facepainter is Jen from http://www.happycakefacepaint.com/)