Happy Memorial Day!

Thank you to all the Men and Woman who serve and have served in the Armed Forces.

All gave some, some gave all.

Al

Sassy

Musical beds part two

You never know what you will find when you go into the Triplets' room. In previous entries we have talked about them sleeping in the bathroom, under their beds, and various other places. This was a first though. All three in Addison's bed. Why they did not choose the boys' queen bed is still a mystery:)

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

Maya Angelou

Al

13 weeks of Summer!

I am not sure if I am brave, crazy, optimistic, or delusional. I say this like it is something new:) We have decided not to put the kids in a day out program this summer. They will be in VBS for one or two weeks but I am volunteering for one of the VBSs so that is a wash. Why you ask? Partly because I want to be sure we have some long consistency in discipline as the Triplets are ramping up their back talk. The other two reason is that for some reason I want to do it, to see if I can do it and still get all my stuff done. It would be a most improbable task if not for Grandma Jack coming over so I can cut the grass once a week.

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment but I also keep thinking that we will never get these times together back and I want to have as much as possible. No matter how tiring or frustrating those times may get:) The good outweighs the bad by 95% to 5%. But oh that 5%!

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

Life is all about timing... the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable become available, the unattainable... attainable. Have the patience, wait it out It's all about timing.

Stacey Charter

Al

P.S. I share this last quote only for the reason that it made me almost laugh out of my chair. Don't read anything into it, it is just funny.

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.

Matt Groening (1954 - ), "Life in Hell"

Musical beds

It is an all too common event to have one, two or all three of the Triplets show up in our bed anywhere from midnight on. The CFO and I sometimes stick it out and sweat it out with them in bed with us. If we could harness the heat given off by sleeping kids we could solve the energy crisis:) Lately I have chosen to take the low road and just go get in their bed. If I go to their room the other two usually stay there so the CFO and I get a good nights sleep. I know I should move them back to their bed ala Nanny 911 but hey, nobody is perfect.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

Al

Our family is growing...

Growing by three hermit crabs that is! We were at the beach since last weekend having a great time with our friends and the Triplets. While there the CFO and the Triplets wore me down and we now have three hermit crabs. Luckily we have an aquarium that is currently unused that we can set up for them.

Now we need to get everything cleaned up from the beach trip:(. While on the trip the CFO pulled more than her weight as she did all of our laundry before we headed home to make it a vacation for me also. I hope she doesn't expect me to do some of her job now:)

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Al

Hello, I am a SAHD and I have a cleaning problem

I tell people not to confuse wanting a clean house, car, etc... with the desire to clean. It is like yard work. I like the grass cut, beds weeded, and bushes pruned but I do not like cutting grass, weeding or pruning. The trick is being willing to do it. It falls under the category of "Do something about it or be quiet," one of the house rules.

I have now hit a new low or high, depending on how you view it. A month ago or so I was at Church a little early helping get ready for the early service when I noticed that the furniture needed a little dusting. Much of it is dark wood so any dust is very noticeable. I called the CFO and asked her to bring one of my dusting cloths. Yes, she thought it was a little weird too:) But then I got busy with the service but the cloth stayed there.

That is until last Wednesday night. I stayed after our Wednesday night classes to fill in during singing practice. No, I was not singing:) I do the audio/visual as I am on the geeky side. I needed a ride home as I had not planned to stay and the CFO took the Triplets home earlier so I had a little time to kill after they finished singing before my ride left. That is when I remembered the cleaning cloth. So I put the time to good use and started dusting. I dusted tables, table legs, shelves and picture frames. After I finished I was not sure if I did it because I like to help out at Church or that I am becoming a kooky about dusting. No, I won't dust your house for you, mine needs it first:)

Our house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy.
Author Unknown

Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don't do it.
Author Unknown

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
Erma Bombeck

Al

Three days in one

We headed up to the in-laws this past Saturday. We went to their town's Earth Day event with the Triplets. The kids loved it. Learning about worms, animals, etc... not to mention free food and balloons:) after about three hours we headed to the local drugstore where they still have an ice cream parlor. They sell Blue Bell ice cream, my favorite! It is only $.75 for a single scoop! When we were almost done we noticed the parade for the local rodeo that was in town was going by so we ran outside to enjoy that. After the parade ended we headed over to the CFO's old school for a home spun fair with all kinds of goods for sale. Addison scored a "Ariel Chair" and they all got a got a Tipi tent to play in.

After all the festivities we headed back to the in-laws for ribs with Aunt Ra-ra, Grandmom, their twin cousins, the newest cousin, Aunt Julie and Uncle Tommy, After baths for all three we headed back home around 9pm after a quick stop, to pick up our new worm compost box from a friend of the family. Now the Triplets want to feed the worms every time they eat:)

The CFO and Jackson even made it on the front page of the local paper, holding the balloons.

The busy man is troubled with but one devil; the idle man by a thousand.
Spanish Proverb

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Theodore Roosevelt

Al

Free time, what free time?

As any other Stay at Home Parent knows, there is no "free" time when you live and sleep at work. There is always something that needs to be done. Whether that be in the yard or in the house the to do list is never ending. I guess that is one of the challenging things about being a SAHD (Stay at Home Dad)... you never get to point where you can cruise for a bit.

Well you can cruise, but it is because you ignore what needs to be done. When I worked "outside the home" I would periodically get to a point where all my to-do's for the day/week were done and I could enjoy some guilt free time doing whatever. Of course that was when we made enough money to have someone clean the house and take care of the yard so the stuff around the house was done.

I still like this better but every once in a while I miss a piece of our past. But I do so knowing that our memory has a way of "scrubbing" the past and making it look all nice and shiny:)

Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.
Harvey MacKay

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
Albert Einstein

Al

We are late again!

I am one of "those people" that believes in the quote "If you are early you are on time, if you are on time you are late, if you are late don't bother showing up." I think it was a football coach's quote. When I worked "outside the home" I was almost always early. Work starts at 8am? I am there by 7:30 at the latest and usually 6:30 or 7:00. Flight at 8am? I was there by... you guessed it 6am. Expect the unexpected I always said. Traffic is bad... you should have left earlier. You are dressed like that because the airline lost your luggage... you should have packed a suit in your carry on.

Unfortunately with Triplets I am frequently late... or am I? See, I have this nasty habit of self imposing a schedule on us. I get this schedule in my head and if we start veering off course my first reaction is to push things along. This does not work well with three year old triplets:) I find myself hurrying to get to the... oh, pick a place, the YMCA, the Zoo, the Science Center, etc... by a certain time. Sure, I might be meeting someone but they also have kids and will definitely understand.

A perfect instance of this happened yesterday. We were headed to the YMCA and started running a bit late for my target time. Jackson then proceeded to make a few "bad choices." He tripped his sister as she came down the stairs and then hit William in the van. It was Jackson's day to swim but I made an audible and told him he was not swimming that day. Yep, you guessed it, he expressed his extreme displeasure with my decision:) So I decided to give him a choice. He could let Addison swim that day and he swim when it was her turn or no one would swim and he would miss his turn for the week. Keep in mind this discussion took fifteen minutes. He finally made what I think was the best choice and Addison got to swim. But all that made us 30 minutes "late." Late for what, I thought. So what if we eat lunch later, or nap later, or whatever later.

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT giving up on my punctuality but I am not going to drive my kids crazy by some invisible time line I create.

Punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Punctuality is a virtue, if you don't mind being lonely.
Unknown

Elitism - It's lonely at the top. But it's comforting to look down upon everyone at the bottom.
Larry Kersten

Al

Will power

I find myself more and more having to use my will power to not succumb to temptation. The Triplets more and more these days have the following requests:

• We want to watch a movie - Daddy could fall asleep on the couch
• We want to watch Batman - Daddy could get some other stuff done
• We want to play on the computer - Daddy can cook without interruption
• We want you to play your game - Daddy would get to play Modern Warfare 2

I am not saying that I never let them do any of these things but they ask A LOT and we could fill our days with them. But alas, that is not the parent I want to be nor the kids I want them to be so we trudge along doing things together:)

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Mahatma Gandhi

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it
Mae West

Al

A different point of view

I sometimes forget, as I think we all do, that kids are little people. I know that sounds funny but I (we) frequently want them to ALWAYS behave well, eat the same amount/things, and generally be exactly the same day to day/hour to hour.

I was thinking about it yesterday... I am not the same, I have moods and they do to. In the past I have always looked for reasons that they were behaving the way they were. You know, it was the kids at school, church, etc... But I think the fact of the matter is that they are just little people, like us. Sometimes they are in a bad mood, sometimes they are in a good mood. Sometimes they have a taste for one type of food and other times they don't. So I now add this to my list of things to keep in mind...

1. No good deed goes unpunished.
2. They don't have to have fun my way.
3. They are little people, not robots.

A couple of pics from the kids' camera.

From a certain point of view our real enemy, the true troublemaker, is inside.
Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama quotes (Dalai Lama, b.1935)

Al