multiple musings
in the past 10 days, several people have nicely or not so nicely drawn my attention to the following.
1) calling jasper, sela and carys by a collective name aka: the triumverate is bad for their self esteem. they will grow up thinking they are not individuals and appreciated for their unique talents and all i see them as are "the triplets".
2) i have no right to complain about the attention THE TRIUMVERATE get if i dress them alike. dressing alike BEGS people to pay attention.
3) making them share a bedroom is not a good thing, limits their individuality, they won’t be able to sleep alone ever, they are co-dependent.
my responses to you all:
1) so does this mean i need to refer to my parents as "my mum and dad"? i TREAT my kids as individuals and i don’t really think it matters what i call them, as long as i say it with love. would you ever say this to a person who didn’t have multiples and referred to her children as "my kids"? i don’t think so. calm down your tiny hormones.
2) if i throw jasper in a dress, i think you’re on to something. until that day, you don’t have a leg to stand on. i dress my girls alike NOT for the attention, rather because:
a) 100 years ago i was a girl, and i had a sister. we took great delight in informing my mother that the other sister always got to wear the nicer clothes. (of course, my mother should have cocked an eyebrow and said, "well tess, since you wear all her hand me downs, take comfort in the fact that once the outfit is faded, ripped and mended, you will be wearing it!) i don’t need that hassle. i dress them alike, so in years to come they can both submit identical "you dressed us in crap clothes" petitions and i can light them and use them to burn the portion of the will that leaves any money to them.
my girlfriend steph dresses her four boys all alike and they aren’t multiples. no one says she’s in it for the attention.
b) when i am shopping for clothes, what am i supposed to do? buy one set of leggings that were va-voom cool, and then a second that i don’t really like as much, but hey, i need more? and then when i am dressing them wonder, well, who should wear the outfit i don’t like? NO INDEED. i don’t need that hassle. i am neurotic enough about my parenting skills without extra ammunition.
c) identical outfits…easier to keep track of kids.
d) i’m guessing no matter what they are wearing, seeing four kids clumped together in a shopping cart, on a four seater tricycle, or seeing both parents carrying two children gets attention.
3) so in order to develop their ability to sleep alone (which does ensure they won’t be having meaningless sexual relations in college just to get someone to stay the night…thanks for looking out for them), i should let someone sleep in a closet? or outside? we don’t have a plethora of bedrooms in the house and maybe i should wait until the trio are out of cots until i put them in bunkbeds. i could be wrong.
sebastian makes up little stories in bed and talks out loud. nothing wrong with his creativity. and besides, in years to come, can you imagine the excuses they will come up with as to why they can provide proof that they absolutely did NOT make that disgusting smell, it was the sibling next to them?
i don’t recall anyone critiquing my parenting skills (or lack thereof) when there was just sebastian. and believe me, it was not because i was doing such a perfect job.
do people think with multiples i need multiple opinions?
