Author: charlestess

over one year ago i confessed that i disliked feeding my children.

interestingly, despite a year where the babies have changed a great deal (the vomitting has ceased drastically, they now walk, sing and babble), some things have not changed.

they still don’t have hair, and i still don’t particularly enjoy feeding them.

in particular, i don’t enjoy being with sebastian while he is eating.

HE. IS. SO. SLOW.

it is agonising to be around this little blonde dude during mealtimes.

he does everything but eat. it is so annoying. and half the time it is my fault because we get to talking and then next thing i know 20 minutes have passed and he hasn’t lifted his spoon or he is plucking choice items off his plate with his fingers and placing them into his mouth sporradically.

it is enough to drive me insane. am i not meant to talk with him? where is the balance between eating and having a proper dinner hour? if he eats, he isn’t talking, but the minute i give him a break from eating, he manages to turn it to a 20 minute break from eating the food. it stuns me how much i dislike eating with him.

i give him credit, he does have manners…that’s one of the things i love about sebastian getting closer to his fourth birthday…i am seeing ROI for the endless hours i spent repeating please, thank you, excuse me and i beg your pardon. his table manners are good, he doesn’t talk while chewing. the problem is, he prefers staring off into space, or getting up and racing down the hallway to show me the book he wants me to read him at bedtime, or picking a piece of cat hair off his leg to eating his dinner.

at restaurants, he is much more enthusiastic about eating, and food disappears on a fairly regular basis, especially when he knows we are holding back the chips until his plate is cleared. but at home..oh, many, the AGONY. the forever agony.

i have considered timing him, giving him a reasonable set time for meals, but when i mentioend this to a friend i was informed that i was teaching him bad eating habits by rushing him through a meal and he would be obese and never get a girlfriend and it would all be my fault that he had a terrible life. gah.

instead, he knows that when he gets up from the table, that’s it, meal time is over. unless it is to do a wee-wee. so then, we get to live through the pleasure of being woken up the next morning at 5.30 with the cheery,

mummy, i want my bweakfast now. i’s so hungwy. 

it’s not that he is full, he doesn’t start eating, so he can’t be full. and i know what he is eating on the playground isn’t enough to fill him up. it’s not like i am discouraging him to chew his food…he doesn’t get that far. fork does not reach mouth. its not like he dislikes his food, although chances are it would taste better warm.

i am in good company, if that is ANY consolation. his teacher, the beloved michelle, has commented that sebastian is having trouble concentrating at school during the morning routine of setting out diary, removing outdoor coat and shoes, hanging up knapsack and bookbag, putting on indoor shoes. she gives him time limits and sometimes has to walk him through the routine. easily distracted, she says.

his distraction is driving me to distraction.

ill is well-come

does anyone else secretly love it when their kids are just little bit under the weather?

not sick enough to vomit, tyvm, but not 100 per cent.

today sebastian was under the weather. i gave him the bug i caught from jasper. high fever, sore throat, chills. he went to school, ate his lunch, but by 4pm had had, enough. i came down the playground and he walked over to me. not ran. he took my hand and we walked over to where jasper was playing. when he saw me, jasper abandoned his ride on car and walked a la frankenstein to me. sebastian immediately took possession of the car jj had vacated, but didn’t immediately ride off into the sunset on it. he just sat there, looking at me.

after 10 minutes or so, i put jasper near the slide and wandered off to another area of the playground. and sebastian followed me. i had carys on my lap for a bit, and sebastian sat beside me. leaned against me quietly. i felt the moisture of his hair seeping into the arm of my t-shirt. eventually carys toddled off, and i pulled sebastian into my lap.

sebastian has never been a cuddler, so my opportunities to hold him are precious. i try to make the most of them. so today sebastian and i sat in an out of the way spot in the playground and i just whispered "baby sebastian’ stories to him. and then when i had exhausted "baby sebastian has to go to the hospital" and "baby sebastian goes to church" and "baby sebastian goes to canada", i told him other facts he likes to hear…how he used to refer to carys, nappies, michelle and wee-wee as taris, wappies, she-shell, and vee-vee. that got a few smiles from him and the comment,

i am such a silly-billy boy,

but they were whispered, his head pressed into my shoulder.

we came upstairs and he drew a picture for me and i read him four books. he was so docile, agreed with everything i said. as a special treat we read in mummy and daddy’s bed, and i gave him juice with ice and a straw. he liked the stories and didn’t ask the usual number of questions.

i wouldn’t want him to be not 100 per cent everyday, what sort of parent wants that? but as a parent just recovering from a high fever and chills and cold, when your child is slightly off, you don’t have to be as "on", which was necessary, because i am still not 100 per cent myself. if he sleeps through the night, i figure by morning i will be.

crack addict

here we go again.

i walked through the kid’s bedroom last night, the typical last minute picking up of blankets and toys, putting away folded socks, removing feet perilously close to being shoved between slats, lifting blankets off faces. with the maximum of touching and smoothing and wiping and holding. in the silence urging them through my touch to know of my love.

they are so big in their cots. so very very big. when we brought them home, all three tightly swaddled tots shared one cot, with plenty of room to spare. and when they moved to individual cots, they would get lost in them. i don’t want another baby, i am so relieved they are growing and thriving, but i don’t want to lose my babies. and i have. crack goes my heart.

little lulu, such a lanky girl. the weather is turning cold, and i bought the girls pink tights for the playground. i finish my interview, and head down to the playground. and i see carys, frisking about, tights bagging at the knees, floppy at the toes, huge concentration on her face as she pulls at a plant leaf. and i stand in front of her and finally she looks up, sees me and starts running. gawky little legs, happy smile, hoarse cry. and then i hold her for 20 minutes, her arms clasping me tightly, the beloved playground for right now, a distant second to being held by mummy. crack.

sela loves being read to. she approaches me with a book and facing me, will hand the book over. and then, with a series of little steps, she moves 180 degrees, turns her head to make eye contact, then drops into my lap. uk pees! she instructs, placing one hand on each of my wrists. and i begin reading. we can maybe read it once before the others arrive and she has to relinquish the lap, but i know that she loves these times together, that having the lap, MY lap, is an essential part of the reading. crack.

crack is the sound when jasper is lying with me on my bed in a patch of sunlight. i am singing "Head and shoulders knees and toes" and repeating the bit about eyes, ears mouth and nose, touching his features, and mine. jasper reaches up, pulls my finger from my nose, and puts it to his mouth, covering it wth his own hand. and then blows me a kiss. smiles. crack.

two new cracks courtesy of sebastian:                                                                                 

crack when he comes to me with a fresh boo-boo, still believing that my kiss can make it better.

and the long clear crack on the playground when he is talking to another little boy about a broken toy. my mummy can fix it. sebastian declares. my mummy can do anyfing.

oh but i can’t, i can’t slow time down, i don’t want to slow time down, but i don’t want to forget these precious times.

the baby smell is fading from the back of their necks. crack. how much more can my heart grow?

what’s in a name?

much to the disgust of a a few triplet mums, someone from another website perused through the triplet website, copied down the names of every member’s children, and proceeded to rate them into the following categories: the good, the bad, the trendy and the mundane.

there were a lot of ruffled feathers, as popular (emily, jack, ava, madison, ashley) are scorned there, ditto for names creatively spelt (myranda, keighlee). names starting with the first letter, or rhyming were pretty much flamed.

where did jasper, sela and carys fit in?

trendy.

can you imagine? i purposely chose names that i thought NOT to be trendy. you don’t see a lot of j, s or c’s running about the place. or at least i didn’t think you do. do you? trendy? i know catherine zeta jones named her daughter carys…but i didn’t think a lot of other people had. and sela, trendy?

one of the more honest triplet mums wrote that her feelings were hurt knowing that someone didn’t like her child’s name. but to be honest, probably a lot of people don’t like her child’s name.

not just her child, ANY child. i have lots of friends who have named a child something i wouldn’t. (obviously! i go for trendy names, apparently!)

but you know what? after you see and touch that child whose name you don’t really like, you don’t really think about the name, you think about the baby. that’s the way it is. i haven’t run across a baby called anything i find truly offensive like adolf, but i do think the theory would hold true even then.

the meanings behind our children’s names is very important to magnificent and me. apparently it is bad that i chose the welsh version of carys, instead of going with karis. but my grandfather used that welsh expression when he said goodnight to us…carys dunwell. my daugher’s name is carys.

jasper, he is precious. i am sorry there is a national park by the same name, and that some people think the name is red neck and others think it is posh.

sela – pause and reflect. the name after virtually every psalm. i love the meaning, i love the way her name floated in a room amongst the bleeping machines. rest now, sela. ssshhh shhh sela. when laying in the hospital ward trying to choose a name for her, we test run the names by speaking them aloud. sela. it gave me peace.

sebastian – the patron saint of soldiers. my grandfather was a soldier. and although some believe the name sebastian is too "snooty"…i have a tough time remembering that when he has collapsed in years into my arms, weeping because someone on the bus sat on the special drawing he had made for me.

i don’t think you can love someone and not love their name.

(someone said it doesn’t matter what their name is, it matters the tone you speak it in. that’s nice in theory, but if you had heard me bellowing CARYS! on the playground not 40 minutes ago, you would wonder….)

firstly, sorry for one week of silence….i couldn’t access my typepad account. like that’s a hassle i need.

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call me when you have free time.

i have a friend who does not particularly enjoy spending time with children. i don’t take offense to that, it’s not just my children she doesn’t enjoy spending time with, it’s everyone’s. before i had children i wasn’t overly eager to spend time with them either, i suppose.

it gets a little difficult, because i am always declining her invitations to events. or i will suggest we go out for a walk (which she enjoys), and i suggest we go early. but she doesn’t "do" early, says we have to go later, and i say i need to be back for the 11.45 bus. oh, so we aren’t doing it at all, she says. maybe in five years.

scheduling with people who don’t want to be around children is difficult for me because i do like being around children, and i have plenty of children i want and need to spend time with.

afternoons aren’t so good, because i am usually with the triumverate, or taking sebastian to an activity. i would be happy to invite her over to have a coffee as we strolled through the playground, yet the one time we tried that was a huge failure.

you’re the busiest person i know! she cries, when i decline yet another invitation.

and i suppose it must seem that way, but the thing is she doesn’t like being with me when i am around the children. and she doesn’t like my traditional get away time, from 8am-10am, after seb gets on the bus and the babies are having their 8.45-10am nap. that’s my window, but she doesn’t like it. fair enough, but i am trying.

last weekend charles was away, and i made plans to have dinner with steph, whose husband was in america. my friend called halfway through the week and said,

so i was thinking i would come over and see the kids on friday night.

this surprised me. see the kids? her? but unfortunately,

friday won’t be good. we are going to a party and won’t be getting home until 6.30pm or so. then it will be bathtime, and hopefully bed soon after.

so? i’ll come over later and we can go out.

oh, well that’s not good either.

you have plans?

i do.

well why did you bother giving me the song and dance about the party if you had plans for friday evening?

because you said you wanted to come and see them, not go out.

we have these conversations, and i think they are equally frustrating for each of us. i generally love spending time with her, but my windows of child-free opportunities are few, and there are a lot of people i want to be catching up with.

there is also the problem that i reserve nights for just mc and me. i also reserve movies. my friend and i love seeing movies, and she gets irked when i say, sorry, i reserved that one for magnificent. i probably would be.

and to be fair, the art gallery openings that she so enjoys are not my preferred events to attend anymore. i have been out of the scene for a while, and would know no-one, and would be sitting there like a little meatball. not my preferred idea of fun.

but it frustrates me, because this is a long and cherished friendship, and i feel i am letting her down. being consumed by the mummy-train, a hormone hostage.

i am disappointed, yet i recognise this is not just my problem.

i am going to call her right now and suggest a dinner for the next time mc is away.

any other ideas?

massages in bangkok run from sublime to supremely painful. price does not affect which end of the spectrum your experience will fall into.

our friday night massages were fantastic. for the price (200 baht per hour…app $5us) you can’t expect massage tables, so we told the masseurs to go easy on our backs and just focus on feet, legs and arms. they obeyed our instructions fabulously. when i was laying down, my masseur placed her knees on my feet and ground them around….it was dee-vine.

last night poor mc didn’t have such a great experience…he almost faked a charley horse just to get out of there.

we had a good night though, we went to the night market and browsed around. the number of knockoff dvd stalls has increased 2000 per cent since i was last at that market in 2002. (magcharles actually visited that market in 1990..but claims there were no booming beta stalls there. let’s believe him.) at one point, mc and i were at one of those tables and i felt something land on my foot.

oh crap a rat! i thought.

and for some reason, i did not scream, or shake my foot…instead i looked down and almost melted with relief when i realised it was only a kitten. if looks had anything to do with it, a direct descendant from the heavily male cat insolently grooming himself a few stalls down.

after the night market we wanted to hit the silom district. Although there is a night market in silom/patpong, the quality of goods tends not to be as high in this area, and we were pretty shopped out. our taxi driver thought we said patpong, which is where the live action shows are. nothing like getting an eyeful while just watching the doors open and close!

mc and i still had indian and a massage on the agenda so we didn’t want to get too caught up. instead, we were looking for a nike shop, so mc could get a running singlet. i had seen a very cute size small one in hong kong, "how’s my running? call 1-800-run-nike" and wanted to get it for him in his size.

we didn’t find it, but we did find several suitable ones. then it was time to hit boots to get charles’ beloved KING OF SHAVES products.

by the time our massages were over, it was well into the morning and our curry place was closed, so we took the boat back to the hotel and ordered room service and watched something’s gotta give.

this morning we raced around: haircuts, massages, stall shopping, the long anticipated curry, and then we lay by the pool. finally it was time to depart. and here we are, at don muang international.

it has been a great weekend. we have spoken with sebastian every day, and hearing  him say to lita when she reports to him that his mummy is on the phone,

my mummy?

creates another crack in my heart. we went to a birthday party on saturday. thursday before i left he dictated the card to me and it went like this…

i hope you have fun being one. i hope you like playing on the playground. i am glad you are my friend. i hope you have a chocolate cake.

and it was. sebastian was thrilled, and by the party’s end, very full.

Bumrungraduate

The other day I was reading to Sebastian. He was sitting on my lap, my legs were stretched out in front of me. About halfway through GREEN EGGS AND HAM, Sebastian got up to pull sela off the toyshelf, which she is learning to climb. Then he had to yank off carys, none too gently I might add. Safety restored to the playroom, the triumphant self-appointed sheriff headed back to my lap but before he settled down again, he looked at my legs and said, “not like that mummy!” my legs were crossed now, and he explained that he wanted my “legs out like this!” and he pulled them into a straight position.

We were on our fourth book, and my knees needed a break from the straight out position. I explained this to Sebastian then inquired as to why he didn’t want my legs crossed. His response? To point to two stray hairs on my I kid you not freshly shaven legs and exclaim, “I don’t want the scratchy bit touching me!”

I do not like them when we read
I do not like them after I’ve weed
I do not like those hairs so funny
I do not like them, oh my mummy!

Magnificent and I are in Bangkok this weekend, a combination of hassle and pleasure. We flew out late Thursday evening. We spent the first night at the Bumrungrad hospital’s BH Suites and the next morning, following 12 hours of fasting, headed to the outpatient clinic for the comprehensive health check ups. We had our eyes checked, every single blood level checked, “poopers and wee wee” analysis, charles had a stress test, I had an biopsy on my arm, an EKG, a mammogram and smear and ovarian ultrasound…we were worked over. At first, we were lulled into a false sense of security…dentist complimenting me on my cavity and filling free teeth, my eyesight. But around the time of the mammogram and ultrasound of my internal organs I got concerned. The tech was taking too long on one area. Way too long. When she called in the doctor, I knew something was wrong. Okay, but was it ABNORMAL or was it BAD? By the time the mammogram was finished and the doctor insisted the tech re-take some of the images so she could better “see past this dense mass” I was panicking. I had finished my book, and that was not a good thing because my mind could dwell on what might have been found.

I got as far as planning how my friends could help make the deceased me “real” for my children (having gone through where we would go if I needed treatment, who I didn’t want coming to my memorial and musing as to what sort of people would get my organs, and if there really is evidence of people with organ transplants taking on some of the characteristics of the donors…) and it was time to meet with the doctor to discuss the results.

I won’t make you wait as long as I did…I have an abnormally enlarged spleen (BAD), but there is no apparent reason for it. Ie: no mass. (GOOD).  But I need to keep an eye on that. The mammogram came back as negative, and I need to be very diligent. (I have accepted magcharles’ offer to help with the BSE’s). and interestingly enough, I have no resistance to hepatitis b. I have been vaccinated for hepb before, but need to do that again.

Last but not least, I tripled the scale on the thyroid test. I have always sort of known that I have a thyroid problem…being constantly cold was the big tip off. Even in Bangkok streets in the heat of day, I wear a jumper. For years I didn’t do anything about it for the relatively weak reason that I didn’t want any other health things on my plate. Epilepsy was enough, thank you very much. Doctors, MORE medications? Thanks but no thanks. I could handle the weight gain and coldness, tyvm.

I might do something about my thyroid now. Now that I’ve had the official test and it’s a proven fact it seems that I ought to. Or maybe I am ready to be smarter now. playing the waiting game yesterday while waiting for our results made me promise I was going to be better to my body.  Money where your mouth is, and all that.

After leaving the hospital, I immediately forgot to be grateful to be alive and healthy, and was cursing at our cab driver as he ignored our instructions. Anyway, we are now at the Peninsula, enjoying two days of decadence before heading back tomorrow evening. This is a gracious  hotel (www.peninsula.com) , and we love it here. MC loves their spring rolls and pool, while I love the televisions in the bathtub. Last night I watched just about the entire movie “love actually” while soaking, despite having to keep the area of my arm that had been biopsied dry. It was divine. And right now we are sitting poolside with only the last spring roll on the plate daring to come between us.

Back to the thyroid….the dr said that a common side effect is hair loss. Well according to my son, there is too much hair on my legs. SO there we go, a faux diagnosis and one less medication/set of appointments for me, or at least a reason to procrastinate making the appointment.

body for life, or lives

apparently as we age we should not curse baldness, tennis elbow, wrinkles or gravity obedient body parts. instead, we need to be positive, grateful to our bodies for the years of service it has given us. the example i was given: thank your little toe for being so good to you and holding up your weight so well (hold on, are you suggesting i am fat?).

that’s true, you never appareciate teeth until the throbbing toothache subsides, or the hangnail is finally gone. everyone knows that.

but on another, ah yes, so much deeper level, have you ever congratulated your body for it’s versatility?

these days, arms for me are a shortage. not enough for my children, let alone for other uses. so i have assigned other body parts to compensate.

thank you nose for being just pointy enough to fit nicely into the elevator lift button. when my arms are full of groceries and children, instead of putting anything down, you step right in there, nose, and push in the up button.

thank you teeth for so gamely holding grocery bags, extra nappies, ties, cloths. in the early days, right after watching THE ARISTOCATS, you even held carys by the top of her onesie as i transported her from change table to bed.

thank you toes for being trainable and dextrous enough to slide papers, empty plates, laundry, books and cups over to magnificent’s side of the bed, or lift a bunch of grapes and deposit them on my lap, or to magnificents side of the bed when my arms were full of sleeping babies and i needed a new position or something to eat.

thank you chin for holding in jasper’s soother back in the days when he was dependent on one but ironically kept pulling it out. i would have a girl in each arm and no way of preventing the terror of the wayward soother. chin did double duty – propping the soother in, and preventing renegade jj hands from finding and pulling at it.

thank you knee for acting as a sebastian entertainer while my hands were occupied and i couldnot get up because i was feeding three babies. knee either bounced sebastian up and down, or was a bridge that required a special password before it would move up and let the train driver through.

we won’t win the 2005 yummy mummy body contest, but my goodness, we would do well in the multitasking competition.

techno teens

the sub species of teen that has evolved with technology astounds me.

some things never change. when we were teens, magnificent and i could not wait to get out of the house and hang out with friends. after changing outfits (depending if their parents saw them before they escaped out the door), begging for coin, charles would scamper off to be with his posse. (my friends usually came to my place, my parents had an open door policy for which i was/am very grateful).

and where-ever we were, we would talk with our friends, or listen to music, or even, study on occasion. but interaction was involved. no one would wander off alone unless they wanted their ex-boyfriend to follow them and hopefully ask them to "go around" again.

cut to today’s teens. they get together, but there is no face to face interaction. they are all too busy sending text messages with someone who ISN"T there at the time. or if they actually do get talking to someone who possibly has carpal tunnel and can’t be texting away, if they receive a message with barely an excuse me, they turn away to commence communicating with the absent friend. what is the purpose of being together if you are just going to zone off with someone else? does this seem anti social? do those teens ever want to shake their friends and say, "hey i am right here?"

i suppose this is evolution…i can remember my dad’s arm coming around the corner to turn up the dimmer switch whenever the lights got too low and asking, "what’s the point in this "hanging around" if all you are going to do is listen to michael jackson?" but at least we were zoned out together. when charles went to the arcade (i wasn’t allowed to go), the kids focused on their own games, but at least their friends were around to offer assistance on where pac man could find the oranges and cherries? is text the millenium equivalent to pong and lp’s? or even call waiting?

is this ignoring those you are with to talk with those you aren’t some sort of symbolism for the state of relationships today? if we aren’t guilty of pulling the text trick, are we ignoring our spouses, children, and friends for the remote, the bottle, the book, or???  i don’t know, i just find it creepy these silent groups of congregated kids.

today when on the computer kids converse with five friends at a time on their instant messenger systems. by converation i mean:

hey

hey. wht r u dng?

nthing. u?

nah. lol. rotflmao.

brb.

and then going on to the next converation which is eerily similar.

i met my husband on line, but when i was out with friends, i didn’t carry on conversations with him.

back the text-teens…even when surily occupying street corners (so that people crossing the intersections need to walk past the corner in order to step up on to the sidewalk), you see them, bent heads and flying fingers texting away. or maybe even graduating to talking on their mobiles. instead of to the person next to them. some of them can rip themselves away from their conversations to shout rude things to people walking by, but it is clearly a sacrifice for them. kids, where are your voices?

if i were a teen, i probably would be doing the same thing. and thinking the old lechers in their 30’s were old whiskery trouts who didn’t get it.

and they’re right. i don’t.

those of you who have been with us when we have dined out know we operate on a schedule that would make the folks at ALIAS proud. team leaders magnificent and tess have separate tasks, to ensure the operation runs successfully and smoothly, and a variety of just in case (JIC) moves that can be implemented whenever a plan veers slightly off course. here is how we generally run it…..

call ahead and make a reservation. yes, i said three high chairs. thank you.

when you walk into the restaurant, let people know by your smiles and walk (even though you are carrying either jasper and the nappy bag or sela and carys) that you are confident your kids will not ruin everyone else’s dining experience.

when you arrive at the table, move the high chairs away from the table before putting the kids into them. have a packet of wipes in your back pocket incase the highchairs have grungy bits that need to be taken care of. with the kids slightly away from the table, they can’t slide the flatware off the table while you are clipping them into relative stillness and submission. smile at the couple and their two children next to you and confirm the triplet status. our preferred seating configuration is a table for six with the adults in the middle. that could change, but for right now it works.

once kids are immobile, clear the table of any excess. flatware, toothpicks, hot sauce, salt, pepper (i can always get the good cracked pepper from the waiter) later on, the little containers that holds the sugars and sweet and low. don’t tempt fate…keep every single napkin.

magnificent selects a crayon and draws a few roads and intersections, an airport, a bus stop and a schoool on the paper in front of sebastian, while tess pulls out the mini bus we brought from home. seb enters creative land.

when the waiter arrives with water, pull out sippy cups and fill the cups with that water. promptly remove the glasses.  ask the waiter to bring a breadbasket and to send over whoever is taking our order. agree with the americans that have just been seated next to you that one more and we have a basketball team.

remove bibs from the nappie bag and clip on to each child. wipe down their hands with antiseptic wipes.

order food that can be easily and quickly taken away, just in case. ask that the chips come on a separate plate as the fish fingers and the chicken nuggets. ask that the kids food come as soon as it is ready. refuse sebastian’s request that mummy sing the red plane song. sing the song when sebastian is going into the plane and to toronto to see mycousingalen and then he will go to hong kong and then to edmonton. you sing that song mummy.

fish the crayon out of sela’s mouth. dip fingers in water, and shove them in sela’s mouth looking for any residual crayon.

congratulate jasper for pulling the paper tablecloth.

give babies something to drink.

pull carys’ finger out of her ear.

roll eyes in relief when bread basket comes and rip the bread into small pieces, deliver it to outstretched and gleeful hands. ask the waiter to remove the butter. cross examine sebastian as to whether he can finish an entire piece of bread. i’m a big boy!

request that people dont try and lift them the babies out of the highchairs while taking pictures.

when food arrives, don’t let the waiters place it infront of the children. you and mc divide up the plates, cutting the fish/chicken into small pieces, covering the chips with a (clean?) napkin and placing them in the middle of the table, where small fingers cannot reach them.

blow on food, making babies believe this will really help it cool faster. transfer all the deep fried protein on to one plate and give the waiter the other plates. the motto: reduce, reuse, recycle. (that would be the straw that sebastian dropped that i bent down and retrieved and calmly handed back to him.)

give triumverate members four pieces of cooled chicken on a mini plate.

give sela and jasper some water.

turn to carys, who is red and choking. look at her plate and realise she has all four pieces of chicken in her mouth..unless…a quick check under the table confirms none of the pieces have been dropped. she’s coughing and bending towards you, tears and snot pouring down her face. doing that deep cough.

don’t freak out, but in a low voice so no one who is watching (and that is everyone, they’ve been watching you pretty much since you arrived) can over hear, request some water.

mentally determine what you are going to do if she vomits. what has she eaten in the last while. could the napkin i hold underneath her chin contain everything? she’s had a lot of water so it would be hard to tell. if it is a projectile vomit, do i want to take the full force on my own self (therefore saving my reuben), or not?

keep wiping her nose, removing all the bits that are coming flying out each time she gives a deep cough, wave hands around so observers can see my clean hands and the light clear napkin and know she hasn’t vomitted.

finally, pocket the small vomit, fold the napkin into eighths, offer daugher water. only offer her one bit of chicken at a time. little lu-lu.

tell sebastian how much it was appreciated that he stayed calm and didn’t shriek while carys was sick.

on pretense of asking for more something, summon waiter over and hand him the napkin and request the bill. this is key. request the bill long before you need to leave.

continue eating. only when you are convinced that all three are ready for chips, do you bring out the chips. no child of mine wants to finish their vegetables when their siblings are tucking into chips. to kill time between deep friend protein and deep fried carbohydrate, you can offer yet more bread.

accept the bits of chicken and chip your children are offering you, a sure sign their appetites are on the wane. say, oh thank you, and pretend to nibble on the food, rolling your eyes and still holding their hand. put the food back on the plate.

realise that we are actually talking and relatively relaxed. smile and thank the couple that compliment you on how good your kids are actually being. realise that once the fab four are out of highchairs it will be a completely different story. offer credit card and frequent diner card to waiter.

get the doggy bag. tell sebastian we are so proud of him and he was a pleasure to be with this afternoon.

push away highchairs, unclip children, lift one into arms, lift another into arms, smile at fellow diners who are looking at you with some relief and appreciation, and exit. let children run around downstairs right before the parking lot. ignore sela’s loud cries of anger when you pick her up for the final journey to the deepest car park. buckle everyone in. congratulate yourself.

today something neat happened, just as we reached our "tot yacht", a car veered near us, obviously waiting for our spot. they saw charles and i bending over open doors (putting kids into car seats), and beside us, sebastian holding sela’s hand wtih one of his own, while he also touched the side of the car. charles then put sebastian into his car seat, while i took care of sela. wtih the last snap, i pulled out of the car, straightened my back and pulled down my shirt, and as i was opening my own door, the driver (they had been waiting for five minutes now) rolled down his window and asked, "do you have more than just twins?" i responded, "triplets and a four year old!"

this guy, in his porche carerra, tooted his horn and started applauding me. way to go, mum! he shouted…taking your whole family out!

and instead of buckling myself into my seat, i got out, and took a bow.