Author: charlestess

sunday sunday

in august, before i began blogging, i had an absolutely terrible day. a “friend” dropped by unannounced (you never call me back!) and three kids were screaming (sebastian chose to cling and whine) and the “Friend” said, “you always pretend it is so under control here!”

magnificent charles called with the news that he was heading back to india. he had returned from ghandi-land just six days previously. i was, to put it mildly, testy. but remember, bad day, kids, missing husband.

“oh, well, that’s nice for you. room service, sleeping in, no interruptions. good.” (must be said in a tight, rushed clipped voice.)

“tess, it is our fifth anniversary. come with me.”

onetwothreefourfive.

“yes, i will.”

and i did.

and it was wonderful. i walked and walked and walked and walked and loved being anonymous and alone. me and my map. the continual insistent beep beep beep of the vehicles. the smell, of wet dusty parchment that hangs over india, particularly at night. saris next to suede miniskirts. being endlessly approached by salespeople speaking the Queen’s English. “excuse me madam, could i interest you in the finest cotton goods,” jumping out of tuk-tuks in mid-journey when the driver explains that at no extra charge to me, he is going to take me to a ceramics factory, and then he will be happy to take me to my destination. relaxing. i slept in during the mornings, walked through the rain, slipped through muddy streets, found the only SUBWAY the city had to offer, manouevered myself around cows planted in garbage piles, and bargained with tuk-tuk drivers.

and you know that i loved the curry,the masala, the aloo gobi, tikkas, naans, clay oven food… that’s a given isn’t it, but i will say it anyway. oh man the food. although, get this, i had to request samosas. IN INDIA! maybe samosas are to the indians what fortune cookies are to the chinese, just not part of the menu unless you are in the western world..but come on. INDIA! i thought samosas would be carefully placed on the pillows when the staff came to turn down the beds, rather than the crap chocolate you usually get.

i was happy to go and happy to come home. i loved that trip, i loved my sanity, i loved that by being away from my four under three’s, i was a better mum when i came home four days later.

five years ago magnificent charles and i saved each other from the insanity of singleton life and had married. among other things, we had promised to cherish each other.

five years later, he cherished me by temporarily removing me from the insanity of mummyville.

actions speak louder than promises.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

yawn. ( a stretchy one that hurts the sides of your mouth).

jasper did not have a good night. was up at 1.30, 3.30, and 5.45. and magnificent charles was up with him every single time. like i needed another reason to love him.

carys is snuffly today, the drippyness and congestion makes her look just that extra bit ethereal and wee, her eyes are huge in her pale face. but the minute you talk to her, she breaks out in a HUGE smile. especially if you mention to her that she has more hair than her triplet siblings.

sela is learning that sucking her toes (just call her sarah ferguson) is almost as fun as sucking her thumb.

sebastian is fathoms-deep in love with his new book on trains that we bought him the other day. his speech appointment is on wednesday. i so hope we can figure out what we can do to help him.

out of respect to other young kids our three share the creche with, we did not make it to church, which bothers me since i really wanted to hear the sermon today.

i have completed one of my two articles, and am getting ready for dad and pam to return from vietnam. my dad went to an ATM in saigon and was offered “boom-boom” (her words, not mine) by a young lovely. he turned red and started apologizing to her, then politely walked away. sister pam was torn between feeling sorry for the girl and laughing at dad. laughing won.

hierarchy of needs

eight months ago my life was tres simple. starting in january 2004, life centered on calendar weeks. we had a few charts taped to the kitchen cabinets and the main one had a calendar. each week i triumphantly crossed off the week, and moved up a number, that brought us closer to the healthy delivery of the triplets. (our goal was to make it to 36 weeks…short by 10…oh well, we tried). i went on voluntary bed rest, i tried not to pick up Sebastian, i curtailed my activities. everything was focused on weeks.

in early February, it became about each day. each day brought us closer to 24 weeks; the earliest the babies could be born and possibly all still live. my stomach and discomfort was growing, but charles and i were a couple on a mission.

then on February 21 i was admitted to hospital. the part of my cervix that was meant to be effaced chose not to go with me. suddenly, it was down to hours. each hour the babies were not born was a victory.

then they were born, and my life became even simpler. it focused on life or death.

decisions that charles and i would have thrown back and forth for ages were suddenly crystal clear. simple. our life was centered on life and death. everything else was irrelevant and so easy to solve. yes or no. we could have counseled endless couples and job hunters. life… LIVING mattered. everything else, why let it bother you? simplify, simplify simplify.

fast-forward several months. my hierarchy of needs has changed. with life pretty much guaranteed for the triplets, (and sebastian and his identical older father, magnificent charles), my life can now incorporate issues and emotions that while in my life/death stage i would not have paid much attention to.

today, I was fretting over an event that “everyone” else knew about. the person throwing it had not contacted Charles and me, or made the effort to. it was starting to eat away at me.

and suddenly i realized that I DON”T WANT TO CARE. this was such a shock to me that I had to put down the cheetos to examine this thought, test it throughout various locations of my psyche to see if i meant it. and i realized i did. i really, really, really do not care. the pride part of me does, but that’s just habit. i really do not care. if someone doesn’t want to make an effort for me (knowing that we have not offended these people in any way), then i can’t worry about it. i cannot change other people.

we have other friends. my children are still alive. my husband is too. our marriage is strong. i am rebuilding the pieces of my old life to fit in with this new person with new circumstances i am learning i am.

it’s not a “stuff them” situation, “stuff them” indicates a vehemence that isn’t there. it is more an, “i’m surprised, but whatever, okay”.

and it is.

Triplet update:

today Charles took Jasper to the hospital. A month ago before jj’s cold he wheezed. During jasper’s cold, the fine doctors at queen mary hospital didn’t want to address the wheezing until after jasper recovered. however, they cautioned that once the cold went away, if the wheezing got worse before his next appointment (two weeks from now) bring him back. We’ve noted the last few days that mr. hungry is also mr. wheezy, and the last few nights have been rather rough for him, and therefore us (but that’s a secondary point.) Midday today, with jasper’s breathing now making him quite uncomfortable compared to the light wheezing from a month ago, we agreed, “okay, it’s time to head in.”

Charles took Jasper to the hospital and I stayed behind to mind the clan with loyal mila. The hospital was not too busy but after a stream of serious emergency cases charles and jasper ended up being there for 2.5 hours. “it was a nice bonding session,” reported charles.

finally they were seen by a doctor. The doctor told Charles that Jasper should be admitted for “observation.” Charles shot a look at the doctor – come on… we live five minutes away and have lived in this hospital for more than three months of 2004. What are you going to observe that we can’t observe from 5 minutes away…? Gimme the drugs! Verbally Charles said, “We live next door. We can observe him and if he doesn’t get better I’ll bring him back tomorrow. So tell me, what would you give him if you admitted him?”

the two haggled back and forth for a few minutes, politely Charles noted, because this was a doctor we’d seen before and liked.

finally the doctor said, “I’m worried he has pneumonia (read SARS paranoia)… I’ll make you a deal… chest x-rays for the kid… pneumonia he stays here, no infection he goes home with the drugs.” Charles said, “deal.” Jasper emerged infection free from the x-ray (but only after flirting with the x-ray nurses and being fascinated with the aiming laser) and now has about seven days of asthma type stuff to calm and sooth his unhappy little lungs. and of course, if he doesn’t improve Charles will be his word and take Jasper back!

in about an hour, during his midnight feed, Jazzy J will have his first dose of the drugs. two bottles warn of drowsiness – we predict he’ll sleep till noon. maybe we will, too… ah no… that’s right, we have three others.

ahhhh, perspective.

i took carys (left, sela right) to her physio appointment today. she goes to the duchess of kent rehabilitation centre. the centre itself is quite nice, high ceilings, a hydrotherapy pool, easy listening canto-pop piping through loudspeakers, people moving around doing their exercises. it was a busy day in the centre. our wonderful PT annie was a little late, and so i started one of the exercises we do at home, getting carys into a sitting position and letting her watch and reach for items of interest. i support her from behind while she is reaching.

while i am not best pleased knowing that carys (left, sela right) may have cerebral palsy, i do know enough to see that she does not have an extreme case of CP. i have always felt blessed knowing that CP is not a degenerative disease. if carys does have CP, she will not experience the trauma that other persons with degenerative diseases have, watching yourself not be able to accomplish what you could one day, week, month or year ago. what a huge blessing.

today, as carys reached, we saw people recovering from car accidents learning to walk again. we saw children confined to wheelchairs trying to lift their legs. we saw a person who had recently lost a hand, learning basic skills with his left hand. we saw courage.

although i have epilepsy and all the junk that comes with that, i consider myself to have good health. others, who have seen me have seizures might be horrified by that statement, but it’s my blog not theirs.

sebastian’s speech impediment hurts me, not because i am worried he won’t “make it” in the world, but because i am his mother and watching him struggle to keep up and to be involved in a conversation is painful. i worry about jasper, sela and little carys in particular, their health.

but when all is said and done, we are blessed. i have felt God’s presence, and i believe seen it, during the roughest times of my life. i know magnificent charles and i are not alone as we attempt to parent, and receive good and bad news regarding the babies. i have been whinging in this blog lately because truthfully, some aspects of my life aren’t easy.

but today i was reminded that having two legs that work, lungs and heart that don’t need medical assistance to breathe, living children, and a healthy body make my basic life pretty wonderful from a lot of people’s perspective.

some aspects of my life aren’t easy. my life would be easier if i had fewer children. i am so grateful to have a not easy life.

and now i will go change a nappy.

i wimped out.

i postponed carys’ physio appointment until tomorrow. i just could not be part of the inflicting pain process twice in one day.

the injections went pretty much as i predicted, tomato boy was not as stoic as his sisters.

they also weighed the babies.

despite the extra midnight feeding, carys isn’t gaining weight quickly. this month, she has only put on half a kilo, or a little more than a pound. one month ago she was 4.91 kilos, now she is 5.51. i had secretly hoped carys would put on enought weight to justify dropping the midnight feed…not yet, i suppose. sela was just fine, chewed on her fists, smiled at the group of people who gathered around us, and cried the least when given her shot. she is 6.7 kilos, an average weight.

jasper clocked in at 7.78 kilos. this should not surprise anyone. what surprises me is that he is not in the 90th percentile of his adjusted age weight range. nope, he’s around the 60th percentile. something must be wrong. look at the photos. don’t you think that jasper is hefty??

sebastian was at trampolining today, and for the third week in a row, i chose to be at a triplet-related appointment rather than watch sebastian boing around and collide with friends. poor pet. but i know he had a great time at his class.

he had friends adam and annie over for lunch today (fish fingers and macaroni cheese with broccoli (Shhhh!!!) stirred in). adam is a very verbal young man and so is annie. it was tough for me to observe sebastian trying to keep up with them in conversation, and beginning to stutter and scream in an effort to be heard and get his words out. he desperately wanted to be part of the conversations, but it takes him so much time to get his words out. eventually, i just upped and moved myself away from their lunch table. actually went in to see the triplets, who were sleeping.

sweet little bodies, warm in the darkened room.

carys, asleep, yet eyes open, knees up in the air. hands clasped over chest.

sela, thumb firmly in mouth (see below posts for shots of sela engulfing her thumb), legs akimbo, knees on the ground, other arm flung out at a 90 degree angle to her body.

jasper, on his side, one arm pressed against his head, to ward off the light, possibly. nothing could have woken him.

even though it had been a great day so far, i did wish i could have joined them in what seemed to be happy, deep sleeps.

instead, i kept on keeping on, and had a great time at the china staff awards.

for the next few days i am assuming the glamorous persona of a non-mother of multiples.

in truth, the glam begins tomorrow evening. tomorrow day i have to take carys to physio in the morning, and in the afternoon take all three babies for immunizations. but come the evening, i will slap on the war paint and scrape off the baby throwup/formula/smears of baby poo on my outfit caused from wiping my hands right after changing a diaper on the outside of my leg and head over to the tres swish china club, where i, am covering the china staff awards. it is a small gig, just 2.000 words including sidebars, but i am looking forward to it and writing a different style of article than i do for tatler, my monthly column.

i will introduce myself as tess.
not as sebastian’s mother, not as jasper, sela or carys’ mother. not as the nicu survivor. or the woman who often showers after 1pm.

(brisk handshake.)tess, china staff, mayigetaquoteplease.

then friday, i will begin writing the article while researching tatler, which is due on sunday.

and friday afternoon i take a hiatus back into mumsyville, to take sebastian to a halloween party.

friday night, charles and i are attending a seminar together. it concludes saturday afternoon. v. v. impressive sounding, isn’t it? what’s that?

no need to detail too closely what its about.

okay, it is a parenting seminar.

but i will be listening, and taking notes. i will be learning. how exciting is that!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i will need a break from babyville, because the combination of physio and immunizations is enough to drain anyone. me in particular.

carys hates her physio. we are going because she has reduced flexibility in her hips, and she only tends to look one way, due to stiffness in her neck. one side of her face is flatter than the other, the muscle tone is weak on that side of her face (too tired to remember which side it is), and her wonderful PT suspects that she has cerebral palsy. (more on that later).

carys hates her physio. she looks sadly at me whenever i pull out her workout togs from the closet (leggings and a cheerful short sleeved onesie) and when we enter the building she starts sobbing. the worst exercise is usually the last one, carys is laid on a bed, with her bald little gourd hanging off the bed. the physio then gyrates my little heroine’s head about, twisting and stretching. the physio stands behind carys, and it is up to mum the torturer to stand over carys, hands holding her desperately struggling shoulders down. carys of course is screaming pitifully and tears are coursing down her pale face. we have to stop the exercise at least three times to allow carys to clear her throat and stop choking on her tears. by the end of physio i am in bits.

and then immunizations.

innocently holding one baby who is tired after waiting one hour to be seen…the nurse pulls out a needle and wham! panic registers in eyes, tears (carys) and mouth opens and screaming commences.

jasper looks like a big red tomato when he cries. where did that pain come from? i don’t understand! one minute, nothing, now this, oh this great surging searing pain in my side. oh, i am so scared and confused.

sela is probably the best of the lot, she gets angry and stops after a minute or so although she keeps her mouth in a frown in case someone leans over her to console her, in which case she might quiver out another little whine, just for effect.

and carys sobs a series of long whining sobs of sorrow. you lied to me! you promised you would never let me get hurt, and now this thin! i am sorry, but you lied! yes you did. i am bereft.

and of course, i dont get to console a baby, because the minute the bandaid is slapped on one injection site, i hand over the wailing mess and prepare to assist in the infliction of pain in another child. i am aiding and abetting, and not comforting.

but tomorrow, i will be comforted as i dust off my black boots and head off to pretend mothering(comforting/helping to heal/caring/) isn’t my full time job. wonder how long i will make it before i mention sebastian and the babies.

i have looked at the posted pictures of the babies. (courtesy of magnificent charles). indeed they are cute, but does any one else see the resemblance to hare krishna’s?? (the pink wearing hk’s, that is).

since yesterday, jasper (fickle male) has switched allegiance from sweet potatoe and has sworn eternal love to broccoli. let him. he has also picked up the endearing and annoying habit of blowing rasperries while being fed. it hasn’t quite sunk in that his tummy doesn’t get full when he blows the raspberries. give him time, i am sure the minute he makes the connection, he will go back to mouth wide open.

carys also enjoys blowing rasperries. her preferred modus operandi is carefully chewing her bottom or top lip, tucking it in, and then blowing away. she carries on little conversations and gets cross when eventually her lip pops back out.

sela isn’t delighted by raspberries. i think she prefers to keep her saliva for moistening her bottom lip. rakish raspberry berets are more her groove.

all three babies can sort of sit up when surrounded by pillows and grownups. you prop their hands on their laps and they sort of sway and lurch. you never sit them too close to each other because when the heads collide, they make a real thick bonk sound.

you can tell they are all quite pleased with themselves for this new perspective sitting provides them. carys gave me a drooly grin, jasper grunted, and sela bobbed her head up and down and blinked a few times. it must be so interesting for babies to feel the muscles in their bodies being used for the first time. how it feels to support yourself.

oooh…that reminds me, i haven’t had a full time paying job for years now….we’ll tackle that demoralising demon another day…i just don’t want to think about it right now. because these days instead of money i smell formula, and instead of holding down a job, i try to hold on to my sanity. and sense of humour, and marriage. i am one fricking busy gal.

pictures at last!

courtesy of magnificent charles…here are jasper, sela and carys.

carys looks so small compared to her sibs it tugs at my heart…she was so sick for so long and has endured a great deal. she is so sweet. and then there is jasper, who always seems to be looking concerned that someone might be so busy taking pictures that someone might forget he is a hungry boy. and sela, looking inquisitive and coy.

the only picture of sebastian doesn’t show his face, and only half of mine, but we felt it was important for the little cutie-patootie to see himself on the blog along with his siblings. so, here is sebastian the swimmer.

v. v. exciting!
magnificent charles has posted pictures of the wee three on the blog site!
and will post a few more tonight.
what a lovely husband he is. he has several other pressing things to do, but he knows that people (hi mum! hi charmaine!!) have been asking to see update pictures of the babeolas, so he is making the time for downloading.
we love magnificent charles.

regarding the passport pictures below..the captions should read:

jasper (left) – i can’t remember the last time i was fed. it was a long time ago.

sela (middle) – my first solo photo shoot.

carys (right) – i am scared, but i am being a brave girl.

ooh, this is v. v. exciting.

since we haven’t been able to travel since the babies were born, and since they were in the nicu for so long, sharing pictures with them and getting feedback makes them seem “realer”…does that make sense?? so here are my very real babeolas. including sweet sebastian.

back to magnificent charles.

yesterday’s blog finished with the words, “it was a really fun afternoon.”

the evening was absolutely appalling.

jasper, sela and carys, denied the majority of their 2pm-4pm afternoon nap, did not eat well at 4.30, were asleep by five, oh, except jasper who started up in his crib at 5.30pm.

wahhhh my soother has left me…this is just like the nicu when my parents would leave me every night….wahhhh i am so lonely for my soother……wahhhh the room is dark and i am so scared that no-one will ever come back for me…..oh wahhh

i’ll wahhh you, kid.

so my sister got him up and attempted to give him the bottle he had pushed away earlier. jasper wasn’t sucking. (well, he was sucking in the best kid sweepstakes, but that’s another story). he ate a few mouthfuls of leftover sweet potato, and by 7pm was sleeping again. but that was an hour of whinging, so please don’t think he was remarkable. what is remarkable is that i didn’t run out of the house crying.

pam was really good, she pushed marie-claire at me and said, “i’ll take care of it”. and she did. v. impressive when your sister can tell by a look that you are nearing your notnice levels. remember that unwritten and understood book i referred to in pride or pity? the same book details your levels.

the evening feed was crap, too. jasper didn’t want any sweet potato, was squirming and yukky, kept slapping the bottle away….carys ate well though took a long time, and sela didn’t finish hers which made me wonder if she was going to last through the night (she did).

then we sat down and ate indian takeaway, courtesy of divine richard. i will write a plenty on richard at a later date. but for now i will just say he is a fellow canadian, animal and people lover, savvy, sweet, overly generous, interesting, and funny! and he loves food. richard makes me laugh. last night, i didn’t see him per se, but the food cheered me up. nothing says “laugh!” like aloo gobi.

despite the knowledge that the wee three can’t take a aeroplane ride for at least one year (germs on plane, inadequate oxygen), it is important to me that they have canadian passports for the day when they do enter their parents’ beautiful native country.

so today, while sebastian slept off an exciting morning at children’s church, magnificent charles, sister pam, father blake (you already know him from blog: more precious than silver) and i took the babies into the renault and headed to central district, where the official sized/etc passport photos are taken.

you would think with one more adult than child that this would be an easy endeavor. not so.

there was a near fistfight over who would take stroller command. magnificent charles belted the girls in, and as i moved behind the stroller, my father cut in front of me (how hong kong, he’s jumping the queue already) and informed me that he would captain the double stroller. i headed over to the jeep stroller where jasper was contemplating how long it had been since he had been fed, but pam was there.

it’s not easy pushing a stroller in hong kong.

we don’t care. we came here to push.

i thought you came here to feed.

that too. we have given at least 13 bottles since our arrival 36 hours ago. we deserve stroller command.

fair enough.

so get this, charles and i held hands. sebastian wasn’t linking us aka: chelsea clinton…it was just the two of us! walking and holding hands!

once that heady sensation had faded we were needed to get the strollers on to escalators, up stairs, and over small passageways.

sundays in hong kong, certain districts are teaming with lovely philipinas, who traditionally gather together on sundays, their day off. imagine the impact the girls sitting together in the double stroller and jasper made on these brave women.

dad smiled and explained no, they weren’t twins, they were triplets, and smiles got even broader. theirs, ours, and even the babies on occasion. walking was slow going, the streets were busy and we got stopped occasionally. i liked watching my dad take in all the glory. it is amazing how happy i can be, watching my dad singing to, or taking credit for the babies or sebastian.

a few wrong turns, escalators and stairs later, we arrived to the photo place. all we had to do was get the babies to look at the camera, and we were done.

the babies did not want to look at the camera.

magnificent charles jingled keys, the shop assistant jibbered, mummy cajoled. the babies looked to the side and down and covered their mouths with their hands.

eventually, the pictures were taken. the shots represent the personalities rather well.

we re-traced our steps and strolled back to the car.

it was a really good afternoon.