I felt a deep sense of camaraderie today watching the opening scene of
'Everybody Loves Raymond.' Managing children, food flying, waiting for
the proverbial (sometimes the literal) cookie to silence the room.
We have a set of keywords that are only to be used in emergencies.
These words maintain much of the power and influence of our household. "Park", "outside", and "car" make the top of the list. As you may imagine we
are not the most portable group. We require a number of devices for the
conveyance of our little gob of children. We have a triplet stroller,
two double strollers, one single, two baby wraps, and lots of hand
holding. After the first three kids, when you can divide up into a
double and single stroller, our single stroller is just a dust collector now. Very
few places are triplet stroller accessible and just because you can take
it somewhere doesn't mean you should.
Shortly after having our girls we were determined to go back to the
same walking trails we had enjoyed before. This sounds reasonable enough
and we estimated the trail not only big enough for a side-by-side
triplet stroller, but passing room for others as well. This lovely walk
wove back and forth over a small river and no sooner had we walked the
two miles to the start of our walk proper than we found ourselves
devising a strategy of carrying our triple length jogging stroller
sideways across a bridge dragging our dog behind us. (Best part is we
got to cross back on the way home too.)
With triplets sometimes the inaccessibilities sneak up on you when you are
least prepared. Four blocks away from our home we had a park with
sidewalks so luxurious that other parks could only dream. It became our
most frequent walk after the triplets came. For just four blocks of low
traffic road we could have four miles of stroller luxury.
With triplets sometimes physical barriers are the least of your worries. We don't mind the occasional question: 'yes,
they are triplets. Yes, we did invitro. No, triplets were definitely a
surprise.' We learned very quickly about mob mentality when we passed by
a family reunion on our walk one day. Even the luxurious sidewalks
couldn't save us from being trapped in a swarm of baby admirers. The
elderly matriarch of the family was forced through the crowd to get the
best look at our main attraction. It was not until she gave her approval
of our girls that a path was cleared and we were released from their
family. It was all we could do in our time of incarceration to keep the
women of that family from lavishing our little ones in kisses. This is
not really an isolated incident.
People on the street are often one of our chief sources of
entertainment. A person can tell a lot about the values and demographics
of an area by walking down the street with five kids under the age of
three. We have gotten spontaneous reactions that range from "God must
love you" to "I am so very sorry for you." Obviously one makes you feel
like a content mother while the other makes you feel like a mother bear facing a rude school of salmon. We usually smile, wave, and pretend we didn't hear them.
Whether we are accosted on the street or caught between the clothing racks at the store, every outing is an adventure.
