Triple The Dad

We recently decided that our three-year-old triplets needed to be potty trained.  Not that we weren't already half-heartedly trying; we were.  We gave rewards and encouraged them, but otherwise we kind of left them up to their own devices.  Because, you know, we apparently think our three-year-olds are autodidacts. They aren't laughing at you, they are laughing with you. We aren’t exactly tiger parents, in case you can’t tell.  That goes double for big issues involving what could be lots of tantrums, toilets, urine and feces.  They might not be potty trained to this day had we not been sending them to a preschool requiring pupils with proper porcelain skills.  But the school required students to have at least a modicum of potty training, so we set about at it.  My wife did all the leg work and research. She is great at stuff like that and frankly, if it weren’t for her, the kids would probably be waddling around in diapers half...

The Day My Son Just… Broke As if raising triplets weren’t a big enough horror story, on recent Sunday my son just… well, I don’t know how to explain it.  He just broke. He is by far the more emotional of my two boys.  Always has been; I expect he always will be.  He can be touchy on his best days, and simply telling him not to slam the door can result in an angry mood. He has on more than one occasion told me he wants to break his favorite toy of the moment, simply because I told him throwing it across the room will break it.  And his mood swings in this direction tend toward hitting.  When one of the other kids is yelling in his general vicinity – not at him, mind you – he will occasionally walk over to them and just hit them.  Great.  But at least I’m prepared for this behavior.  Three count him to correct his behavior and move on to a timeout if needed. But as I said, on this recent Sunday he just broke. It started around 7...