Three: The Perfect Number AND Age

The timeline of raising triplets goes something like this, in my experience:

The early months of having triplets blurs by.  You have no sleep, you know you've had coffee, because you are awake, but you can't remember if you ate.  You hear kids crying, even when kids aren't crying; and even when they aren't with you.

Year one is fun, but it is still lots of work.  Its like those first years of college, where you are suddenly being challenged in all kinds of new ways, but its all so fun and exciting that who cares.  Its like, well raising Gremlins.

By year two, the novelty has worn off.  This is the time when those kids that couldn't handle the excitement of college have dropped out.  But there isn't any dropping out of parenting.  And there is a reason they call it the Terrible Twos - at this age parenting is more like managing a baseball team full of ... um, interesting personalities.

And then you hit three years old, and it gets harder.  That is right, harder.  Because those cute little bundles that relied entirely on you are realizing they can do stuff for themselves.  They rant, they rave, they push buttons (physical and metaphysical), they try to find out where limits are.

Everything that comes out of your kids mouth is suddenly "no."  Except when its "NO!"

My wife and I like to say that every age has its advantages and disadvantages.  Kids get mobile, but they also start moving around and opening all manner of things.  Kids start playing more independently, but they also start becoming inseparable and start fighting, not to mention flushing things down your toilet.

Having said all this, we have now passed the three-and-a-half year mark and I think this has been my favorite time - except for the doornobs.

Turns ... out it opens gravity wells, too!

The kids are big enough now that they do all kinds of creative, imaginative play.  Its fun and never ceases to bring a smile to my face when I watch them play acting their day at school, or when my daughter's doll suddenly has had a day exactly like she just had.  The kids get sick and afterward their dolls are sick for two days.  They roll play the librarian who reads during story time at the library.  They can play games like Hungry Hungry Hippos and build, well sorta, marble games and Lego houses.  It is a fun, fun time to be a parent.  Its finally less work and more fun.

But as I said up top, every age comes with its challenges and its fun.  So while listening to the kids run around the house setting up a Frozen on Ice show and getting me into position to watch never fails to put a smile on my face, that smile disappears when one runs directly into a doorknob.

Because at this age, their heads are perfectly positioned to ram into doorknobs.  And while they are great at pretend play and being imaginative and using the world around them, they aren't always the best at seeing the world around them.  While they are running into the next room to get turn the lights on for the show, BAM!, sidelong into a door knob.

Now, the doors are always open, and even having watched this happen I can't really put into words how it happens.  It simply does.  For whatever reason, the gravitational pull of a doorknob can overwhelm a 30 pound kid running past it so that the kids careens into it with the side of his head.  This happens every other day.  I'm not using hyperbole or exaggeration here.  It happens to one of the three kids literally every other day.

I've said in the past about how my love of the number three long pre-dates my having triplets and how daunting raising three kids can be.  But despite the bumps and bruises and crying from ill-timed doorknob gravity, I think to this point, this is the perfect age.  Its easier, as the kids do so much on their own now, and its more fun, as so much of their play is fun play to which I can relate.

And I love it, its the best time of my life, honestly; except for the doorknobs, of course.