How you can't and can prepare for life with triplets

Wow, I've been so bad about blogging lately.....triplets and a two year old take up a lot of time!

Here's what I've decided after this week:

Taking care of multiples and a two year old WILL KICK YOUR YOU KNOW WHAT.

It's Friday, I feel beat tired and can't seem to hold a coherent conversation. 

I know that some of the people who check out this blog are expecting multiples, so I thought I'd list a few ways to prepare. However, some aspects of parenting multiples you simply can't prepare for no matter how hard you try.

Here are a few of the things you just can't even imagine, until it happens to you:

• What it feels like to see THREE heartbeats on an ultrasound monitor and know that three lives are growing inside you! So wildly awesome.

• What it then feels like to hold all these little heartbeats in your arms, all at once. Having arms full of babies is true bliss for anyone who loves children or who has ever longed for a baby

• The joy that comes from watching your children together, all made from the same genetic clay but played out in different ways. With my boys, I see common features shared by each of them, but they are also each so different too. 

• The wonder and awe that you'll experience when you lay your triplets next to each other and see them almost immediately drawn in towards one another, linking arms, placing heads on shoulders, and looking calm and serene. They soooo know each other.

Here are some things you can do to help you prepare for the joy of parenting triplets, before your sweet little miracles arrive:

• Record a baby screaming and play this loudly from three separate sources (i.e. i pod, cd player, tape player, whatever you have on hand). Try and stay perfectly calm and relaxed.

• Take this same recording and have your spouse play it just as you drift off to sleep. Get up for five minutes, then settle back into bed. Have he or she wait until the very moment you fall back asleep and press play again (repeat this pattern all night)

• Take this same recording and play it just as you are about to enjoy your dinner. Let this be your cue to eat as fast as you can

• Take formula, shake it up, and pour it in your hair, on your shirt, and down your shirt. Wear it all day because you don't have time to change. 

• Mess up your hair real wild like and do not brush it for two days. 

• Start doing bicep curls- a lot of them. 

• Start doing things with one hand- eating, making a sandwich, washing bottles, blogging.... you'll need to perfect this skill as you will almost always have somebody in your other arm.

• Take about 15-20 bottles and just throw them around the room. If you have an older child, take toys and randomly scatter them everywhere. Now, practice navigating the room without falling or cursing. To add another degree of difficulty, do this while holding two bags of flour, maybe even three. 

• Run on a treadmill- all day. Get a few hours rest. Get up. Do it again.

• This last tidbit of advice was actually given to us when I was still pregnant, by another couple who has two sets of multiples! When my husband asked, "How do you do it?!" He simply replied, 

"Stock up on wine."

Only problem is, you won't have time to drink it :)

That's the truth