So, how much money do you think I could make hiring out my three four-year-old boys as travel agents? They are quite good at it. They’ve personally checked out a wide variety of tourist destinations in the last eight months—Prague, Brussels, Munich, Berlin, Krakow, Dublin, London, Leigh-on-Sea. Here are three travel packages they tested out just this month in a rash of one-on-one “Daddy & Me” weekends: Read More…
My friend, a fellow triplet mom, is training for a marathon. I think she’s crazy, but not for the obvious reason—that being running for 26 miles. I think she’s crazy for letting the world watch her train to run 26 miles, which she’s doing through her blog as she raises money for cancer research. Now, I am as sporty as the next girl, mind you, but when it comes to revealing the physical and mental anguish of training for something as extreme as a twenty-six mile jog (especially after your circulatory system has been mangled by a triplet pregnancy, as her has), I tend to fall back on fiction, myself. Take, for example, this scene from my novel BIG MOUTH. While the scene is not autobiographical in the strictest sense of the word, one could convincingly argued that if you gave Shermie a sex change and aged him by a couple of decades, he would be me trying to jog: Read More…
I recognized the explosive crunch the instant I heard it. Spinning away from the dirty dishes in the sink and grabbing my keys, phone, and parka, I bolted to my front door. “There’s been an accident,” I shouted to my boys. “Mommy’s going out to help. Stay HERE!” I pulled my front door closed as my three four-year-olds frantically scaled the couch below our front window and pressed their faces between the blinds.
Rushing down my walkway toward the busy corner in front of our house, I saw that I’d been right—two cars had collided, almost head-on, at the T-shaped intersection. Smoke was billowing out of one car’s engine, and a car battery had been slung free. Read More…
Oh, to be the mother of six industrious and gullible little hands on England’s Mother’s Day! There are no words to fully describe the breadth of emotions that swirl in this mummy’s heart at the sight of her four-year-old triplets scurrying about the house, pulling vacuum hoses, pushing brooms, filling washers with piles of colorful clothes in need of a soapy launder. Mummy picking out their clothes or picking up their toys? No more! Mummy helping them in the loo? A thing of the past! Mummy crawling under the kitchen table to sponge up oatmeal blobs dropped at breakfast? Egad, the horror of even the thought! And changing diapers? Read More…
Few causes are as near to my heart as the issue of childhood obesity. My desire to get kids talking about healthy eating and exercise was a big factor in my writing of BIG MOUTH, my teen novel about a fourteen-year-old boy who aspires to be a competitive eater (you know, those folks who choke down 66 hot dogs and buns in twelve minutes flat). My new hero, one Mrs. Michelle Obama, has decided to Read More…
I have seen the light. I’m thrilled to report that the clouds were kind to us yesterday, and at 5:20 p.m., the precise minute predicted by Rev. John Buchanan, the sun shone directly upon the heart of the rood in Barsham Church, Suffolk, England.
The spectacle was amazing to me for the accuracy of the Reverend’s prediction and for the surprising swiftness with which the sunlight fanned first across the smaller statue of Mary, then along the wrist of her crucified son, and then upon her son’s chest, striking it as surely as if some lighting tech sat in the rafters of the church with a spotlight trained on his target. And beyond the illuminated rood there was a surprise— Read More…
Today I hope to witness a mysterious—some might say miraculous—event in a Suffolk church. A teacher at the Lowestoft high school where my husband is teaching invited me to join him and his friends on a pilgrimage to Barsham Church where, weather permitting, for four minutes this afternoon—March 20, the spring equinox, when the day and night are of equal length—a beam of evening sunlight will filter through a small window and bathe a sculpture of Christ on the Cross in a golden light. This phenomenon, believed to honor the two most significant days in the solar calendar—the spring equinox, and its flip partner, the autumn equinox in September—may date back as far as the 1300s, when the window was built. I gladly accepted their invitation. Read More…
I’d make a terrible father. All that throwing your sons in the air and catching them on the way down and letting them ride on your back and running with them on your back piggyback-style…. It’s a bit much for me. I have many physical talents, but possessing the strength of a full grown human male isn’t among them.
Which makes my efforts today all the more ridiculous. Today, I scored a doctor’s appointment at at our local surgery (think ‘medical clinic,’ all you Americans) for our firstborn son, who has had a sore throat and pained ears and a minor fever for six days now. Doctors kept telling me ‘Don’t bring him in… it’s just a virus… he’s able to play as long as you control the pain… only bring him if is he’s really miserable.’ This afternoon, my boy clocked in at ‘Miserable.’ Read More…
Yesterday our four-year-old triplets were taught to grab a brother by the lapels, throw him to the ground, then lay on top of him while he struggles to wiggle free. Is it any wonder that one of the boys burst into tears and then fled?
Actually, the tearful boy fled the mat where his first judo lesson would be held before it even began. That afternoon he’d watched several youtube.com videos showing kids his age in a judo lesson—running and jumping and tumbling and finally doing a few grappling drills—and he was game to try it, as were his brothers. But when push came to shove Read More…
At this very moment, legions of men and women in bright, reflective vests and hard plastic hats are demolishing the streets of London. Their purpose? To replace a thousand miles of Victorian pipes before the lighting of the torch over the 2012 Olympic games in England’s capital city. In fact, all of London seems to be getting an overhaul. Much of the London Underground looks like it’s been peeled but not yet healed, several Underground stations are completely shut down for two year’s worth of refurbishing, scaffolding bedecks every other building on the street, and massive tarps blanket large portions of the world’s most historic buildings, including the most haunted building in England—the Tower of London. That’s where our tour of The Great London Overhaul began. Read More…
Grandma S. is coming back! The boys and I are off to fetch her in London. Please, everyone, cross your fingers that ‘Operation Fetch Grandma … Take Two’ will go more smoothly than the first one. Gah, it took me two weeks before I was strong enough to blog about that adventure.
You know what? Cross your toes, too. Three four-year-olds and one mom with a 40-pound backpack stuffed with food and a London Underground map that’s been scribbled on with crayon . . . we need all the good karma we can get.
Our set of triplets includes identical twins. That means that two of our sons look exactly the same (and that’s no exaggeration) while the third boy looks, well, different, for lack of a better word. That is obvious to us. But not to our four-year-old triplets.
We’ve always known that one day they’ll notice that two of them look alike. Read More…
Friends, Family, Loyal Blog Readers—We gather here today to remember a dear friend, a key player in our family, a presence we never truly thought would leave us but who has, alas, officially departed:
Diaper.
Diaper had not an easy row to hoe in his time with us. He was much maligned, underappreciated as only an object responsible for catching and carrying the fecal matter of three voracious and madly sprouting human beings could be. Read More…
Ever tried to smoke a Crayola? My three four-year-old sons have. England has an anti-smoking campaign going on right now that includes a photo of a boy smoking a yellow crayon and the message that kids do what they see their parents do. It comes with a photo of a toy dump truck filled with cigarette butts. These pictures have been all over the sides of buses here in Lowestoft since we arrived in August—buses that we ride several time a day, and which drive past our front window by the dozens. These ads are important, I know. The irony is Read More…
Moments ago I was arranging a marriage between one of my boys and one of the girls in our triplet play group back in San Diego. In the course of explaining to the mom how thrilled I am that my sons have such incredible friends, I started musing the whole notion of ‘friends.’ It’s been on my mind quite a bit lately, in fact.
When we moved last August for our year in Lowestoft, England, I figured we’d meet some kids on a British playground as we so often did at home and that we’d evolve that into playmates for my now four-year-old boys. That didn’t happen. Read More…