Halloween

We it's official the holiday log jam has begun and the children couldn't be happier. I read this article yesterday about something that parents are doing up north called the SwitchWitch. What this is, is a "witch" who comes and visits your house while your children are asleep and takes the candy in trade for a present of greater value as measured by the amount of candy that the child is willing to give in trade. This way the kids eat less candy and have a chance to get a toy with a longer play value than a momentary sugar high while allowing the kids to still participate in the candy haul of the season.

While I see the logic behind this practice and in some ways agree with it in principle I feel the need to say that my kids already have some supernatural person who has the ability to sneak into their home and leave gifts two months from now.

Why can't a parent say no? why can't a parent limit the amount of candy that a child can eat at any given setting. So far I have learned that it's all about setting boundaries and understanding the precedent that you as parents set. I have always let my children eat a couple of pieces during the individual trick or treating events. But as home they are allowed to pick one piece of candy out of their bucket at the appropriate times. As a dessert. Or they can make the choice to have a piece of candy instead of their snack. It's their little bit of control while I as a parent control the amount of sugar they consume. To me the SwitchWitch seems like a way for the parents to absolve themselves of being the bad guys by being parents and saying no to their precious darlings.

The 1st six weeks parent teacher conference.

Really not much to say about this other than it's always nice when someone else tells you your children are a delight and wonderful to have in the class and set such a good example for the other children. All the kids are doing great in class and are all having a great time and love learning. I'm not sure how I got so lucky.

The mess

My house is a mess. It was cluttered before the children got here but now it's a mess. I watch TV and see these ideas of what a home is supposed to look like and I know what I would like my home to look like. Well it's just not going to happen. In order for the house to remain clean you would have to do something about the children, meaning that they are not allowed to play with their toys or art supplies or games or really anything that defines them as children. I don't know what any other parents with young children much less triplets have going on in their home but mine is awash with the destructive wake of children.

I have crayon and marker marks on every possible surface. walls, floor, tables, cabinets, each of the children. There are cars and little toys along ever baseboard as well as in the couches and chairs. There is copious amounts of kid art plastered all over the kitchen. If you were to look around you may find perler beads, broken crayons, broken toys, stickers, scraps of paper and clothing.

The stickers are the worst though. There are stickers everywhere, and I mean everywhere. I have even found them under tables and chairs. There are stickers on the floor and walls and in children's hair. I find them in my clothes in the washer and dryer on dishes and the dogs. I rue the day that stickers ever came into my house.

I do my best to keep the house organized and tidy but the truth of the matter is you can only cry so many times after had mopping the entire kitchen to only have a child spill apple juice the length and breadth of the floor in the two minutes it took you to go to the bathroom. It's these little moments that when asked by some knuckle dragging man child why don't I get a job I am filled with the fury of a thousand suns and I have to just walk away. I have accepted that I am no stepford husband.

Candy and the devil inside.

My trips collect copious amounts of candy every year for Halloween. They each have a method in which to eat said candy. Iris likes to plot out a course and will have them lined up in the order to eat them normally while already eating one piece. Bobby like to go right for the chocolate and normally will bypass all other candy until it is all consumed. Where as Cooper likes the jellies. His favorite is Dots and will eat those all day.

One of the glories of being a parent in the tax we levy on the candy that they receive. This is the ability to take some of the good stuff out of their buckets. This has to happen because our children normally get to go trick or treating at least three times every year. They go to the church trunk or treat, then to my wife's work and get showered with candy from her co-workers. And then on the actual day of Halloween we go hit a couple of neighborhoods and load up.

When it's all done my kiddos have a estimated twenty pounds of candy each and it normally lasts us being doled out until after Christmas. Then they get all the Christmas candy and just about the time that starts to run low it's their birthday followed by Easter. We seem to collect candy like a squirrel collecting nuts for winter. If it wasn't for the summer months I believe that we would have to have a closet just for candy storage.

How the YMCA hurt me.

Earlier in the summer I joined the YMCA so I could get cost effective swim lessons for the kiddos. I was not overly impressed with the level of teaching that the trips received. Aside from that it wasn't a bad deal after swim lessons. They offered child care while you worked out at no cost other than the monthly fee.
 Now with the kids in the second grading period of school and me working the haunt there just isn't time for the kids to go and no time for me to go, so to save money for the family we decided to cancel our membership. It wasn't a large cost but when you have triplets every dime counts along with the impending doom of Christmas.
 I walk in yesterday to cancel and the clerk asks, "May I ask why your discontinuing your membership?"
 I reply, "Well to save money and the kids are now in school."
 This rotten son of a bitch looks me in the eye and asks, "So are they going to college in town?"

The Rackings

My children have this ability to zero in on my gentle bits in all manner of environment. I have gotten used to turning to my side when my children run at me. It is beyond the point of accident at this point. I believe that my children, on some subconscious level at least, don't want to have any other siblings.
 Bobby loves to run head first as me and like to kick when I pick him up so as you can imagine my oldest has managed to rack me coming and going.
  Cooper likes to jump in my lap from long distance, ergo from his bed. The back of the couch, and any other elevated place.
  Iris on the other hand is the master of the knee and elbow. She likes to climb all over me, as they all do. But Iris has done the most damage to my dangly bits. Once she managed to jump into my lap squarely planting her foot right on the off button and ground the wedding tackle into the couch and then drove her knee in the previous position trying to get a hug.
 No one really warned my of the proclivity of children to smash your tenders on a regular basis. If you had asked me before children that I could have ever become used to being racked, I would have said "no."
 Now though, I would not say that I am used to it but I am no stranger to the pain of children and the worst is when napping on the couch you are awaked whilst being trod upon by six pointed little feet.

Bedtime.

So we try to put the kids to bed around the same time everyday. And most days the kids would go to sleep with little or no problem. However recently they have begun to exert their personal control over their own sleep patterns. The Main issue is the boys. Iris has her own room and normally likes to read in bed for thirty minutes before she sleeps. The boys on the other hand, well everyday is a sleepover.
 If you have kids and have ever had a sleep over then you may have an idea of what I am talking about. The boys egg each other on in the badness level. The whole anything you can do I can do better.
 The current trouble comes for the boys enjoyment of jumping and leaping off of things. Not only is this terrifying to us parents for concerns of injury but it is also troublesome due to the laughter and prolonged sleep time. My wife and I must have to go into the bedroom multiply times nightly to make sure the boys go to bed.
  The worst thing is that no matter when they go to bed be it 7pm or 11pm they get up at the same time every morning.

Crayons

Crayons are everywhere in my house it's like child spoor at this point. They leave the crayons everywhere, to the point of being ridiculous. At the very least the children don't draw on the walls, however any flat surface is free game.  Chairs, tables, sleeping parent. It doesn't matter. I will tell you though that they don't have markers. They had markers one day for a total of an hour. As much as I dislike the crayon problem I will take that over markers any day.
  Now if the idea of triplets and crayons loose in your house isn't enough to make a cold sweat run down your back, my wife thought is would be fun to get on of the Crayola Crayon Maker. If you're not familiar with this destroyer of carpets and death to fabrics machine let me explain. It is a little cauldron that you put little broken bits of crayon into so that you melt it down and pour it into crayon molds. It's the toddler hat trick. it can burn, electrocute, and stain. What fun.
 One other crayon concern and this ties into the fact that children are horrible about attention to detail when it comes to cleaning. So they tend to loose or leave crayons everywhere. I have dogs and for some reason they like to eat crayons. This is fun for at least two reasons, one it means that there is little crumbles of chewed crayon spread about the house. And two, the dog spoor is so colorful that is really brightens up the back yard.

challenges.

My wife and I are very different in our approaches to new or challenging experiences. The perfect example for this is how we enter a pool. She likes to take her time and slowly submerges herself, letting her body acclimate to the temperature. Where as I like to just jump in to the pool off the diving board with out testing the water since I figure we're getting in either way.
 Now this approach sometimes can cause conflict and mixed messages to the kids when we are trying to introduce them to new things. The problems normally happen when we come up to something that we haven't discussed before hand.
 I respect fear and believe that fear is something that should be faced and overcome the minute you come to face with it. I am afraid of heights but love the feel of falling. So I will go cliff jumping and bungee jumping with little hesitation. My wife on the other hand would never jump off of anything.
  My wife respects fear and will take her time and measure all the outcomes and normally will decide quickly if she will or will not do something that scares her.
  I don't think that there is anything wrong with this approach, it's just different from mine. Now with this dichotomy the children don't always know who to take their cues from. I am pretty sure I could get Iris to follow me into anything where as the boys tend to follow Maureen's lead when it comes to new experiences which can get difficult. I tend to get exasperated when I do what I feel is a simple thing and seem to dismiss the rest of the group's fears. Which naturally upsets the wife since it would appear that I don't care that she's afraid for her self or the children.
  Sometimes with the triplets it's important to remember that we all have our different ways and we both make the mistake of assuming that our way is the correct way and what we need to remember is that the correct way is a very relative experience.

Sedition

I am not sure when or where the children got the idea that they could refuse my orders but I tell you that this daddy dictator is not pleased. It has been a gradual process to be sure, but I can track the onslaught of traitorous behavior to public school. My kids used to jump to when asked to do a chore. When the wife or I would ask them to clean the play room they would start and get the job done with little or no supervision. Now, by Thor. now they don't get moving till you have asked at least by the third time. I just don't understand it. If this progresses they may not make it to being a teenager. For I will have snapped long before then.
  I have tried to ask nicely with pleases. Then I go ask a little more sternly. Then I go in and no longer ask. Then I have to go yell and threaten and start taking away privileges. Then I have to go in there and supervise and stand over them and make them do it. I know that it's making me crazy because I get to this point where I can't even make a coherent sentence to direct the children during these times. I become reduced to this feral state of monosyllabic yells. "Clean" "Now" "NOW!" "CLEAN!" I get all red in the face and I can only assume my children do this because it amuses them to see me get so frustrated.
  I had thought in my naïve way that if we maintained good cleaning habits that the children would maintain those habits since that is what we have always done. I was wrong. I am stubborn and so is my wife and my children are like wise bull headed and when you have that many independently minded people in one house, all the cajoling in world doesn't seem to work and I sadly find my self reduced to yelling and threats. And lord help me when the children realize that with numbers come strength. As it is the three of them can swarm me and pull me down now during play, what happens when they want to hurt me?

Arts and crafts.

My children have two whole cabinets filled with all sorts of arts and craft supplies. I assume it looks very close to what you'd expect. All manner of bits and bobbles, glue sticks and construction paper. Reams and reams of paper and crayons, coloring books and stencils. They also have markers and scissors, and pencil sharpeners.
 The point I am trying to make is that they well possess the ability to make a mess. And make messes they do. I personally can't tell you how many trees my daughter has destroyed in her artistic pursuits. Don't get me wrong I love that they want to draw and write and be artsy, but if that only came with the equal desire to clean up after they were done. Also in this house we don't do the cheerios or macaroni art. The kids have brought home a couple of examples of this toddler folk art only to have it eaten by the dogs. Once the dogs eat the art the kids get upset and the dogs get GI issues, no to that.
  I love that my kids like to do the whole arts and crafts thing. I like it when they bring pictures to me and say I made this for you. It's nice, that they are thinking of me, however many times I don't believe that they are thinking of me as much as using me as an excuse to concoct what every artistic construction and the mess left in it's wake that they desire.

#*%$@+& Puddles!

My children love puddles. I guess that all children do but I had no idea in which the depth of affection went. I strongly dislike puddles and stepping in them. My children on the other hand don't care about having wet feet or soaked shoes. They live to jump in every puddle that crosses our path. I can't tell you the number of times I have gotten caught in the collateral damage of all three thinking what fun it is to splash through the water. I write this as a pleading question to the world, Why do children like it? And when can they do their own laundry?

Report cards the first of many.

So yesterday my kiddos brought home their first report cards. Now I don't really understand the whole Pre-k grading system. It seems to be a series of checks, dashes, and smiley faces. Now where I am sure that works to convey meaning to the children I would like a more detailed report of their individual progress as well as maybe a syllabus.
  As best as I have been able to decipher from the report card hieroglyphics is that my children are doing great and that the teacher likes having them in her class. Sadly this does not really address their progress to my satisfaction, maybe I'm spoiled from being home with them for the past four years?
 They have these markers of things that are expected like do they know their name, or can they go to the bathroom alone, can they dress themselves, or any other series of things that I have expected from my children for at least the past year.
 Did you know that by the end of the year it's expected that any child in the class by the fourth six weeks grading period should be able to count to 30? Not to brag but all of my children we're able to do that before school even started.
 I enrolled my children in this school because it was one of the highest rated elementary schools in the area. And I am disappointed in the curriculum, as it is I don't believe that my children will be challenged yet. On the up side they should have no problem being in advanced classes and moving up the ranks easily. I am not judging or do I dislike the school or teacher I just believe that it seems nerfed in some ways and crazy strict in other directions. When did the focus become corporate sponsored testing and less common sense. I can understand the large home school movement to a much better degree now. I feel for the teachers in this situation, what with over loaded classrooms and enough bureaucracy to make the Devil blush. People all talk about taking our country back, and if they are serious we should start with education. Build you house on the rock.

Rainy days and madness

It helps that we as a family have a large back yard for the kids to play in. It helps that they have a ton of toys to play with in the back yard. It helps that there is a playground and sandbox in the back yard. We give the kids this space and truly the back yard is their domain to have peace and quiet in the house. One kid will tear up your house, what do you think that three will do. Then the rain or some other weather will come and force the children inside.
 You must understand, dear reader, that the kids never shut up. NEVER. There is a constant stream of consciousness manifest through song, gibberish, and declarations for some such thing or another. It never stops, The only thing I can try to give you an example of it would be first turn on every TV in the house along with every radio. Put a pair of work boots in the dryer and set that on. Now go around the house and turn on all the radios. Now once you have all this noise going find two medium sized dogs and a stray cat. Tie a steak to the cat after putting the dogs in some nice clothes and let them go in your house. Ignore that while you're doing the laundry and even then I am not sure this really gets the point across.
 The rain traps this whirlwind of child noise and destruction within the house, And I have heard the "rain won't hurt the kids, why don't you let them play in the rain?"
And to which I think with everything I addressed above do I really need to add mud to that mix?

The triplet stroller or the spectacle.

When the kids were first born we thought that the easiest thing to do would be to buy a triplet stroller. Now you have to imagine a three seated baby transport that is a cross between a stroller and a mountain bike. Fenders and a hand break even intertube tires for off road travel. The thing is so big that we got a carrier that attached to the trailer hitch on the back of the minivan to get it around town. It had a detachable canopy and a basket on the back for necessities. It was about ten feet long and only had three wheels. And it in and of it's self drew a lot of attention. Now add the trips.
  The trips loved their stroller and always thought it was great fun to be driven around the town in it. The problem was it drew people like flies. People would always have to run up and ask a million questions about it then about the kids. Old women wanted to touch the kids. People would ask us to stop so that they could take photos. Now I don't know about you, but I think it's a little weird to want to photograph someone else's children. It was also hard to navigate in tight corners. Like trying to get to the kiddie rides at the State Fair or to get around the Zoo. You can totally forget about any Mall during the height of Christmas Shopping season with that thing.
 We used this monstrosity for the first year or so as our primary form of travel with the kids. After awhile the Wife and I got real tired of the pseudo celebrity status because of the stroller. I was shocked how people have no compunction to walking up and getting in your face you children's face and just making themselves a general nuisance, as if having or being triplets is an invite to all manner of banal comments or questions. Here is the triplet stroller called the runabout. http://www.bergdesign.net/triple.htm

The current battle over food.

My wife and I are at our wits end when it comes to food in this house. For the entire time up unitll recently, like since they started school recently, our children we're the most wonderful eaters. They would eat everything and anything that I would put in front of them. They would at least try everything at least once. This is how we got them to try everything from sushi to chorizo crepes. Now I have a hard time getting them to finish any meal.
 I used to cook a large amount of food with every meal and now it seems almost half of it goes to waste. I don't give them constant snacking options and they only get a small snack after school every day which is two and a half hours before dinner. What is the deal?  And what does the other children that they interact with have to do with this new a developing problem?
 I have decided that it's just not worth the constant fights, because I assure that we have been fighting this, But now what was once my delightful children will look at something that they have loved for years and flat out say "I don't like it."
 No reason at all to say this it's as if they just became capricious with all food related projects. except
for cake or some other sweet confection then they could eat to the point of sickness. So now when my children make up their mind not to eat what ever at any given time I just say "I guess your having hunger for dinner."

The Santa problem.

When  I was younger I believed in Santa Claus and all the magic that is Christmas. Then when I became a little older I stopped believing in Santa Claus though I still love and believed in the magic of Christmas. Now that I am an adult in theory if not practice and have children of my own I have become Santa Claus.
  My children love the whole of Christmas, the presents, the family you only see once a year, the disrupted schedule, and the sweets oh yes the sweets. The problem is that Santa has a unlimited bank roll where as us parents are broke broke broke. I am sure that you can relate.
 Since my children are still learning the basics of writing my wife had this brilliant idea of going through the Christmas catalogues and having the kids cut out the pictures of the presents they would like Santa Claus to bring them. I think it's a good idea if not a little intimidating when staring down the barrel of three sets of Santa presents.
 I love the kids and would like to give them everything that their little hearts desire, that said they don't really have a full understanding of finances. They don't understand the cost of eating and air conditioning or clean clothes and dishes. I shouldn't expect them to and because of that I would hate to ever have Santa Claus disappoint them. Thankfully I am not entirely sure they have reached the age of utter disappointment when Santa fails to deliver. Although that age is coming and if there is a question in all of this, it would be, At what age do kids start to figure out the Santa equation?

The Kids vs. the dogs.

We as a couple have always had pets. We have gone through mice and many fish. A cat that I had and a rescue toy poodle Maureen adopted one afternoon. Then we got Coffee a mutt lab mix and then inherited my mother's shih Tzu. And now we seem to breed mollies in a fish tank taking us to what I think is third gen fish now in that tank. Now throw in the children. The kids love the fish tank and know not to tap the glass or mess with it. I mean to say, as of yet I have not found any child spoor in the tank.
 The dogs though, the dogs and the children have what can be best described as a mutuality adversarial symbiosis, at least to the dogs view of things.
  The kids just love the dogs. Just loves them to pieces especially Bobby. Bobby looses his mind over the shih Tzu. He wants to be near her and touch her and pet her constantly. Cooper and Iris prefer to grab the dog's toy and throw it playing fetch with the little dog. They make the little dog so over stimulated at times she retreats to the underground of the couch scant to come out till called by Mom or Dad to go outside.
 Then there is Coffee the big dog. Again Bobby just loves this dog and like to lay on her and rub her belly, Which Coffee finds just fine. The other two kids don't really play or mess with Coffee to much. Coffee just kinda lumbers around and if the kids get to close to her she just starts licking their faces. That normally ends the problem.
  Now where the true conflict comes on. Food, snacks or drinks. We can not have the dogs in the house while the kids are eating. You have to pick your battles! This was not one I wanted to fight the rest of my life. The couple of times that we have forgotten it has but lasted seconds before the dogs are escorted out side. Now it's not the issue that my dogs and grand champion beggars, they do the eye thing and whimper and all of it. The problem is the kids think it's hilarious to feed the dogs. If the kids have snack in hand and walk around the dogs, the dogs get a nice snack. Coffee knows that she can knock them around a bit and get the snack and the kids love it when they toss a food item and Coffee can snatch it out of the air. This has created a love hate relationship between the dogs and kids and just generally annoys me.
 At one point we come in to let the dogs in the house and they would be excited to see us. Now when we let dogs in the house they run right to the kitchen and scour the floor looking for dropped tidbits from dinner.

Sleeping in is a myth.

My wife and I like to sleep and we will practice it at length given the chance. You see once the triplets were born all thoughts of sleep had to disappear. The first four months was spent getting up every two hours to feed the babies. I don't really remember it except in flashbacks.
 After we got the kids sleeping through the night we thought that we had hit the holy grail of sleep again. Then we have the issues of the children not being able to sleep past six A.M. ever, no matter what, no matter where. The kids go to bed every night at 7ish though they are allowed to read in their bedrooms quietly "QUIETLY", "I said be QUIET!" And this normally goes on till about  eightish.
  The mornings oh the mornings. So since the kids always get up regardless of the time they go to bed I have to get up. Sometimes I am able to get up before the kids so I can start breakfast, but the minute I make a single noise in the kitchen my daughter comes running in asking "Is it morning?" And if for some reason MY wife and I get to sleep "in" if we have not opened the bedroom door by 7:30 am sharp the kids start knocking on the door, endlessly until someone answers. I know this to be true since my wife and I have tried to ignore them so we can sleep. That is a impossibility.
  Every once in a great while the boys will sleep in till about 7:15, but not Iris she is a morning person and a early riser. I know all this is going to change once the puberty monster arrives but until then I dream of a long sleep.

School pictures.

So far I am not a big fan of the school picture routine. They are a cookie cutter patterns and it seems that the box where you fill out the parents directions are ignored or if read deemed not important enough to give a shit about. Now if this is the level of service I can expect for the amount of money I'm going to spend, I might as well pay a waiter to piss in my soup. Can you tell I am annoyed?
 First of all since the school has a dress policy they kids were photographed in their school uniforms and not something I consider attractive. Secondly they provide a directions section on how to get you kids to smile of the camera and for some reason all the pictures look like my kids have gas. Thirdly we live in the digital age so why should anyone or any parent ever have to accept a child's bad photo ever again. Short answer it's because they don't give a shit about you. It's a racket.
 I think that from here out the only pictures I'll be buying from the school will be class photos and yearbooks as the case may be and if I want individual shots I will take them my self of go to a studio where I can actually see proofs of the items I am buying and given some choice rather than here ya go like em or GTFO.

Homework for pre-k

My children have home work and I am expected to help them with it. I want to be a good parent but I was raised where homework was my problem as a child I would get help if I asked but generally it was my concern. Now I receive a message along side of the children's school work saying that I have to help. I have heard similar stories from other parents as well.
  I think there is something intrinsically wrong with our education system that the teacher does not have enough time during the day to complete the lessons. I believe that now schools serves the purpose of preparing us for the modern day work force more than any actual thinking education. That said I believe that teachers have little or no problem with homework since as part of their job they are required to work constantly on their job. Grading papers at home and coming up with lesson plans and the various sundry work that goes into be a teacher. I however disagree with this model and I always have. I would like to point out that every person that is required to take work home as an adult resents it. No one likes to work for free and I think that homework in school is part of the incremental erosion of our personal time that adds to the stress and stupidity of society. People need to enjoy learning and not have it forced on them.
 Now I have no problem helping my children out with their home work but I am more than a little bothered that as parent I not only am constantly asked for money and time from the school but now I am required to do my children's homework? When exactly did children stop having to accept responsibility for themselves? I personally intend to make my children do their own homework but I also expect my children to accept responsibility for their own homework. I think we need to go back to a time where children could fail and children learned their limits. Not everyone is a rocket scientist and that's ok. But this environment where everyone is a winner is ultimately making us all losers.

Dress up and costumes.

Halloween is my favorite time of year, always have been, most likely always will be. My kids love it as well. Since we have triplets I am always thinking of different costumes for three that they could wear. I have tried to get them to be Ron, Harry, and Hermione from Harry Potter. No they said. I have tried to get them to go Princess Leia and C-3PO and R2-D2 or Leia and the stormtroopers and they said no. We've also tried the three stooges, Ghostbusters, General Zod, Non, and Ursa, again no.
  Here is what they do want to dress up as every year. Iris wants to be a princess all the time 24-7 and the boys, Bobby wants to be a car or race car driver and Cooper wants to be Iron Man. Cooper, for as long as he could give voice to it he has always wanted to be Iron Man. Bobby always wants to be fast or a car. For the longest time Bobby called Dash from The Incredibles, Fast Boy. To this day he calls The Flash Fast boy as well. I don't think it's any car as much as the desire to go fast, and he thinks that a car is the best way to go fast.
 We are always trying to get the kids to dress in a theme for the holiday and their personalities drive them in three very different directions. The closest we have gotten is the boys to both dress up as DC comic characters but again Iris was a princess as well as this year I am sure. We keep trying to get her to be Batgirl or Wonder Women but she absolutely refuses to be any thing but a princess. Her princess fixation carries into all dress up play, I worry she has a slight obsession. But then again Bobby is the same about cars, as is Cooper about Iron Man, At least Iris likes different princesses.

At what age do kids get the implied rules?

When the trips were younger, 2ish to 3ish, it was easier to manage the kiddos. Their reach wasn't as good and they would have never thought to use simple tools like a stool to get on top of stuff. Now, its a constant hell. They now, have no compunction about climbing anything to reach their goal, not only that they work in tandem to accomplish tasks.
 For example; my wife made a wonderful spice cake this weekend and frosted it with a cream cheese frosting. When we gave the cake to the kids this weekend they did not like the frosting. They would only eat around it. Fine, this is the information that we as parents have been given and as such we move forward. Well last night after dinner we thought we would dole out more cake for the kids. And again they confessed to disliking the cream cheese frosting. So we wrap up dinner.
 During the chaos of the bedtime routine we leave the cake on the stove. And after we finally get the kids in bed we go off and do our winding down routines before we join in the living room. We sometime before bed for the kids and after dinner they had moved a stool up to the stove and left fingerprints and groves all through the frosting in the cake. Now the last thing you want it triplets wired on cream cheese frosting ten minutes before bed. And even now, not a single one of the trips will admit to doing it. Odd isn't that for three to profess that they didn't like the frosting somehow someone decided to run their fingers through it like a maidens hair.