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.