It's been awhile.

The children are in school full time now being the first grade. They all seem to be enjoying their school experience though they each have their unique challenges. After the past two years of Kindergarten and this half way point of first grade, I gotta say I miss my kids and the time I spent with them.

Lets talk about something new that has developed and my new understanding of it. Punishment. Now that the children have to live up to other people's expectations in a public setting certain difficulties have begun to arise. I can tell you that I have never really been a fan of public education and as we advance in this modern version my views are continually reinforced but the cookie cutter approach to expected behavior.  Also bias, dear god bias.  Once a teacher gets this idea in their head that any one child is the trouble child, that kid is now under a close scrutiny that others may not be. Case in point being something some other kid might do might be responded with a slight warning where as the "trouble maker" is sent to the office. I am highly aware of the inconsistencies towards my children since the triplets are all in the same class. One of my children need a firmer hand than the other two, and if he senses weakness then he will take advantage of you. It's something that we're working on but a natural trait in the aggressive personality archetype and it takes time to tame nature. So in order to try and correct behavior we have grounded. AND it sucks. I never knew that grounding was as much punishment for the parents as it was for the child. While the other two get to do fun things the third has to stay in his room. While two get to go trick or treating the other has to sit somewhere with a parent and not get any candy. During movie night a parent has to sit and watch the grounded one while the other two and parent get to have pizza and watch a movie. It makes everything difficult and seems to do little more than create resentment twixt the kids. With triplets life is never boring.

After School Day care.

We did it! we got the kids into a afterschool care program. It's in the neighborhood and they went there for day school when they were three. They remember and the school was very excited to have the triplets back. It's a cool program, they get picked up by the day care and taken to the location, they get inside and get a snack. Then they get to go do their home work and after have options of fun and games to do, from a gym to video games. They are pretty happy about it.

Yesterday was the kids first day and from the way they tell it they just roamed the halls lord of the flies style taking time to visit their old teacher and the what not. I don't believe that they were supposed to do that but my kids are very very inderpendent. Case in point only two of the kids did their homework while the other spent the majority of time in the gym. And because of this we parents still had to sit and do homework with one of the kids.

The children only had one complaint from yesterday. The snack, by God the snack. Over the past two years the children have free reign of the pantry and could choose their snacks. "within reason," they could choose fruit or chips or poptarts etc, etc. They had gotten into the habit of eating a decent sized snack and a juice box or Gatorade and they have been happy. Yesterday they came home and were outraged at their snack. They got water with one cookie, and four pretzels. My lord the horror. They counted and were quick to detail the misery of their confinement. Aside from all the play and friends they made, the snack situation is a human rights issue reminiscent of the Gulag Archipelago.

We as a family are getting all of our ducks in a row from when I get a job.

Demands of the Father.

Being the one that is around the kids during the week and their chaperone for the majority of the day, I am the bad guy. You are more than welcome to ask them who their favorite parent is and without the slightest hesitation you hear cries of Mommy in three part harmony. I attribute this to several different factors.

 I tend to be the primary rule enforcer and have been since the start of being the stay at home dad. I run this house as a benevolent dictator, to do so other wise would result in absolute chaos. I ensure rooms are clean, meals are eaten and cleaned up from, kids don't fight, break things, vandalize the home, Bathe kids, Dogs go unharmed, Children go unharmed, homework is done, and all the other things that must happen on a daily basis. This makes me a parent not a fun time friend.

My wife of course gets to spend less time with the kids and as such her time is a little more fun filled, outings, and shopping, going out to eat, crafts, and all the fun stuff. Over the past five years the children have come to associate fun and party time with the wife and rules and daily responsibility with me. Don't get me wrong, my wife takes her turns enforcing rules and a lot of the time it seems harder for her to get the kids to listen without really losing her temper and I've noticed that when it comes to grandparents the kids hardly listen at all, however I can just whistle and snap and the kids all come to attention and normally do what I ask so it has it's privileges. All in all I am ok with this, I love taking care of my children and it's going to break my heart when I enter the work force and don't get to see them as much.

Joy of Children example 2035.

My kids are in gymnastics and they go every Tuesday at 4:30.  They get out of school everyday at 3:00 and the gymnastics place is a thirty minute drive from the house, so every Tuesday is a rush to get home do home work, get them changed and fed a snack before we go. Yesterday was no different from the normal hustle and bustle, except for one minor detail, which is what this blog is about.

For snack that day they chose to have Cheetos and jolly ranchers before we packed up and left. We all got into the car and I put Justice League on for them to watch as we make the trek across town to exercise. The drive was fine and dandy, the kids were quiet and engrossed in the adventures of Superman and crew doing battle with the evil aliens set on the destruction of earth.

We pull into the parking lot and my daughter comes up behind me crying and says "Daddy I'm sick."
  I turn in my seat to see that she was in fact sick and had thrown up a delightful color palette of red number 5 and Cheeto orange all down the front of her leotard. The boys, as they are, were cheering with the ewww's and gross while my daughter sobbed gently and held her hands up in a kind of "what are you going to do?" expression. Well gentle reader let me tell you there was not a lot of options available to me at that point seeing as I had no change of clothes and little to no cleaning supplies to tend such an emergency. I decided that it would be best if we just went home.

The drive home was a delight of smells and sounds emerging from the recesses of the minivan and the boys cheered on the projectile emissions of their sister, who to her credit did a great job of keeping the majority of the issue in her lap. We get home and I have the delightful job of extracting her from this miasma of bile and junk food only to behold the paint scheme she had added to the car seats and floor board. I get her cleaned up first. get the soiled clothing in the laundry and muck out the back of my minivan.

I would be remiss to not mention that I was reminded of the scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules and Vincent had to clean up the mess in the back of the car. Someone somewhere once said that children are a joy for ever. They must have be laughing at their friend's stories.

Well now Christmas is over and a new year has begun.

It would seem that I am soon to join the working force and my time of being a Stay at home dad is coming to a close. The kids are 5 about to become 6 and I have had the best time being with them since they were babies.

Five is a magical time in the life of a child. Santa becomes this fully realized figure and the magic of Christmas takes hold to the delight of parents and children who play at this time. The thing about triplets is that we have a constant battle of "keeping it even." We always have to make sure that Santa gives equal gifts to all the kids in size and scope. It would never do to have a child feel singled out as better or worse than the others. Same with the stockings.

All that said the kids are spoiled in a manner unheard of in my life a child. They have Three sitting around a tree un wrapping present parties. Christmas morning at my home. Then my Dad's house and then the In-law's house. to say my house becomes a wasteland of toys and empty battery packs in an understatement. Christmas Morning we went through three packs of double AAs and a pack of triple AAAs. half of which was to support the nefarious Santa work.

I love my kids and love seeing their faces in the morning though I worry about their privilege and entitlement. I want to them to realize how lucky they are. These kids have their own bedrooms and a playroom and toys in every nook and cranny of the house. In the words of parents the world over, you only get one childhood, so what is the harm?

The kids are currently in gymnastics and about to have their 6th birthday party at a arcade. Hopefully by that time I will have good job and I will have to retool my writing schedule if I can remember to continue. Until next time.

Report cards.

The kids recently got their report cards and I am pleased to say that they all are doing great in school. In their respective regards. Though it would seem that our little girl is the brains of the operation. She is doing VERY well in her studies and we are looking at different options for her learning track. Now that said if she was an only child this would be a no brainer however as one of a set of triplets the dynamic is different.

We have decided that regardless of the direction she chooses to go be it arts, science and tech, or Mandrian and tech all three kids are going to be put into different classes starting with the first grade. If we have to move one to a different class or school all the kids needs to be split up to be fair. And we hope this will give them a chance to explore and grow on their own.

As the kids get more involved in the school system and after school activities I am heading back into the work force. for the past two weeks I have sent hundreds of applications out to the various jobs available. Now I haven't tried to look for a job seriously since 2003 when I moved to DFW so the world has changed quite as bit.

Wow it's been awhile.

I have been crazy busy now that we're knee deep in Haunt season.

The kids are doing well in school and have made lots of friends. My daughter wants to be a haunter like her Dad but Mom has a few choice thoughts on the subject, time will tell.

We recently got the kids into gymnastics and they are all loving it. Except the exercise part, ergo the warm up in the start of class. It's crazy for me since I am normally the only Dad in the place filled with gym moms all tapped into their laptops or mobile devices. I am the odd one in the bunch and no one looks at me much less speaks to me which is fine since I loathe small talk and bring a book to pass the time while my kids go through their routines.

 This Halloween the kids have all decided to be superheros! Iris is Batgirl, Bobby is Captain America and Cooper is Spiderman. some day I will get a solid theme out of them. However this is the first year that Iris is not a princess so I'm counting that as a win. This being the last weekend of Haunt season I hope to write more often although we are heading into the dreaded gauntlet of Christmas and as such my time is limited. I also plan to be joining the job force so wish me luck.