Telling them apart.

I get asked this a lot.  "Can you tell them apart?"
I always answer with, "Of course I can".  I was worried, before they were born.  My wife and I had plans to keep on the hospital bracelets as long as we needed to in order to make sure that we would not mix up the boys.  We had one son before the triplets.  It was hard to imagine another child created by the same two people looking different than the first one.  I know this is crazy and other families have different looking children all the time.  They are just born one at a time.  Still, for us we were concerned.
The first thing working in our favour is that the boys are not identical.  This means that they will look like siblings but not exactly the same.  I look similar to my brothers.  I've been asked if I am a twin.  My brothers are two years older and two years younger than me.  I would get these questions while I was in my teens.  So, just like my brothers, my triplet boys look like brothers, however they are just the same age which may make it more difficult to tell them apart.
One of the things that I didn't think about before the boys were born was the ways that they would be different other than looks.  Weight one was significantly bigger than the other two when they were born.  Sound, they all sounded different.  One had a lower cry and to this day his voice is lower than the others. I could always tell who was crying from across the house.  It's amazing how quickly their personalities develop and you can tell them apart that way as well. And subtle things like one had thick hands while another had lender hands and longer fingers. I am confident that I have never mixed up the boys. As I look back to pictures from four and a half years ago, I can see how people who didn't see the boys everyday would get them mixed up.  I have a little trouble myself and I need to check the labeling on the back of the picture.  I am usually right, but it is much harder than I ever imagined.  I can see why people didn't understand how easy it was for me to tell them apart at the time.  I would get offended at the question and say things like "of course I can, they are very different. How can you not see that?"  Well, I may say that to my wife after the people had left.  Looking back, I have to be much more forgiving.  I would be interested to hear from a parent of twins who were identical and if they had any issues telling them apart.

Have a great day.
Triplet Dad

Grandparents

Grandparents are great.  My boys are lucky enough to have their Great-grandfather as part of their lives.

My Grandpa likes to garden.  He has gardened for years and is quite good at it.  When the boys were first eating solid foods, my wife would make them home made baby food.  Grandpa, of course, provided carrots and the boys loved them.  I think that there is something special about the fact that the first food that my boys ate, came from the labour of their Great-Grandpa.  And Grandpa was just as excited about providing it.  He really enjoys when they are around.  ( I think he enjoys it more when they leave ;) ).  He was at my house for a while when the boys were two years old.  I asked Grandpa if he wanted a ride home now or wait until after dinner.  Grandpa said that he wanted to go home.  As soon as I got him in the car, Grandpa said to me, "Your boys tire me out."  He didn't mean it in a bad way.  At that point in their lives,  the boys were tiring me out.

The other day, we headed there to plant carrot in the garden.  On the way to his house, the boys were saying, "We're going to great-grandpa's house.  He's a grandpa and he's great."  I couldn't agree more.

Here are Alex and Darren holding Great-Grandpa's hand (and cane) last summer while we were at the splash pad last summer.

Have a Great Day.

Triplet Dad.

Travelling with Triplets.

We have family far away.  When I say far away, I mean about 600 km away (400 miles).  So when the boys were little, we had to find a way to travel with them for a trip that would take about 8 hours.  Well, it used to take us only 8 hours.
To be fair, we didn't make the trip until the boys were about 5 months old.  We didn't even want to try with them any younger.  We figured that the boys would need to eat at least once on the trip if we could time things right. This is how we did it.
Step one.  Pack for ourselves.  Do this the night before.  It will save time in the morning.  We like to leave about 7:00 am.
Step two.  Pack for the boys.  Do this the night before.  At least with everything that could be packed away. We made sure that everything possible was ready before we were ready to go.
In the morning, we made sure that the van was packed before we got the boys out of bed.  We got them out of bed and did the whole feed and change process.  Then we put them in the van.  This would allow us the maximum time on road before we would have to stop. That is why it's important to feed them last and be ready to go.  You don't want to waste a half and hour or 40 minutes packing the van up with the playpens, clothes etc. after they've been fed.
We wondered how to warm up bottles on the road.  The boys were on formula at this point in there lives.  The answer seems so simple it was embarrassing.  We had gotten into a habit to making the days formula in advance by the jug full, pouring into bottles and then warming it up in a crock pot for a few minutes when we fed the boys.  So this was our mind set.  It took us a while to figure out to bring the powder formula and the luke warm water separately and then just mix what we needed when we needed it. So simple.
The first time we stopped, we thought, fast food.  We went into the restaurant, fed and changed the boys and then we ordered and ate.  This whole process, took us about 90 minutes.  It still seemed slow.  There had to be a better way.
On the trip back, we stopped at a sit down restaurant.  We got a table and asked the waitress to give us about 20 minutes before we placed our order.  We were half way through the feeding the boy process when we ordered.  The boys were just finished eating when our hot food came to the table. We ate and then hit the road.  This time it took us just over 60 minutes.  The fast food bill was about $22.00 for my wife, myself and our 7 year old son.  At the sit down restaurant the bill was just over $30.00 because we ordered carefully.  The time saved and the fact that the food wasn't fast food was well worth the extra $8.00.  The sit down restaurant was also much more comfortable to hang out in for that hour.
Other than the meal time, we only took the boys out of their seats a couple of times during the trip for a diaper change.  They were content for the most part.  On the way there, they started to fuse when we were about 10 minutes from our destination.  I am so glad that they are good travellers.
I just realised  that I stopped at step 2.  There are hundreds of steps as any parent of multiples will tell you.  The best thing to do is find what works best for your family and you children.
We have made the trip about four time a year since the first time and we have adapted as the boys have grown.  Perhaps I will write about that another time.
Have a great day.
Triplet Dad.

Things that Children Say.

Here's a couple of things that one of my four year old boys has said to me.  He will often snuggle with me in the morning.  As we laid there, my clock radio went off as it does most morning so that I can hear the morning news.  Mark says to me, " Daddy?"  "Yes Mark?"  "Daddy, why are those people talking inside your clock?"

Another morning we were snuggling and I was asked, "Daddy, why are your arms and legs bigger?"  "Because I am bigger."  I replied.  Mark said "And they won't fit on littler people, that's why I have litter legs and littler arms."

These things make me smile.
Have a great day.

Triplet Dad.

My boys like music.  They also like the Muppets, which is nostalgic for me because I grew up watching the Muppets.  Perhaps you've seen some of the newer Muppet videos on youtube.  One of their favourite videos is the Beaker Ode to Joy video.  If you haven't seen it,check it out here.

The boys were going around the house singing "me me me me me me me me".  So I took the camera out and asked them to sing for me.  So here are the boys doing their rendition of the Muppet's Ode for Joy.  I hope that you enjoy.

How to warm up multiple bottles at one time.

When the boys were little, we fed the boys formula.  We made these bottles in advance, about 24 at a time.  The boys were eating 1 bottle every three hours.  For a while we were using the single bottle warmer.  You would put in some water, wait for it to warm up and then wait another 4 minutes for the formula to warm up enough to serve.  The whole process for one bottle was about 6 minutes.  When we had to warm up 3 bottles, it would take us about 15 minutes.  This was way too long to wait with screaming babies.  There had to be a better way.

One day, I was looking at the bottle warmer, which around here cost about $30, and realized that it looked like a mini crock pot.  So off the the store I went and purchased a small crock pot for about $12 dollars.  We filled it with warm water and left the setting on warm.  We left the crock pot on all the time so that the water never had to warm up, it was always the perfect temperature.  We would put all 3 bottles in at the same time for about 4 minutes.  When the water level got lower in the crock pot, we just simple put more warm water in.  We had to do this about once a day.  We ran that crock pot in our house for at least a year which I'm sure is some kind of world record.  If fact, we had to replace it once as it burned out after about 10 months.

The savings on time was totally worth burning through the crock pot.  It always made the bottle the perfect temperature and was great on heating either one, two or all three bottles depending on who needed to eat.

I hope that you find this helpful.  Happy Bottle feeding.