The children in my house are ages 5, 3 and 3 respectively. What this means is that I got the baby portion of my life over with very quickly. In my family we called that the “Slug Stage”. What this also means is that although I’m caring for three, I have no experience with what comes next at any stage or age. It’s a boot camp for Moms. A sink or swim situation.Any time a new obstacle comes up, it’s a learning experience. I’m sure that’s true for everyone, but for me it’s a lot of pressure. If I can’t figure out how to handle a new problem or issue in a hurry, it will quickly become a problem x 3. Can’t get child #1 to stop burping at dinner? Well then you can be sure #2 and 3 will take full advantage.
However, the reverse is also true. If I can manage to understand something early enough, it’s easy to remember the solution by the time child #2 is dealing with it. (Quite often it’s the next day.) Getting rid of the pacifiers in our house came so easily it was almost scary. Want to get rid of the cribs and install big kid beds for everyone? No problem. The little ones want to be just like the big kid anyway. That’s the power of three.
Three times the mess, three times the fights and three times the laughter.
The magic number three also applies at playtime. Sometimes it’s a wonderful thing to have a choice of play partners. For my son he has his choice to play bigger kid games with my daughter, or rough and tumble boy games with Jack. For Emma she’s got the big kid to look up to, and the smaller child to teach. And Jack likes to vary between dress-up with the girl or wrestling with the boy.
But again, there’s two sides to every coin. A lot of the time their various choices don’t quite mesh. Emma wants to play dress-up, but the boys are busy jumping off the couch. Inevitably someone ends up unhappy. Someone’s crying and the other two are off in their own world. It’s a magic (and seldom seen) day when the three of them can agree.
They’re learning to swim together this summer. They’re going to Kids Camp together. For now they’re spending every waking moment together. But one day soon Nick will be in school full-time and I’ll be left behind with just two. I’m honestly not sure if things will then get better or worse. But they’re always going to be new.
