Last of the Jump Jump Days

There are so many things about having triplets that you just don't think about. We had one pop up recently, and I'm embarrassed to say that this scenario hadn't really occurred to me. I was working in the studio the other day and Carrie was home with the boys. There was a prescription for Zane we needed to pick up. There was a lull in the action where I was, so I had some time to run and get Zane's medicine. On the way home I got a call from Carrie. Someone had rang the doorbell and then ran off. The reason that this was alarming is because of the recent smash and grab robberies that have been happening in and around Austin. These people ring your doorbell, wait for you to answer, and if you don't, they kick the door in, grab whatever they can and leave as quickly as they came. We do have a sign on our door that says, "Please do not ring the doorbell." This is because our dog Tess is very protective and barks if anyone rings the doorbell, which in turn wakes up three boys who are horrible at napping during the day. While this behavior is annoying at times, I have always appreciated how protective she is. If someone is in the front yard Tess goes nuts. I figured that a salesperson or whatever had rang the doorbell before they saw the sign, got freaked out and ran. I came up the street and saw a guy walking with a clip board. He looked like a door to door guy to me, so I stopped to talk to him.

Me: Hey, I see you are going door to door, did you ring the doorbell on that house up there with the Tahoe in the driveway?

Him: Umm....No, I didn't.

Me: Are you sure? My wife is home with our kids, and it freaked her out a bit.

Him: I didn't do anything.

Me: Well, who are you with?

Him: I'm with G.E.

Me: Can I see some identification or something?

Him: I don't have to show you anything.

Me: Fine, you can talk to the Police.

The areas around our neighborhood aren't the best, and I don't even mess around anymore. I just call the Police. The Austin Police are very quick to respond, and I have spoken to them at length about the problems in our neighborhood. They tell me to call when I see anything out of the ordinary. The Police came and dealt with him. Why he wouldn't show me any ID is pretty strange.

This whole little scenario brings up two things about the reality of having triplets. First of all, picking up a prescription wouldn't be a big deal for a lot of people. However, with three it becomes a real chore. How convenient is it to load up three babies in this contraption and go to a pharmacy?



It's not convenient at all. This is the boys' new stroller. The stroller itself weighs 70 pounds. Add around 65 pounds of triplet to the thing and it's pretty heavy. It makes what normally would be a quick trip to the pharmacy into something that could quite possibly turn into an Olympic Event. I can hear the play by play announcer now:

Announcer: We are here at the Triplet Moving Event at the Summer Olympics. Carrie has to get the stroller out of the back of the Tahoe, unfold it, and set the parking brake. Next, she has to get all three boys into the stroller. After that, it's into the pharmacy to get the prescription and back out to load everyone up again. Let's see if she can beat the four minute and 36 second record she set during the preliminaries. Hopefully this time she won't get into a fist fight with another customer in the pharmacy. That got her disqualified the last time and really cut into her time.


This whole day got me thinking about a lot of things. What if someone did attack the house when I wasn't at home? It would be impossible to pick up the three boys and run to the neighbors. What do you do in this situation? Call 911 for sure, but then what? I realize that a full frontal assault on our house is unlikely, but it gets you thinking about how absolutely helpless and venerable you are with three kids all at the same stage of helplessness.

In other news, the days of the Jump Jumps are over. We were down to using two, with one boy in a walker. Zane is our resident master of the walker. He goes everywhere with it. The other two are pretty good themselves, so we made the decision to get two more walkers and sell the jump jumps. No more Jumperoos. It's the end of an era.

That's right sports fans, these boys are now mobile. I'll look down and one of the boys will have crawled into the kitchen. One second they are in the middle of the living room, and the next second they are doing this:

Yep, checking out the outside world. We have taken some steps in child proofing the house, and more will be needed. We have already figured out how to get into the dog water. They also find each other very interesting.


Here are some various crawling around pictures. This one happens to be of Cade.


Here is Zane:

Zane again:


Here is one of Cash under a Jump Jump.



These next pictures are of the boys taking a nap. Top to bottom are Cade, Zane, and Cash.

Needless to say, they don't look very tired.

They would rather be moving around and destroying things than taking a nap. Makes sense to me. I was never much of a nap guy myself. We have passed a lot of milestones recently, and we will pass many more in the next six months. Walking comes to mind. A friend of mine recently told me this:

"You spend the two years teaching them how to walk and talk. After that you try to get them to sit down and shut up."

No matter the trials and tribulations, one things is true:

Having triplets is a blast.

Here is a video of Cade and Cash in their Jump Jumps. Oh the memories.