My Diary of Triplet Fatherhood

I realise it’s been a while since I posted any pictures here. It’s partly becasue there’s not so many to choose from for a few reasons. My manic photographing has dropped away somewhat. When our camera was stolen in the burglary there were lots of good pictures taken with it and there’s been times since then we’ve been cameraless, too. And, of course, there’s a combination of my not being at home during the day any more and the evenings drawing in (and taking the good evening light with them).

I have gathered a few good snaps of the girls together now though… which I’ll post soon. But first I’m just going to post a photoshopping-counts-as-art-honest picture I put together today. It’s called “The Cuddle”.

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Good, eh? Andy Warhol’s got nothing on me. And for a mere £1000 I am even willing to print this onto canvas, so you, too, could have this picture in pride of place in your own home. I’ll even throw in free shipping to anywhere in the World. Any takers?

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. – Mother Teresa

Kath, J’s mum, stayed last night to help us catch up on our sleep a little. I still got up to help with the 10 o’clock feed and J for the 2 o’clock but it helps massively to not have to sleep on the sofa with half an ear cocked for the baby monitor while ‘on duty’. The combination of trying to sleep on a sofa that has no room for any of my body below the knees and waking at every start or noise means we have only really been getting half a nights sleep each since my mum last came a week ago. Plus it’s nice to be able to actually share a bed with my girlfriend for a change. Swapping over at 2 am means we really are ships that pass in the night. Well, OK, not ships… people, but the night bit still holds.

I wasn’t worried about leaving the girls with their nanna as they’ve begun to really settle into being Gina Forded really well now, sleeping through from 7 until 10 at night for four days in a row and generally going down for naps without a fuss. The change seems to have happened at around the time they began to make associations about the world around them. When they were first born they cried whenever they needed something – feeding, burping, whatever – and would only stop when their need had been addressed, but last week they began to stop crying as soon as they were picked up instead, having (I assume) made the connection between their mummy or daddy and being cared for. That was a great feeling. Being able to comfort someone you love is warmly satisfying. Anyway, I can only assume their acceptance of the routine stems from the same understanding; they know that being placed in a dark room means sleep time as that’s what always happens. They’re learning.

The babies aren’t the only ones who are settled into the routine. Last night, after Kath and I did the 10 o’ clock, I went back to bed expecting a longer period of uninterrupted sleep than I’ve experienced in almost a week – a whopping seven and a half hours! – only to lie wide-eyed and doggedly wakeful for almost two hours. As crazy as it probably sounds, I missed the girls. Missed them even though they were one floor away with someone I trust totally to keep them safe. Lying there with J beside me and no babies seemed wrong.

As it turned out, when I got up in the morning I wasn’t the only one who’d had sleeping problems. Jemima had been crying on and off since 2am. Of course, by the time I arrived, she was lying peacefully in her cot, staring at the ceiling and kicking happily away. I picked her up for a cuddle anyway, taking her to say hello to mummy in the bathroom while I cleaned my teeth… which is when it happened.

Holding Jemima up to see her mum, she looked at me and grinned. Really grinned. Whenever the girls have smiled before it wasn’t the same as this. Before it was vacant; not really a response to anything; just a ‘mouth smile’. This was a real, eye-creasing, cheek-stretching, gummy, lit-up, genuine smile, and was all from looking up into my eyes. I almost cried. It was brilliant, and I am still, eight hours later and despite lack of sleep and a hard day at work, walking on air.

And just think – I have two more first smiles to come! I feel so excited, so lucky.

When exactly did they get so big? I can remember, during a visit to the supermarket a few days after they were born, looking at other babies and being shocked by their size. Compared to our girls they looked almost obscene, wrong somehow with huge chubby faces and barrel-like tummies that were’nt at all like my girls’ thin and premature faces, bodies and limbs.

Everything, in fact, seemed bigger then. I would look up at J after a period of captivation with Evie, Scarlett or Jemima and she would look too big somehow. Having held a baby close and stared lovingly at them for so long, my sense of perpective had readjusted to their scale.

When we first brought them home we had to take the teddy bears we’d bought them out of the cot as we were scared they’d fall in and smother them. In the toy shop they’d seemed normal size but each bear was almost twice the length of even Scarlett, the biggest of the three.

Cup feeding them in those first days, I could hold their chin with my thumb and first finger and have my other fingers support the rest of her torso. LIfting them took no energy. They were tiny.

Perhaps it was exactly the fact that they were so disorientatingly little to begin with that now makes me suprised by how big they’ve grown. I’ve often noticed that they’ve have grown between me leaving for work in the morning and returning at night, but not until today did I really absorb the results of that change.

They have all at least doubled in size over the last seven weeks. If I support Scarlett’s chin now, my hand reaches only half way across her tummy. Nor are they by any means easy to just scoop up. I have to make sure Scarlett is on my right when I feed two at once, otherwise I have trouble winding her one-handed. Even Jemima, who was just a little scrap of nothing when first born, has almost caught up to Evie in size and weight and has chubby chops and little, rounded tummy just like the others.

We were told that triplets are often smaller than other children. Premature singletons eventually catch up in height but not so with multiples, apparently. Well, I think that’s just another prediction they’ll disprove. Especially as they all have big feet and big hands, I think that they will be tall like their mum and dad (we’re 5′ 10″ and 6′ 6″, respectively). Either that or a lifetime of having trouble finding shoes and gloves that fit and being mistaken for tranvestites.

My eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkness yet. I can hear breathing but see nothing. I have to step carefully to avoid tripping or causing a noise. The floorboards creak so I slow down, approaching the cot by memory.

I’d heard someone crying through the monitor but, as so often happens, all three babies are silent by the time I get upstairs. Still, I stay on to see if they’ll start again. I’ve learnt not to retreat too early and risk having to ascend and descend numerous times as they cry and go silent while waiting to catch the culprit awake. With the door open just a crack it isn’t yet possible to tell who was unsettled, but I wait, peering into the cot, and eventually the forms become more apparent. Jemima’s blankets are off so it must have been her. A moment later she begins to cry again, low and testing at first but growing quickly in volume.

Although I can’t tell their cries apart, I am beginning to know what they mean. The cry of hunger is different from that of windiness. It rises in pitch and volume with each cry. Windiness is more of a frustrated ’straining’ sound. There are other cries, too, but I haven’t pinned down yet if they are variants of hunger and wind or signify something different – like tiredness or pooing. In this case it is definetely still the hungry cry I’d heard from downstairs so I pluck Jemima from the bed, blankets and all, and, wrapping her in a muslin square to soak up the inevitable spillages, offer her a little more milk.

From the sound of her gulping you’d think I was pouring the milk down a drainpipe not feeding a six week old baby. But I wasn’t suprised by her hunger The girls have developed a tendency to ’snack’ like this. After only a moderate amount at feeding time, they steadfastly refuse any more, either falling into unrousable sleep or furiously turning their heads this way and that whenever the teat is offered while making outraged growling noises. Then, half an hour later, they’re crying in a way that clearly means “I’m STARVING!”

Fortunately the girls rarely disturb each other by crying. Scarlett sleeps in the middle and often remains peacefully oblivious of the screaming cacophony to each side.Right now, both her and Evelyn are blissfully unaware of Jemima’s anguish. Despite the volume.

At night, we following Gina Ford’s advice not to talk to or make eye contact with the girls, so I sit in a silence broken only by Jemima’s gulping and occasional monster noises form Scalrett. Tonight she appears to be working on a combination of her grasshopper chirping impression and her small, indeterminate animal style growling (the sort of noise you might hear outside your tent at night while camping in the woods but would find nothing there if you peeked outside). Occasionally she varies things with a return to old classics such as the revving motorcycle or twig snapping noises.

I don’t mind the dark or the silence. It’s nice to just hold and comfort Jemima. I feel close to her, protective and, in a peculiar way, flattered that I can make her at ease. It’s only in the last week that the girls have really begun to respond to being cuddled. When they cried before there was no settling them until whatver was causing their discomfort had been dealt with. Now they nearly always stop fussing when picked up, although whether they have come to appreciate cuddles for their own sake or merely learnt that they are a precursor to being tended I don’t know. Whichever it is, I love the way I can now make these little people I love so much happy with a hug and some soft words. Being able to interact with them is so rewarding already. I can’t conceive how great it will be when they can be played with and talked to.

These times, late at night, are precious. I rarely get time to just sit with one of my children. Since I started back at work, week nights involving me getting home in time to bath, feed and put them to bed. And, although we try to make time for cuddles after baths, more often than not the girls are too hungry or tired to just cuddle contedly. Weekends are better but last such a short time. Just as I’m beginning to relax into the routine I’m back at work.

Jemima’s stopped gulping now so I turn her head to catch the sliver of light from the doorway. It catches the red in her hair and I forget for a moment what I’m doing and just stare at her beauty. Her face is angelic when she sleeps. Gently, I kiss her on the forehead and as I lift her up, I catch her scent. It makes my head spin a little. I kiss her again and tell her I love her, forgetting for the moment Gina Ford’s rules.

I have never smelled anything quite like the scent of my babies. It is more sensation than an odour, gentle and heady, combining the shiverinessof having the base of my neck stroked or cheek brushed by a lover’s hair with the overhwelming comfort of waking up as a child and finding myself in my parents’ bed. The smell is strongest at the backs of their necks, I have discovered, and quite intoxicating if I lift all three girls at once.

The dim light reveals that she has fallen asleep. Again I defy Gina, putting her to bed without rousing her so she can learn not to be fed into slumber. I can’t bring myself to do it this time. It seems like an insult to the gift of being comforted she has given me.

The door and floorboards creak dischordantly as I slip away. She doesn’t stir.

Back downstairs my food’s gone cold. I don’t care.

I was struck with a wonderful realisation the other morning as I opened the door to leave for work. In the room behind was my mum, who had come to help us catch up a little on our sleep and was feeding Evie while J sat and fed both Scarlett and Jemima. Looking at them all, I was hit by a powerful sense of the moment. All the women who I love most were there, sitting in easy silence, working to care for one another. The women who make up my past, present and future. Three generations of the women through whom my little parcel of life was passed to me and will now be passed on. I suddenly felt the greater importance of events which have taken place in my life recently.

It’s difficult to explain quite why that moment was so moving without it coming across as hackneyed. I want to talk about unbroken lines of women reaching back to the dim beginnings of time, of ur-mothers, and of passing the baton. But you know all that already – it’s hackneyed because it’s such common knowledge. And maybe that’s not such a terrible thing. Life events become hackneyed because they’re so widely experienced. The adages give them away: ‘Plenty more fish in the sea’ for breakups, ’standing on your own two feet’ or ‘getting the key to the door’ for growing into adulthood. But just because we all experience these things doesn’t make them any less moving when they do happen. So for those of you who have children, I won’t tell you what you already know; for those of you who don’t, I’ll leave you to experience this wonderful thing for yourselves.

My mum came up for three days this week, J’s for one this week and three the week before, and what a godsend their help has been! Four consecutive days of reasonably long sleeps (over eight hours in some cases!) has brought both J and I back from the murky reaches of overtiredness we had been living within for the past several weeks. It feels great to be able to really appreciate the babies again. Exhaustion has the unpleasant side effect of making their cries more grating, their company less appealing. I’d find myself putting them down to entertain themselves whenever possible so I could try and rest or sleep myself. However, with the draw of sleep removed, I pick them up more, I have energy to sing to and play with them. Without the haze of tiredness I can appreciate the changes in them better, notice when they grow or their behaviour develops. It’s wonderful.

And there are other things about having our respective mums here that are great, too. The fact that they so clearly adore their grandchildren, for one. And that they are willing to muck in with everything that’s required to keep the show moving, not just the baby cuddling bit. And the fact that they do things in a way we do – partly because we learnt these things from them to start with, partly because they are really respectful of our position as parents. And because there is a new tie that binds us together (well, three ties) and I like seeing how our relationship has grown stronger and closer because of it. And, of course, because their company is easy and natural and pleasant.

So this post’s for mums everywhere. And especially for mums here. Thank you.

Idly flicking through the photos I’ve taken over the last week I have discovered something very disturbing. It seems that, without my noticing, a certain member of this family has been developing a personality of her own. Now, I don’t know if it’s something to do with being the smallest and the youngest but Jemima appears to be experiencing her teenage rebellious phase just a little early.

Think I’m exaggerating? Judge for yourself…

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Here’s Jemima passed out in a pool of her own vomit.

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And here she is again, caught on camera trying to frame Scarlett for the same thing.

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And finally… well, I think this one speaks for itself.

I’ve long known that every parent has delusions about their children. J used to tell me, when she worked in the Early Learning Centre, that about three-quarters of parents would proudly inform her, as they bought whatever educational toy they’d decided upon, that their child was “very advanced for his age” (or “her” age in the case of girls, they’re not that delusional). However, I just never realised just how deep the delusions would run.

Between my three girls, they possess bandy legs, a hairy forehead, hairy ears, hairy backs, pot bellies, a bald patch, receding hairlines, big feet, chubby knees, occassional crossed eyes, are generally covered in at least a little dried puke and smell of either urine, faeces or vomit (or some combination of the same). Attributes that are, I’m sure you will agree, more commonly associated with down-and-outs or mad scientists’ apprentices than newborn baby girls. And yet, each and every one of those things not only makes me love them more, but makes me find them more adorably beautiful.

It seems that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Either that or I have developed an appreciation for the aesthetics of tramphood.

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Tee hee. Couldn’t resist doing this once it occurred to me. The lighting in that photo of Evie being cross was just too perfect for the Hulk.

However, I should note that since I posted about her temper, Evelyn has been positively angelic. She lies contentedly on her play blanket when the others are crying, goes to sleep like a dream and wakes up just as placidly. She has been eating well, rarely fussing, happy and patient… but then again, I’m sure Bruce Banner also managed long periods without turning green and smashing everything within arm’s reach to smithereens. After all, he got a doctorate and to my knowledge, most medical schools frown on overmuscled, green students jumping through walls.

Hello. Heee-llo. Are you reading my blog? Are you? Are you reading it? You are! Yes, you are. You’re reading it, aren’t you? Aren’t you CLEVER! Such a clever reader! And is it interesting? Is it? Is it interesting to read?

It’s called Parentese, apparently, and I was certain I wouldn’t do it. Unfortunately, it appears there’s no avoiding it. The moment I pick up a baby, this inane nonsense starts coming out of my mouth. I mean, any conversation with a newborn baby is bound to be at least a little one-sided but where does the strange sing-song voice come from? And repeating everything as a statement, then a question, then an exclamation, ad infinitum?

The most worrying thing is when I find myself talking to J in Parentese, through the babies. Something like…

The scene: J sits on one sofa, Evie and Scarlett on her lap, feeding one baby with each hand. I sit on the other feeding Jemima.

J (to Evelyn): Hey Evie! What’s that smell, huh? What’s that smell? Have you pooed? Have you? Are you a little stinker? You are! Yes, you are. Shall we see if daddy will change you? Shall we?

Me (to Jemima): Come on, just a little more. That’s right. Good girl. You’re a very hungry baby aren’t you. Yes, you are. You’re a hungry little girl. So we can’t change Evie, can we? No, we can’t. She’s going to have to wait, isn’t she? Yes, she is. Poor Evie.

J (again, to Evelyn): Is daddy mean to you? Will he not change you? No, he won’t! (Now to Scarlett) Poor Evie has to wait, doesn’t she? Yes, she does. Poor smelly Evie.

Me (to Jemima): Daddy’s not mean! No, he’s just feeding his little Jemima, isn’t he? We’ll change Evie in a minute, won’t we? Yes, we will.

And so on.

It’s very worrying. What if we start talking to one another like that when there aren’t even babies there? I can imagine almost completely forgetting how to have a normal conversation, or at least, one that doesn’t involve repeating every point several times. Maybe we should start discussing the news or something to keep our conversational skills in trim.

Actually, a little research has revealed that parentese is known by researchers and academics as “Child-directed Speech” and is thought to have lots of benefits. It teaches babies the inflections and cadences of language, laying the foundations for actually learning more complicated aspects of speech like words, the higher-pitch and repetition making it easier for the child to pick up. It also teaches children that communication is two-way, as parentese generally concerns whatever activity the baby is currently part of and is accompanied by looking where the baby looks or mimicking and reacting to their expressions. Finally, it is recognised as part of the bonding process, bringing the parents closer to their child when the child is so young that they cannot really interact meaningfully.

So I think I’ll keep doing it. Yes, I do. I do. I’m going to keep talking baby talk to the babies. Oh, yes I am. I am. I’m gonna talk in parentese.

But not in my blog. At least not any more.

Sorry to anyone who’s been following the story of our triplets – postings have been a little sparse this last week. Since the burglary the girls have been really quite unsettled. I think they are picking up on the general tension in the house which, together the influx of strangers as police, locksmiths, insurance investigators and the like came round, has made keeping to their routine difficult.

As a result, both J and I have been experiencing new depths of exhaustion. It only takes one of the triplets to not go down for a nap or wake in the middle of the night and the little sleep we do get evapourates. Hopefully things will settle down a little more now though and we can get back into the swing of things.

Anyway, here’s a few pictures from this afternoon, when the girls were waking up from their nap. I’ll miss seeing them at that time of day. From tomorow onwards, I’ll be working full time again so will only just get back in time for bath and bed. I’m really not looking forward to how much time with the girls I’ll be missing. Every day brings so many new changes and I don’t want to miss any of them.

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Evie wasn’t happy about being unswaddled. This is the face of a baby girl trying to decide whether to scream or not… IN the words of Bruce Banner: “Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

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While Scarlett, on the other hand, was perfectly happy practicing her Superman poses while she waited for the inevitable bottles.

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Jemima was also happy to get woken as it gave her more time to stare at the fascinating, but invisible to adults, things in the corner of the room.

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…As you can see, Evie decided to go from Bruce Banner to the Hulk. “Evie SMASH!”

To celebrate having borrowed a digital camera (thanks Colin!) here’s a few pics of the girls. They’re getting bigger by the day so I’m really pleased I can take pictures again.

This is the girls lying quietly on their play blanket this afternoon. From left to right, they are Evie, Lettie and Jem.

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And here’s me feeding Evie. Note the grey hair. I didn’t have that this time last year!

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Also note how Evelyn grabs hold of my fingers when I feed her, ensuring, with her vice like grip, that the bottle doesn’t go anywhere except where she wants it.

It’s seven o’clock and, for the moment at least, the house is quiet. I’ve brought myself and J a beer (so she can watch it get warm when the babies start up again as a change from watching her cup of tea go cold) and we’re sitting in shell-shocked recovery. What a day.

When I left this morning the girls were a picture of languid serenity. Having woken at seven they’d eaten breakfast and Evelyn and I had had a pre-work cuddle while the other two lay on their play blanket kicking happily and J got on with some housework. So I was shocked when J rang me at work in tears at around one in the afternoon. From the moment I’d left, the girls had gone into meltdown. Jemima had cried almost constantly all day long, her cacophony joined at various times by one or both of her sisters. They hadn’t settled for their 8.30 nap, nor their 11.30 one. J had tried top-up feeds, dummies, cuddles, leaving them to “cry-down”, playing with them, walking them around – all the ammunition in the parents arsenal. All to no avail. By the time she rang she was as distraught as they were.

And not surprisingly. I have never experienced anything like hearing your child cry – it’s not just a sound. It’s a physical sensation, somewhere between the heart-sinking-into-your-chest adrenelin rush of sudden danger and the stress of having many, many immediate, urgent, pressing responsibilities. There’s no logic at all to the response. You cannot choose to shut it out or talk yourself into paying it no heed. Like having a full bladder or being famished, everything else loses focus until you have responded to the needs of nature.

So when I came home I took over and sent J to bed to sleep and rest while I went out with the babies for a walk. It was my first time flying solo and even though all we did was go to the doctors, the chemist, boots and for a quick turn around the Abbey, I loved it. People turned and watched the buggy pass or stopped me and told me how beautiful they are (as well as the usual questions about how do I cope, etc.). It’s really affirming, especially as the girls were a dream the whole way round.

But they began to cry again the moment we came home and have been doing so most of the evening until we put them down at seven… when they miraculously settled.

So now we’re sitting nervously sipping a beer each, tensely waiting to see if the meltdown continues.

Two weeks ago the girls were so placid. They slept until it was time to eat, when we would have to wake them up and, even as we fed them, they would drift back to sleep. They seemed otherworldly and fae, like they didn’t really belong here. Which I suppose they didn’t. At five weeks premature they weren’t yet equipped to interract with life and, as such, were utterly helpless even to signal their needs.

One week ago they had woken up much more. They’d cry when they were hungry or needed winding. At other times, they had begun to focus their eyes and would watch faces or the corners of the room with great intent. I’ve since discovered that it is dots spaced like the eyes and mouth in a face or parallel lines that they were looking at. Apparently those things draw a baby’s attention instinctively. Yet I still wasn’t sure they girls recognised me. Although less otherworldly, they still weren’t all here.

This week they have changed again. Remarkably, the way in which they have first begun to communicate is through anger. When they don’t want any more milk, when they aren’t in a mood for nap time or having their nappy changed they turn their heads from side to side, squeel frustratedly and flail their limbs, all while turning a becoming shade of fuscia. I am very suprised that communicating anger develops before communicating happiness. I am still waiting for a smile from any of the girls. Currently, whenever they do smile it is mostly a sign that a belch is on its way, or if not, the girls don’t smile at any particular stimulus or object, so I suspect it’s just another of the expressions that they shuffle through seemingly at random. This anger, on the other hand, is noticably the result of their having to do stuff they don’t want to. I think what I find most surprising is that anger is so instinctual while happiness is learnt.

And speaking of anger, J and I have cause to be angry ourselves. We were burgled last night while we slept. We left a window slightly ajar and somone climbed in and took our wallets, J’s iPod, our digital camera (including all the baby pics from the last week or so!), house keys and car keys, which they then used to steal our car. As a result I’m almost dropping with exhaustion after waiting up for the police as well as baby duties. But more than exhaustion, the experience brought out a massive surge of protectiveness. The thought of someone coming into our house while my babies were there fills me with cornered parent-animal fury. For the rest of the night I lay awake, ears hearing every slight sound, unable to relax, my danger-sense tingling. If you know me, you’ll know that I’m not really a stand-and-fight kinda guy, but last night I would have attacked anyone who tried to come into my house without a second thought.

It’s amazing how much of parenting is instinctual. I know now why animals act as they do around their young. Not just defending them but the instinct to nurture and the innate knowledge of what they need (or at least the deep-rooted instinct to think that you know best).

I realised today that we now have pictures of the girls meeting all their immediate relatives. Well, except uncle Finn. But even I wouldn’t expect a sixteen year old to choose some babies over going to Ibiza.

Of course he’s back now…

It’s been beautiful to see the love our relatives have for our babies, a privilege to have given them such a great gift and a comfort to know that there are others who care for these little bundles of luvvin as much as J and I. So, please, allow me to introduce…

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Grandad Eddie

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Nanna Kathleen

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Auntie Louise

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Grandad Alan

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Nanna Avril

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Grandad Rob

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Uncle Josh

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and last (but by no means least) Uncle Kieran.

Is it four weeks already? Somehow it seems both much longer and much shorter than that. Life without my daughters seems unreal now. What was important to me this time last year? How did I fill my time? What filled my thoughts? I remember wanting children very much around this time. It was only shortly after J and I suffered our second miscarriage while in Slovenia and both of us were still hurting a lot. That, together with my upcoming thirtieth birthday, was filling me with an erratic, reckless energy as I tried to displace my feelings of grief and anxiety.

So yes, I can remember. Dimly. But it seems distant somehow, and unimportant. Like looking back at old arguments. The passion is gone and with it the sense of the moment. Or like looking back at childhood. You remember events but you’re no longer the same person that experienced those things. My life has changes so much leading up to the birth and even more so in the last four weeks of being a father.

To commemorate their four week birthday, I painted this watercolour last night from a photo of me and the girls cuddling on the sofa.

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OK, when I said “painted” I should probably point out that I was using the word in its loosest sense. “Applied a watercolour filter in Photoshop and fiddled around with some sliders” would more properly explain what I did. Better that than actually attempting to paint though. I wouldn’t know one end of an easel from the other (do easels even have ends?) and any painting I attempted would probably not be much of an improvement on what any of my girls could manage. Finger paintings and stick figures are about the peak of my artistic ability.

Here’s another picture from yesterday, taken after bath time when the girls are wide awake (or perhaps just in shock).

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Actually, baths are becoming more of a pleasure. I have been making sure to make the environment peaceful, to cuddle them beforehand and to talk reassuringly throughout and as a result, both Evie and Lettie seem to be coming to like the experience. As I lower them into the warm water they’ll look momentarily suprised before they relax and let me wash them without making a fuss. At least most of the time that’s how it works. Then, afterwards, their eyes bright and looking all pink and clean, we have twenty minutes “cuddle time” lying around on the kitchen floor before bottles and bed. It’s a really nice part of the day. Hopefully, in another four weeks time, it won’t be followed by the evening scream-a-thon, the worst part.

What’s that? More pictures? Ok. One more. Here’s Evie at feeding time. As someone on rpg.net said to me yesterday, “A baby’s eyes are at once one of the most beautiful and most terrifying things in existence”. I have to agree.

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Sleep. Yes, I remember sleep. It used to be there waiting whenever I wanted it, like a favourite bedtime toy. But that was before… now the toy is snatched nightly from my grasp just as I relax into its arms. So, even when, previously, I would have lost myself in its joys, I now lie, alert, tense, waiting for the moment I am left bereft.

Ok. Maybe that’s a little melodramatic. I actually slept well last night. My friend, Kate, came over and helped out until the early hours of the morning. Having her there meant that both J and I could go to sleep from 8.30 until feeding time (around 10 and then again at 1 or 2 am) when Kate would wake one or the other of us up. It was wonderful. An evening without the stress of hearing babies crying has left me feeling really recharged. Thanks Kate!

I was up at six to help J feed the girls and managed to get them all fed and happy before the routine kicked off again at 6.45, which, in turn, meant I could lie in bed and listen to their swamp chorus for a while. The noises they make are hilarious. When all three are only half-asleep there’s a constant stream of these fantastic noises that I have started playing a game to. It’s called “Name that Noise” (unimaginatively enough) and consists of trying to label where you’d think each noise originated from if not from a baby. I lie there chuckling as I list such things as “twig snapping”, “hot spring”, “dolphin”, “bubble popping”, “clown’s car horn”, “fish tank”, “monkey screech”, “sleeping hen”, “snuffling pig”, “kitten mewling”, “distant earthquake”, “Squeeky floorboard”, “air escaping a balloon”, “badger”, “donkey”, “badger again”, and so on. The same noise is rarely repeated and some of them are almost impossible to name quick enough, they’re so bizarre.

Well, you have to get enjoyment where you can. Why not leverage that sleep deprivation to make the wakeful nights more amusing..?

Back at work again. J took over last night after the last feed of the day… and managed to only get one hours sleep, and that was in three twenty-minute patches. I should have guessed the night wouldn’t go well when the girls were crying for their 11 o’clock feed at just after 9. It’s only been in these last couple of days (well, nights really) that they haven’t settled after being fed at night and it is, to be frank, awful. When they all cry at the same time, there’s just no way of humanly comforting them all.

It makes you feel so impotent – what do you do when you have checked that they’re not hungry, not windy, not sitting in dirty nappies, nor too hot or cold? The instinctual reaction to the cry of a baby is to do something not to just sit it out, so when there’s nothing left to do except wait and see if they’ll settle alone it leaves you feeling frustrated and helpless. And the time passes so slowly. After settling them and checking them and putting them down, and each is momentarily calm and then one will start fussing in preparation to cry, then another, and you wait… knowing what’s coming, unable to relax, feeling their distress mount… and then it begins, and you give them a bit of time to try and settle themselves, and then, finally you cannot take it any more and you go over to try and calm them, glancing at the clock, and maybe three minutes have passed since you last went over. Three minutes. And you start again. And again. All night long.

I made J go to bed this morning when I woke up so at least she’s had one hour of uninterrupted sleep (and quiet) but when I left for work, it was with the babies still fussing and crying, even though they had been fed and changed. I hope she manages OK until I take over again when I get home around 2 o’clock this afternoon.

What worries me most is that this is my last week of working part time. Next week I have split my last paternity leave day so I can leave early all week, but not so early as to really take much of the strain unfortunately, which means J will have nearly all day on her own, as well as me not being able to have a catnap when I get in to allow me to do more of the nights. And the week after that, I’m back to working 8.30 till 5. If the girls are still so restless I can only imagine it’s going to be hellish for her. If only we could afford a night nurse. From what I’ve read on TAMBA other triplet parents have found them the single best investment for their babies’ first few months.

The strangest thing, though, is that despite such hard times, there are still so many fantastically good times mixed in. I expected there to be lows – all new babies are testing, three were bound to be three times so, at least – but what really surprises me is how quickly the highs and lows follow one another. One minute I’ll be transfixed by the beauty of one of my girls, by how much I love her, the next I’ll be desperately trying to figure out why she’s so upset. The next moment I am pointing out a funny expression she’s doing to J before desperately trying to get some housework done or make their bottles up for the next day in one of the brief spells of calm when all I want to do is collapse into bed. Then they’ll be asleep upstairs and I am contentedly flicking through the photos I have taken. Then I hit another low: wondering how long I can keep going while so very, very exhausted, before once again my mood is up once more and I’m standing over the babies’ cot wondering at how lucky I am. It’s such a rollercoaster ride. I just hope we can keep in control enough that neither J nor I are screaming “I wanna get off” any time soon.

Only managed somewhere in the region of three hours sleep last night. None of the girls would settle, taking it in turns to deny their father the possibility of sleep. I was letting J catch up as I cannot be awake all night when I have work. Now she is nice and fresh and I am planning to be in bed by 8pm.

Anyway, here’s a few pictures from this afternoon. I wonder, is there a support group for those addicted to taking pictures of their daughters? Actually, it’s not the taking them that’s the problem. It’s finding the time to go through and label who’s who.

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Evelyn

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Jemima

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Scarlett

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And J, trying to make sure they all get enough cuddles in the brief space between bathtime and bed.

We registered the babies’ births today. Now we have certificates to prove they were born. How strange – how else would they have got here? OK, I’m being facetious. The birth certificates are really to prove your identity, I know. But even that is peculiar, if you think about it. The girls now all have legal, factual, proveable identites, yet they barely have personalities. Strange to possesss identity and not a means of expression.

I was quite taken with the whole registration process. Ceremony might even be a better word for it. The room was backed by great nineteenth-century stained glass windows which lit up the registrant like a she was in church, and somehow, the writing of their names into a thick-paged, leather-bound book with an ink bottle filled fountain pen seemed solemn and important. It was as if the thing that has been so important to us for the last few weeks (and for months before) was being recognised and laid down for posterity, being validated in the eyes of the World. Sure, she also typed the information into a computer but it was the writing that gave the moment a dignity that I very much liked.

I liked it so much, in fact, that I am considering the idea of a naming ceremony for the girls. It’s a civil ceremony, a kind of non-religious christening. I’ll contact the local celebrant (what a great job title) next week and see what it involves.

I never really understood before why people kept mentioning how babies change every day. But, now, having seen it with my own eyes – it really is quite remarkable.

Some of the changes are what you’d expect. The girls are getting bigger all the time, for example. But even that is happeningly surprisingly quickly. They were weighed by our midwife today, in fact, and in the course of three weeks (is that all it is since they were born?!) Evelyn has gone from 4lb 9oz to 5lb 11, Scarlett from 5lb to 6lb 1oz and feisty little Jemima has shot up – at birth she was 3lb 15oz, now she’s 5lb 4oz! That’s a gain of a third of her body weight in three weeks, the equivalent for me, at 12 stone, would be going up to 16 stone in the same period.

With the weight gain, the girls’ appearances are also changing. Their legs were like those of little sparrows at birth. Now they have chubby knees. Their cheeks fill out every day. They look less wrinkly and premature and more like they belong in the World.

Other changes are more unexpected. They were all born with straight, jet black hair and incredibly dark, brown eyes. Now they have blue eyes and their hair is a golden colour and just starting to curl as it gets longer. I was under the impression that the opposite was supposed to happen – that babies were born blue eyed and blonde – but apparantly not with these girls. Already they’re doing things their own way.

Every day they are more alert and attentive and interact more when being fed or cudled or changed, well, Jemima is still a bit spaced out, to be honest, but she’s getting there. They hold eye contact for longer and seem to be digesting what they see more (although that may just be the expression of a baby wih wind), they seem to smile (also possibly wind) and respond to voices rather than just being picked up and held.

Also, their characters are emerging more clearly. Evie appears more stubborn than I thought she was at first. She’s the only one who we have trouble feeding – she clamps her mouth shut or opens it so wide feeding is impossible and looks you straight in the eye with an expression of “What you gonna do now, huh?”. She’s also the most dreamy, really staring up into the corners of the room as if watching something invisible to our eyes. Scarlett seems happy-go-lucky. She makes loads of noise in the night, happily belching, hiccuping, wheezing and gurgling her way through till feeding time and tends not to cry much. She eats loads and actually likes being bathed and changed and, when she does cry, is instantly placated with a dummy. And I can’t help finding Jemima hilarious. It’s something in her face, in the sideways glances and flicker of a smile in her upturned corner of the mouth. Yet she’s sensitive with it. She hates having ehr nappy off or being washed and is the most comforted with cuddles and songs. Of course, I’m sure all this will change over time. As an old lady once told my mum, “Babies always make you out to be a liar”. As soon as you decide they’re one way, they’ll act the opposite. And good on ‘em.

All these changes go towards making me love them more each day. They are blossoming before my eyes, changing even between leaving for work on the morning and returning after lunch. And I’m so glad there are three of them as it really highlights their individuality. I can’t blithely think “oh, babies do such and such” because there, right in front of me, are three babies doing things in three different ways.