My Diary of Triplet Fatherhood

All through the summer, each Sunday, the whole family plus a volunteering god-, or grand-, parent would drive over to a private school on the other side of Leeds. Each adult would take a baby and change them and the girl in question into swimwear and for an hour we would try to teach them to swim.

Everyone’s heard about how babies hold their breath automatically if they’re submerged in water but actually doing the submerging is a rather frightening affair. Especially towards the end of the course where we moved on from mere dunking to dunking and letting go. Nothing I’ve experienced since become a father (or possibly even beforehand) has combined awe and terror so completely. Watching your child float, arms outstretched, eyes wide beneath the surface of the pool is magical but as much as my rational side told me it was perfectly safe – thousands of babies take these classes every week – my irrational side would be hollering words to the effect of “Arrgh! Your baby’s in the water! No! Save her! She’ll drown! Get her out! GET HER OUT!” from the recess of my mind I was trying to banish it to.

I can only imagine what my reaction might have been had we proceeded to enroll in the second 12 weeks of the course, at the end of which parents stand at the side of the pool and drop their baby in so the baby can turn under water, swim back to the side and hold on. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been the only dad to jump in, too, just in case.

These classes brought home some of the difficulty of life with triplets. Unlike every other family there, we always needed a volunteer to swim with one of our girls which, due to holidays and other commitments meant that our girls couldn’t swim with the same person each week. On the other hand, of course, it did mean that both me and Jan could always join in, never being relegated to the poolside to watch like half of the singleton parents were. And it was nice for others to be able to join in with such an intimate activity, to share a little of the magic.

Anyway, the reason I’ve posted about our swimming lessons is that we just got the photo of all three girls underwater. Hats off to the photographer for managing to get a shot this good.

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If I thought life s a triplet dad was busy, it ain’t got nothing on life as a toddler. They just don’t stop. There’s so much to do; there’s toys to move from place to place, chairs to push along, alcoves to wedge yourself into, tabletops to reach up onto, sofas to pop out from behind of, fireplaces to post things in, curtains to hide behind, safety gates to rattle, toy boxes to unpack; the list goes on, only limited by the apparently boundless imagination (and energy) of three sixteen-month olds.

It exhausts me just watching them, especially now that they have a whole new house to explore. So, I thought I’d post a little video of them on one of the first mornings after we moved so others can marvel at their busy wanderings, too.

“The moon’s gone to bed now. Look, it’s all gone. Come on, time for your bed, too, Evie. Wave bye-bye to Mr. Moon.”

I remember thinking once, with the directness so natural to teenagers, how strange it was that parents lie so often to their children. Not just the biggies – The Tooth Fairy, Santa, “We’re nearly home” – but little lies, every day. It felt wrong that parents should lie to the people who trust them more than anyone else the world.

Of course the moon hadn’t gone to bed. And if you’re being literal, I was lying. It was just covered by cloud and I took the opportunity to distract Evie from howling at it. Yes, howling. OK, to be fair, what she was really doing was urgently pointing it out to me now that she knows the word for it. Except, in her excitement, the “m” and “n” had become lost, leaving only frantic cries of “oo” as she snapped her head between me and the silvery full moon that hung outside the living room window.

What my teenage self didn’t understand, however, is that these little lies aren’t meant to conceal – how funny that defensiveness of teenagerdom seems now – but represent, rather, the parent indulging themselves. The sad fact is that real life, after 30-odd years, loses some of the novelty that lets you see the full moon as possibly the most exciting thing ever. Well, until the next most exciting thing ever comes along (current favourites: dogs still holding strong at number one; planes and birds jostling for second place). By introducing Santa or the Tooth Fairy, or anthropomorphising the world around us, we’re introducing a little magic into our own lives.

And it’s also a way of bridging the massive gap in experience and understanding that divides adults and young children. We create a shared, imaginary world which we can all explore. Somewhere simpler, where unknowns wear friendly faces and good things happen to good people and where children can interact on terms they understand.

It’s much easier to see the moon as a friendly face than understand astronomy. Plus if you happen to currently enjoy waving hello and goodbye, it’s nice to have one more person to do it with.

So, while reality may still be novel as a teenager, as an adult, what I can’t resist the opportunity to recapture a little of the magical innocence of childhood. And if that safe and friendly world’s alluring to me, why shouldn’t I share it with my children, too.