Trouble cubed

SOMETIMES we hear laughter, other times fits of frustration coming from the circle of 21. Parents, brave ones, are discussing a life that mu...

SOMETIMES we hear laughter, other times fits of frustration coming from the circle of 21. Parents, brave ones, are discussing a life that must seem like a horror show to some people: triplet-rearing. The baby stages. It doesn8217;t get more hardcore than the 8216;It8217;s Mine! Conflict Resolutions8217; workshop at a Washington hotel, where there are triplets and quads from 28 states and Puerto Rico.

8216;8216;Hi, I8217;m Jennifer Fisher from Princeton, New Jersey.8217;8217; She quickly begins: 8216;8216;One is the loudest and maybe the8230;ruler. The other is complicated8230;Oh my God, I love her with all my heart, but she pushes my buttons. Feisty.8217;8217; Two of the triplets pair up, leaving an odd toddler out. And as with many multiple-birth households, chief communication methods among two-year-olds can get brutish: biting and yanking ponytails. 8216;8216;Have they drawn blood yet?8217;8217; asks a mother. 8216;8216;Broken skin,8217;8217; says Fisher. 8216;8216;Yeah, had that yesterday.8217;8217;

This past weekend, the 116 families at the annual Triplet Connection convention, dubbed 8216;Kids in the Capital8217;, have been sharing tales of a triplet and sometimes quadruplet kind: The vomiting chain reaction. The eccentric kid who says, 8216;8216;Sorry, I8217;m going to bite you!8217;8217; Then chomp.

But ask Janet Bleyl, founder of the Utah-based Triplet Connection, and it8217;s 8216;8216;three times the love and hugs8217;8217;. She started the non-profit after giving birth to identical triplets 22 years ago, back when information on multiple births was limited and the ordeal of premature deliveries 8212; hers came 10 weeks early 8212; was perhaps more wrenching than it needed to be. Now, the organisation works with more than 35,000 families; about 1,500 more expectant parents join each year, says Bleyl, a mother of 10. It has a scientific advisory board of physicians who give practical information to balance the gloom-and-doom speech from other doctors.

A major problem from the group: favouritism. If one of the kids demands the Play-Doh, for example, and his brother is momentarily mashing it, what do you say? Ramsey, a mother of quadruplet eight-year-olds, has a suggestion. You tell the kid, Sorry, I love your brother more. Brows furrow around the circle. 8216;8216;So are you sarcastic?8217;8217; asks Patricia Levy-Zuckerman, a mother of 22-month-old triplets. 8216;8216;Of course.8217;8217;

8216;8216;I couldn8217;t be happier in life, and it8217;s sad because babyhood is going to end,8217;8217; she says. She had every intention of going back to the office, back to the 40 hours a week, and gave it up with no apologies. She had about 100 hours of hired help a week in the triplets8217; first six months, making the experience less chaotic.

nbsp;

At Triplet Connection convention, parents exchange thrice-learnt lessons in child-rearing

Ryan McNicholas, 18, wears a 8216;Quad Squad8217;8217; shirt that boasts a blue letter 8216;B8217; like a jersey numeral. He was second out of the womb. Then we see brother Connor, slightly thinner, sporting 8216;D8217; and then the sisters, Lindsay and Brynn. The McNicholas kids represented five per cent of their high school graduating class in Ohio, and, boy, were they popular. And now: 8216;8216;Four different colleges, four different states,8217;8217; says their mother, Phyllis McNicholas. 8216;8216;It8217;s going to be really crazy for me8230;8217;8217;

LAT-WP