Trouble cubed

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

But ask Janet Bleyl, founder of the Utah-based Triplet Connection, and it’s ‘‘three times the love and hugs’’. 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 — hers came 10 weeks early — 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. ‘‘So are you sarcastic?’’ asks Patricia Levy-Zuckerman, a mother of 22-month-old triplets. ‘‘Of course.’’

‘‘I couldn’t be happier in life, and it’s sad because babyhood is going to end,’’ 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 triplets’ first six months, making the experience less chaotic.

Ryan McNicholas, 18, wears a ‘Quad Squad’’ shirt that boasts a blue letter ‘B’ like a jersey numeral. He was second out of the womb. Then we see brother Connor, slightly thinner, sporting ‘D’ 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: ‘‘Four different colleges, four different states,’’ says their mother, Phyllis McNicholas. ‘‘It’s going to be really crazy for me…’’

LAT-WP