Aside #1:

Early last week my son figured out how to say the word “dog.” Well, really it’s more like “DUUUUUGHDHGH” or sometimes “DUUUHEEEEE” (“doggie”) but it’s easy to tell by his boisterous attempts to strangle our poor mutt what he’s going for.

He chases the creature around the room, dragging himself forward by his arms Lt. Dan style, squealing and laughing at the game which he is forcing on his four legged friend. Every minute or so she settles down, but he’s on her in moments, trying to grab her ears or eat her nose. Finally, after a few attempts at fending him off, she’ll settle down with a huff of resignation and reward him with a lick on his bald Charlie Brown head.

Aside #2:

My elder (by 50 seconds) daughter loves to dance. She dances when she’s laying on her back, she dances when she’s trying to crawl, and she dances when she’s standing on your lap.

As soon as she hears music she starts bending her legs, bobbing her tiny head and swaying from left to right like a scarecrow in the wind. She is not graceful, nor is she rhythmic, but she loves to dance. If you dance with her, she will smile so large that her eyes almost disappear into her chubby face, she’ll start patting your arm with surprisingly regular rhythm, and she will love you forever.

Aside #3:

My younger daughter finds the most mundane objects incredibly absorbing. Her ability to manipulate small objects with her miniature fingers is the envy of every craftsman, and she loves to inspect every seam, corner, and texture of her toys.

She loves to sit on my shoulders and comb her fingers gently through my hair, and sometimes, just to keep me on my toes, gives my beard a yank that almost tosses me to the floor. She points with great seriousness and deliberation. She wants to know what paper is made of. She doesn’t like how Christmas Trees taste, but she likes how the needles feel. She’s really into petting her brother’s downy head right now.

The part where I learn that time isn’t a straight line:

Time is weird. Everyone talks about time using the “hill” metaphor; first you go up, then you peak, then it’s downhill. The uphill part is slow, and the downhill part is fast. Even though time is one of the most boringly consistent things we could ever encounter it somehow seems so elastic, so fast and slow based on how we fill it. Time is a balloon, and our efforts are the gas that fills it. Now that I’m an adult, it never seems like I have “enough time”, and spend most of my day “finishing what I’m working on” so that I can get to the next thing. Finish designing that site so you can design the next one. Finish that book so you can start the next one. Finish that album so you can release it and be done. Finish the yard so you can plant that garden, so your plants can grow, so you can cook them and eat them, and then be done.

Start over.

I remember in college my roommate and fellow theoretical malcontent Nathan would spend every Thursday night outside. We’d start the evening watching a movie from “The List,” a handwritten tome we had taped to a closet door, a guide to films that we should see while we were still young and bright-eyed. Once the TV had been turned off and our various guests had straggled home we made our way to the parking lot, where we would sprawl on the hood of my car and smoke terrible cigars while staring at what passes as stars in the middle of the city. We’d talk about the movie, and about life, and art, and sometimes girls. Just catch up, and wonder where we were going. Time seemed slow then. There was nothing ahead of us, nothing behind us. Just right then.

These days, I find myself thinking more and more about moments like that, as I watch my kids start to explore their environment. Brows furrowed, they try endlessly to crawl, to figure out how to clap their hands, or to stack blocks without knocking them over. These are moments. Time is a series of dots, of these moments. Not a fishing line, reeling us helplessly to our demise through a torpid ocean that we barely understand. Time is a constellation.

It occurred to me over the weekend as I watched the kids engaged in these various pursuits how little they understood the idea of “completeness.” They didn’t care when they were finished. They don’t understand the word finished. They can’t define success, or fear failure. They’re just doing what they’re doing at that moment. Stars.

That’s the first thing I’ve learned from my kids.

The part where I learn you are who you are:

This part is short, because now, in retrospect, it should be perfectly obvious. My wife read me a National Geographic article the other day about twins, and the extent to which nature influences their development, vs. nurture. While of course the environment in which a child is raised has a profound impact on his or her development, who a child essentially is seems to largely be in place from the cradle. As I alluded to earlier, I think a lot of new parents either live in fear that becoming a parent will “change” them or their partner, or, in the converse, place unrealistic expectations on their partners to change once the kid comes. Of course, some adaptation is necessary; if you come home from work and immediately turn on ESPN or go out with friends 3 nights a week then there’s probably some evaluation that needs to happen. But the fact is, whatever you valued before you become a parent is what you’ll value afterwards. For me, my concerns were wrapped up in how having three kids would affect my ability to be creative, and how my priorities in that area would shift. Would I still have the energy to think of and write down weird, abstract ideas in my sketchbook, or would I be spending that time changing 15 diapers? Would I still have time to play Paddock shows, would I even WANT to play shows, or would I slowly spiral into a gradually more exhausted husk of a man who really just wanted some “down time” where I could watch X-Files reruns in sweatpants?

What I’ve realized is that if something is important to you, if it’s built into your worldview and how you approach life, you’re stuck with it. If you have a desire to create, a desire to reflect, then the way you parent will function through that lens. As my wife recently told me, “I’ve learned that having kids doesn’t change who you are, it just means you have to work harder at some things.” How we interact with our kids is simply a facet of how we interact with the world. A lot of people get that backwards, I think. Being a parent is a very important and rewarding, but ultimately individual, piece of the complex system that each of us are.

We are puzzles, we are atoms.

On embracing the isolation of experience, and not feeling lonely:

When the kids wake up, they usually wake up one at a time. First we’ll be wrested from our slumber by the gentle warble of a single voice (usually the boy, who apparently has inherited his father’s tendency towards sleep disorders), who will sing for 10-15 minutes before we hear another voice chime in, this one a bit more contentious and annoyed (the girls have apparently inherited their mother’s desire to sleep without being woken up by annoying boys) followed by a third. We know that once all three are awake it’s time to gather the troops, and prepare to storm the barracks as a united force. Usually we’ll stand outside their door for a minute, rubbing sleep from our eyes, until one of us says “ready?”

It’s time.

We open the door quickly, and as soon as the kids notice our presence a wail like you’ve never heard bursts towards the rafters, each kid clamoring to be the first one picked up, each stating their case with a vehemence that is surprising for such tiny humans. Christina and I each grab one, leaving the third to be eaten by some sort of terrible crib monster (I assume, by his/her reaction) and scuttle them into the living room for feeding. As soon as one of the lucky two are settled in with a bottle we rescue the third one, sticking a bottle in his (usually) mouth, saving him from starvation in the nick of time.

Now, let’s count those babies. One. Two. Three. There are three babies, and two parents in the living room now, all laying on the floor in various states of disrepair.

The fact is, this is not a normal state of being. Most new parents will never experience this reality, and I’ve found that it’s important for me to remember that. The very nature of our experience separates us on some level not only from our single friends (who make up the majority at this point), but also from our married friends, and even from those parents who have a single kid. It doesn’t really have to do with the level of difficulty of having three kids; quite frankly, our kids all put together probably add up to one kind of barely-not-easy kid. It just has to do with the fact that there are three of them. There are things we just can’t do right now. There are places we can’t go, things we can’t spend money on. We can’t live in a loft in the city. We can’t drive to Austin on a whim for a show. We can’t own a Mazda Miata.

But that’s okay. Because we have three kids.

It’s difficult to not feel isolated in a situation like this. It’s difficult to have reciprocal relationships that grow when it’s even hard to find time to cook anything more complex than a turkey sandwich for dinner. Relationships take time. Relationships take energy. For the past 10 months Christina and I have had a lot of discussions about struggles we’ve had relationally with others, and how easy it is to feel disconnected from a world that has very little understanding about what it’s like to be you. There really isn’t an easy answer to this one. I’m still figuring it out.

Really, all I can do right now is figure out how to be okay with understanding the weird uniqueness of our situation, and take joy in the everyday, even if that means forming relationships outside of my family will be harder. This loops back to my thoughts on time, and how life is made up of moments. When I can, I want to use moments to connect and collaborate with others in a meaningful way, but those moments might just be further apart than they used to be, like a really well-skipped rock, periodically touching the surface of the water lightly as it travels on its journey. Those ripples are connections, and are imperative, but just different for me now than they have been before. Like a sunset, or maybe a sunrise.

On adventure, story, and regaining imagination:

I feel like this part of the post is a lot less about story than the first half was. I think that stories exist to give us context for reflection, a gently rippling heat wave that can serve as a mirror, something that interacts with our perceptions in a way that, together, create a painting in motion that we can somehow understand. When I think back on this year, I remember everything in vignettes, bits and pieces of  fading, static sensations. I remember the icy road leading to the hospital early in Christina’s stay. I remember the questionable sushi from the cafeteria, and the sound of the light rail that passed right outside her window. I remember her struggle getting in and out of bed. I remember listening to their heartbeats twice a day, always with an elevated pulse of my own, never knowing what to expect. I remember tiny little fingers, and the first time they were wrapped around mine. Hiccups. Fake baby smiles. Crying, lots of crying. Late-night bottles and the constant hum of battery-powered swings. Then, finally, laughing. Recognition. Slowly, reaching for my face, fingers entangled in my beard. Playing with toys. Rolling over, then sitting up, then jabbering and teeth. Crawling. Standing.
Every moment is a snapshot leading to the next.

Christina and I talk often about how we want our kids to be adventurous. We want them to live lives that are worth retelling, and every day it hits home that it starts with us. This brings me to what my kids are teaching me today; that every day is new, and every day is an adventure. One side effect of having triplets it that there is no mundane. There is no coasting. Everything is pedaling, and everything is uphill. What I’ve learned to realize is that the most exciting part of the journey is the climb, even if it’s the hardest.

In summation, where my thoughts drift and I end poorly:

The challenge we’ve set for ourselves as parents is not easy. We’ve tried to nudge ourselves and our children onto a path of exploration, one that avoids the net of conventionality and ease, one that gives them a chance to make a path and understand their place. I’ve realized that it’s the very fact that we were pulled so suddenly out of our Normal into this world of Weird that has given us the freedom to relax, and know that nothing we do from here on out is “the normal way,” which just reinforces that we can approach everything creatively, with imagination. That’s what happens when it seems like you’re living in a surreal dream most of the time; a waking life where you can fly if you think about it hard enough, or eat as many cookies as you want and not get fat.

Or have three babies all at the same time. I think I’ll choose that one.

Time to turn the page I guess.

I was supposed to be living in a cabin in Mexico by now. The plan was straightforward: go to college, major in art (but do graphic design on the side, because that’s easy to teach yourself) and then take a year to hike the Appalachian Trail after graduation.

By this time I already would have ridden my bike across the United States and traversed the entire length of the Grand Canyon, and maybe take photos for National Geographic or something to pay the bills. I expected that after that I’d live at a national park for a while, maybe in the Rocky Mountains or Grand Tetons, probably as one of those park attendants who lives in an RV and kayaks a couple of times a week. After that, it’s time to head south, and find a little town in southern Mexico where I can live without a car, and where people take naps and play soccer every day.

I’d have my own coffee plants, so I could roast my own beans, and boot up my state-of-the-art Apple iProduct in my hammock (my INSIDE hammock) to communicate with my fawning clients via whatever high-speed satellite connection I was sure they would have inside computers by then. I’d whip up a website or something and make some money and then hop on my motorcycle and head into the city for an ice-cold Coca Cola at the cantina. I’d probably spend my evenings reading Tolstoy or teaching little Mexican kids how to play the guitar. That was the plan.

Last month I turned 27 years old. To me this seems both unfathomably old and unreasonably young at the same time; this paradox grows out of the fact that while I still struggle with the transitional insecurities of youth, I’m getting a little bit bald in the back, and am constantly confronted with questions of real consequences and value. This year has been the strangest in my life so far. Secretly, (or perhaps not so secretly) I’d be happy if it remained so for the rest of it.

In review: a design degree at 22, married at 23, mortgage at 24, kids at 26. Instead of living in Mexico I’ve found myself embedded in the ‘burbs outside of the perennial City of Suits, and instead of riding my motorcycle to the cantina I tend to ride a train to my quiet street where I hang out with my quiet wife and our three less-than-quiet children. I work at a perfectly stable job (which I love), where they let me wear t-shirts and take coffee breaks whenever I want, but it’s essentially a 9-5 career just like any other. Sometimes I play X-Box. Sometimes I read William Gibson novels. I’m really concerned with how the trim in my house isn’t a consistent shade of white, and I own a minivan.

Last year, when I turned 26, my thoroughly pregnant wife treated me to a night of “watching any movie I wanted to,” and since I have impeccable taste, I chose Scott Pilgrim vs. The World for our evening feature. As Xtina was reclining on the couch, she started making little “oof” sounds that told me the babies were kicking. They had recently started to move around in a noticeable way, though to this point their tiny kicks were too faint for me to feel with my hand. She said that it felt a little bit like she had a bunch of feathers in her tummy, very faint, and not something that was easy to explain.

“Quick, put your hand here, I think it’s Oliver kicking!”

I put my hand where she pointed, and waited. Nothing.

Meanwhile, Michael Cena was doing all kinds of kicking on-screen, empowered by the endorphin-fueled power chords of Beck and the frenetic, LSD-inspired world of Nintendo coin showers and Jason Schwartzman wielding a samurai sword that was probably 2x larger than he is in real life. Schwartzman had just swallowed his gum, and in a moment of purple-faced fury started to growl “YOU…MADE ME SWALLOW MY—”

*Kick*

Heart racing, I had felt that one.

Things changed.

The Part About Fear, Where it Sounds Like I Don’t Love My Kids and I Am a Selfish B*stard, a Little Bit.

1. On the illusion of control

Since the kids were born in early March, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Value and Perspective. I think this is a natural thing for new parents to go through, especially young parents for which having children is a natural progression, but not a struggle. Questions of how to spend my “free” time and the structuring of family/career balance have been natural topics of consideration, and frankly, of worry. The added knowledge that whatever new impacts a baby would bring to our lives would automatically be multiplied by three was a pretty heavy cloud over my head in the early days, one that seemed to appear and grow in proportion to Christina’s inability to be active in the later stage of her pregnancy, and remained through the early stages of the kids’ lives, which included a 5 week hospital stay and 24 total daily feedings. I struggled with two different feelings: one, of total adoration of these children and being awed by the miracle of their safe, healthy birth after a very unsure (and short) third trimester, but also I was constantly aware of a slight undertone of panic in my mind, one that feared that these kids would quickly wrest the steering wheel out of my hands and leave me scrambling to catch up.

2. On fear, and the loss of imagination

Perspective is a hard thing to nail down. Since it’s essentially the lens through which we make decisions and not the decisions themselves, all you can really see are the results of a perspective. Up to the point where I felt that first kick my perspective was always one of steady progress, working towards goals, never stop moving and never stop building. Those goals had changed over the years (the Appalachian Trail hike had been condensed to a 3 day, 30 mile trek through Shenandoah Valley the year before) but my determination to always improve on what I had already completed was what fueled the slow burn of my creative development. My imagination, while not a particularly nimble creature in comparison to others, was something I guarded more than anything else. The inevitable reality check of triplets was scary. Would it diminish my desire to create new things? Would I slowly stop caring about what I ate and get fat, be too tired at night to do anything but watch TV, not ever go to grad school? Most of us have grown up in an environment that frowns on “unnecessary risk,” one that views relaxation and lack of pressure as the desirable state of being (why is it that retirement is such a driving force in our society, after all?) and the home is often the physical manifestation of that attitude. Would having kids drive me deeper into suburban safety, a place that I already felt like I was teetering on the edge of? My perspective has been that to embrace safety is to lose imagination, and to lose imagination is to grow stale, and to grow stale is to become irrelevant. That was the last thing I wanted. I remember following middle-of-the-night solo feedings with 30 minute chunks of a Frank Lloyd Wright documentary or careful perusal of Eames photo retrospectives as I tried to understand how people grew older and yet maintained their creative vigor. Ironically, FLW was a terrible father and the Eames never had any kids, facts which were perhaps a little bit lost on me at the time.

3. The fear of detachment

The other fear that swirled in my brain was the unknown of how the kids would affect my relationship with Christina. I’ve actually heard the topic of relational prioritization discussed in the media more in the last year than I ever have before, perhaps fueled by the obscenely high divorce rates that we continue to deal with in the western world. It almost seems a given that once kids come they are given all-encompassing priority in the family, most often at the expense of the parents’ relationship.

“Kids first, then you, then me. If I have to choose, I choose the kids. You should too.”

To me, who believes that a healthy parental relationship is one of the quickest routes to relaxed and happy kids, that unknown was a scary one.

Stress is an interesting beast. I’ve lived on a steady diet of stress for a while, nothing unmanageable, but it’s been a constant for me since I started going to college. They say that a little stress is good for you, it can be what gets you out of the bed in the morning and to work on time. It can focus you, keep you awake when you need to be awake, and help you hit deadlines that otherwise seem insurmountable. The problem with a slow drip of the stuff is that after a while it builds up in your system, and you start to see signs of it that you wouldn’t have expected. The peak of my stress occurred in the last 2 months of Christina’s pregnancy, when we were in and out of the hospital several times a week as preterm labor contractions started hitting more regularly, and finally cultivating in a month-long stay beginning in February of this year. Christina was receiving injections and other meds to slow down the contractions, and we were never really sure how long they’d be able to keep the babies in there. The ramifications of early birth can be pretty severe, and her earliest hospital stints occurred early enough in the pregnancy where side effects of early birth would have been highly likely. I don’t ever think I’ve been mentally burdened with anything quite as heavily as I was with the weight of that insecurity. Every day I woke up wondering if that would be the day that I’d be a papa, and praying that the kids would be okay. That’s all you can do, right?

Thankfully,

We made it to 33 weeks. 33 weeks is still pretty early, 7 weeks early actually (but who’s counting?)

Coming Soon, Part II: Where I Grow Up and Finally Learn To Relax

As of last Tuesday, I’m the papa to a trifecta. My life is incomparably full. Here’s a taste: