23/2/96

The Threeness Of It All

The concept of ג€˜one for all and all for oneג€™ can get pretty absurd.

    My mother-in-law -- this sounds like a joke, but I swear it's true -- was chatting with a friend about The News that my wife Wendy was pregnant with triplets. "Worst case scenario," she said with fine British snootery: "They'll all be girls, and they'll all look like him."   
    Well, they are, and they do, and after five years she still doesn't forgive my pushy genes. Every time she comes for a visit, she brings up the subject. She puts on a brave face, pats me on the cheek and says reassuringly, "Well, they're cute, even if they do look like you."
    That look-alikeness is the amazing thing about them: triplets are a rare enough phenomenon -- even more so when it's the work of nature rather than science -- but identical triplets is uncanny.
    I suspect they used to think all children were born three at a time. Once, when they were about two years old, we were out for a walk. A couple proudly walking their twins passed us, and one of my girls exclaimed: "Look, Daddy! Only twins!"
    Having 'em three at a time has been, shall we say, not without its moments. The biggest problem is that a threesome makes for very unnatural relationships -- with each other, with their parents, with the world around them. The triangle, troika, triumvirate: treble trouble philosophically as well as practically.
     Especially because they're all of the same gender.
    There's no way to separate them into a more comfortable arrangement of two and one; we can't mollify them by saying, "Let your younger sister go first," or, "The two boys will hold Mummy's hand, and the girl, Daddy's hand." Everything has to be in threes.
    When we read to them, one does not have a lap to sit on; when we go out for a walk, two trip over each other trying to hold my hand together; you can imagine what it was like when Wendy tried breastfeeding them.
    Almost anything people do together isn't done in threes. Three's company no matter what we're doing: dancing, cuddling or playing, in the car or at the dinner table ("But I want to sit next to Mummy"). We always have this same conflict to resolve: which one to leave out.
    It's serious stuff, because at this age, children are intensely possessive of their parents, and very competitive (rabid jealousy, thank heavens, won't rear up for a little while yet). Even singlets strive to establish themselves to their parents as Numero Uno; among triplets, it's war.
    Do you get the idea we've been reading up on child psychology?
    Any way you slice it, it ain't fair. Literally. You ever try slicing an apple in three exactly equal parts?
    Wendy once asked an expert on multiples at what age our girls will learn to cope with this menage a trois. The woman's answer was: "Probably never."
    There are, of course, advantages. I told them about the Three Musketeers, the moral, of course, being that they should stand up for one another, that they form a formidable front as a trio. The lesson paid dividends the very next day. When I came home from work, they couldn't wait to tell me.
    Donna: "A little boy threw sand at Nomi."
    Me: "Aha! And what did you do?"
    Donna: "I hit him."
    Me: "And what did you do, Odelia?"
    Odelia: "When he got up, I hit him too."
    The concept of "one for all and all for one" can go to pretty absurd lengths. Once, Nomi had an upset tummy. The other two gathered close around her, and solemnly placed her head on their laps and tenderly stroked her face. It was very moving. Wendy gently suggested to the two loving sisters that perhaps Nomi would prefer to be alone. They objected. "But Mummy," one of them said, "if Nomi's going to vomit, we want to be here to watch." 

I THOUGHT it would be a good idea to involve the triplets themselves in solving dilemmas.
    "OK, girls, here's the problem: there's two wheely toys, and two squeezy toys, and there's three of you, and you all want the wheely ones. What do you think we should do?"
    "I have an idear."
    "No, I have a better idear."
    "I have two idears so I want to say them first."
    Alright, so even the solution creates problems, but once we decide who will state their "idear" first, second and third, they manage to work it out:
    Nomi: "This is what we should do: I will let Donna and Odelia play with the wheely toys, and me and Daddy will play with the squeezies."
    Me: "Uh, but I want to read the paper."
    Nomi: "Then I want to play with the wheely."
    Odelia: "I have a 'gestion. I don't want to play, so I'll sit on Daddy's lap and read the paper."
    Donna: "Me too."
    Nomi: "Me too."
    Me: "But I only have two laps. So what should we do?"
    Odelia: "Put down the paper and I'll sit on your stomach."
    Donna: "Yeah, we'll take turns sitting on your stomach. Me first."
    Nomi: "No, me."
    Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But you must admit, we solved the problem of the toys very neatly.
    I was struck by the extent that this dilemma is a part of their psyche when we were visiting friends one afternoon, and the woman pulled out a big box of toys. Little Donna promptly gave her some sound advice: "Oh, don't give us any good toys, we'll only fight over them." I realized then that we were developing some sort of self-denial neurosis.
    More recently, my parents returned from abroad with some dandy gifts -- three of everything, naturally. At the end of the distribution, my mother pulled out of her bag one especially enticing toy. They were ecstatic. "Now girls," she said, weighing her words carefully, "I could only find one like this, so you'll have to share it. If not, I'll give it to your cousin. Do you think you can share it?"
    And Donna, with exquisite introspection, responded: "No."
    Other approaches worked until the girls figured a way to beat them, too. I tried democracy for a while. Three girls, three votes: couldn't fail, right? (I thought it best not to explain the concept of abstaining.)
    "Why are you arguing?"
    "We want to watch a video and they don't want to watch what I want."
    "But honey, it's two against one, so let's be perfectly fair about it: let's vote."
    "OK. I want Wizard of Oz."
    "Aladdin."
    "Winnie the Pooh."
    "Oh."
    Another wily approach they outmaneuvered was reverse psychology. This one came to me during the daily bath one evening, when they were debating who should get the shampoo first, a highly sought honor I am at a loss to understand. In the middle of the shouting, Donna surprised me by calmly announcing that she would gracefully accept being last. I seized the opportunity to teach them a valuable lesson. I rewarded Donna's generosity by letting her go first.
    Sure enough, the next day:
    Nomi: "I want to be last."
    Donna: "No, I'll be last."
    Odelia: "But that's not fair, you were last yesterday."

ONE OF THE best aspects of tripletness is that my kids are never bored, never lonely. We've never had to deal with the classic "Mummeeee, what should I dooooo?"
    Nevertheless, it took them a while to realize that conventional child's play just doesn't work well in our family. One afternoon, they were having a fine old time role-playing in the living room. After a while, Odelia came running to me in the kitchen, weeping bitterly.
    "What's wrong, sweetheart?"
    "We're playing 'getting married.'" 
    "So? That sounds like fun."
    "But nobody wants to marry me."
    Eventually, the girls began inventing games for three. The very best was an imaginative spoof of their own tripletness. This, too, happened one evening at bathtime.
    Nomi suddenly turned to one of her sisters, and mimicking an adult, said: "Who are you?"
    Donna: "I'm Nomi. Who are you?"
    Odelia: "I'm Donna."
    Donna: "Oh, you look like Nomi."
    Nomi: "Maybe you're Odelia."
    Odelia: "Really, I'm Nomi. And you sound like Donna."
    Donna: "Actually I'm Odelia, no, I mean Nomi."
    Odelia: "But I'm Nomi."
    Donna: "Oh, then maybe I'm Odelia."
    Sometimes I really do confuse one for the other, but they usually set me straight. I once gave Odelia a severe chewing out for being naughty. She listened politely, and when I had said my piece and informed her she would be punished, the child responded: "That's OK, I'm not Odelia."
    Yes, we know this is a harbinger of more enterprising fun and games to come, when the girls fully realize the wallop of their potential.
    We've already had a taste.
    Walking home from kindergarten one day, Nomi was very pleased with herself. "I played with Guy today," she said. "But he thought I was Donna."
    Wendy responded: "So you told Guy you're really Nomi, right?"
    "Of course not," the little 'un exclaimed petulantly, "because yesterday he knowed I was Nomi, and he didn't want to play with me."
    (This sort of fraternal chicanery is not uncommon among older identicals; not long ago I read that in England a man sued a woman for impersonating her twin sister, who happened to be his girlfriend. He lost his case.)
    Donna, the most analytical of the triplets, had already, at the age of four, begun to worry she might fall under the Jewish Mother's Curse -- "You should have children just like you."
    She confided to a friend of ours that this will absolutely not happen to her when she's a mommy. "I'm only going to have one child," she announced. "Three is too many."