Moving Slowly

The march to the holidays and Christmas specifically is slowly marching on. With the triplets being young and a major undertaking to bring anywhere, we've decided to not go anywhere this year and instead have opened our home to friends and family.

It looked like we were just going to have our close friends here for dinner, with my family having Christmas at my youngest sister's house, but in true trailer-trash fashion, she finds a way to jeopardize everything and gets thrown in jail for almost two weeks because of fighting with my mother and niece and having three outstanding warrants for her arrest. To top it off her husband just lost his job for reasons I am not clear on and they don't have money for themselves for Christmas (or presents for their kids) or even rent and food. Merry Christmas huh?

My sister has things like this happen to her all the time. She refuses to do the right thing and instead lives solely for the pursuit of her desires and pleasures to the detriment of her kids and husband. Drugs, alcohol, and material gain are all placed adoringly ahead of the important basics of shelter, food, and health for her and her kids. In the past my wife and I have opened our home to them and bought them a van, gotten them jobs, kept their family together, and put them on the path to living a smart and secure life; but they have thrown it all away again and I no longer the ability to assist them even if I wanted to. My biggest task will be to try and resist feeling guilt or pity when the inevitable happens.

In more pleasant areas, the kids have just been great. For sure they have their moments of crying, whining, and being all-around cranky, but they're babies and teething and that's to be expected. Each day I get to spend with them I can almost feel the bond between us growing stronger and stronger. I might just be imagining things, but I think I see them each being a bit more calm and happy when I am holding them or near them. The crying seems less, the smiles seem greater, and they are always focused on my voice and my image to see what is happening. It's like getting hit in the gut with sledgehammer--it that strong and overpowering---except it's a joyous rapture.

Today also marked the first major excursion I've ever taken with the babies. I had to make a stop at work today to drop something off, so I loaded up the kids and we all went out. They are too big to use the smaller strollers, so I packed the big triplet stroller and they got to meet some of my co-workers. They were a big hit and everyone was wonderfully nice to the four of us. Thankfully the kids were all in great moods and they put on quite a show of smiles, coos, and giggles for everyone to see. Perrin was exceptionally happy when I picked him up to show him off. It just makes for a great experience.