The Great Fish Stick Caper

You know what one of the hardest parts of having triplets is for me? Go ahead. Make your guess. Excessive crying? Nope. Fighting and constant bickering, also known as biting? Nope. Doing everything times three? Nope. It's something that is probably so mundane for the rest of you, that you don't even have to think about it. Cooking for kids. Yup. Pretty much despise it.

Okay, it's easy in the sense that they just eat what I eat now. But that's just it. In my days B.K. (Before Kids) I pretty much contentedly survived on Lucky Charms cereal and Angel Hair pasta with Ragu. And I would eat those every night. And I liked it. Every night. My kids? Not so much.

So now I have to actually cook. Every night. (Granted, I use the word 'cook' loosely because sometimes that just means pushing buttons on a microwave, or smearing peanut butter on a slice of bread, or opening up a can of something....but whatever. ) Now I will say this- for the most part, my kids are good eaters. (Okay well, when I say my 'kids' I mean Colton and Hunter. Ethan....well..he falls more into the picky category.) So when I find something they all love, I literally dance with excitement and immediately go to the store and buy whatever it was, in bulk! Such was the case with fish sticks!

One time I bought them on a whim, actually thinking they really wouldn't eat them, but figured I'd try anyway. And they totally dug em! Yippee! Back to the store I went to buy MORE fish sticks! And that's what we had for dinner tonight. Fish sticks and scalloped potatoes!

But as I sat from afar and watched them eat, I noticed that Hunter and Ethan were really the only one who seemed to be enjoying them tonight. RATS! {But there are 85 more fish sticks in the freezer, I'm thinking to myself! Maybe if I try to entice them...} So I go over to the highchairs and play a rousing game a fish stick airplane! Oh Colton... NNnnnnRRRRRrrrrrr.... here comes the fish stick! Open wide!

Yes! He opened his mouth and took the fish stick! {Cue my victory dance!} And...then...he spit it back out. Mission failed. So again, I just walked away as I've learned that sometimes my presence is distracting and they'll eat if I just 'leave them be.' So I covertly watched them from around the corner and frankly all I could do was laugh.

It's nights like these especially that having triplets is so much fun. The way they interact with one another is just priceless. So as I watched them eat, not eat, steal, share, drop, hide their food, I grabbed the camera so that I could share this funniness with you all!

To say that I am amazed at how clever they are when it comes to this sort of thing and at such a young age, would be an understatement. Colton clearly did NOT want his fish sticks and he knew JUST what to do about it. Hunter clearly wanted more food and she knew just where to find it. Ethan knew exactly what to do with the rest of his food once he was full!

CRACKED. ME. UP.

So here is dinner-reenacted.

It began very subtly...Colton would take a fish stick from his plate and very smoothly reach over and 'drop' it into Ethan's high chair. Then back to his tray, to grab another fish stick, then once again, 'drop' it into Ethan's high chair...I lost count how many times he did this.

What I like best about this picture is Ethan and Hunter's expressions. "We didn't do anything wrong, mom."

But then, Colton caught my gaze. And he heard (and understood) what I meant when I gave him my sternest, "Colton, eat your food." So he momentarily stopped dropping food into Ethan's chair. But then he started doing this....

At which point, I {turned my back and laughed and then} said in my next most sternest voice,"Ethan, are you smuggling food for your brother?"

And so it was, after eating a lot of his own food, AND a fair amount of his brother's food, he decided he'd had quite enough. So he began to drop HIS remaining fish sticks overboard, for Piper, the dog.

Yes, Piper is gaining weight exponentially since these babies started eating real food. At LEAST she cleans up the floor for me...

And through all this, there's Hunter- Little Miss Sassafrass who went very incognito style in her attempt to steal food off Colton's tray while Colton was busy giving food to Ethan. Until he caught her. And let me tell you. He gave her the 'what the #$@ do you think you're doing' look? (As if he were SO attached to that food. My god, he'd already given most of it away anyway!) But he did NOT want her TAKING it without his permission.

So anyway. It's at this point that I can't take it any longer. I am seriously cracking up. So I walk over to them, put my hands on my hips, smile and say (in my 'teacher mommy' voice) "Excuse me. What is going on here?"

And the thing is, they TOTALLY get my humor. They all smile the biggest smiles ever and just like that, as if it will distract me from the crime scene, 6 little hands start waving wildly in the air, giving me the "ALL DONE" sign.

So one by one I excitedly cheer them on for using their sign language correctly and then go down the line and solicit a high five from each baby! Which I get!

I LOVE THESE KIDS!!