Tripletville Adventures : March 2016

As most of you know, I am a high school teacher and some weeks there are some situations that occur that hit right in the gut. Yes, we had a bomb threat at the school this week but it wasn't that. It was the realization that one of my students was lost to us... He didn't die, don't worry, but he just gave up on life and has decided to live a life that will bring him nothing but devastation in his future. This has happened to me before, I have "lost" those types of students in the past, but now that I have kids, it makes losing them to that darker side of life a little more difficult. You know there is always a reason behind everything for the most part but sometimes it's just that they chose a group of people to hang out with that just aren't good people. We have "lost" students to this other world who has amazing supportive parents who just couldn't save their own child. The harder they pushed at trying to create boundaries and structure, the more the child resisted and rebelled. For the most part, those kids end up at alternative learning facilities and we never see or hear from them again. I thought I had made a connection with this kid in my first semester and really thought I was helping make a difference but our last conversation made me realize that I was just another adult standing in his way. This really made me sad. In my pre-child life, I would have thought it was all my fault and would have been hurt beyond belief but in this post-children life, I am more saddened by it all. I know that I played no part in the decisions that he made, he made them all himself in order to fit in with a crowd of young people who do nothing but jeopardize their future and sink it into the ground on a daily basis. It makes me sad because I know that sometimes, no matter what you do, your child can turn to the dark side and you may never get them back.

I had a moment tonight with Samuel where he looked at me with such love and admiration and with my heart full of love I held on to that moment as hard as I could and as long as I could because I know that in a fleeting passage of time, this little guy won't look at me like that anymore. Sure, he will love me, but he will won't think I'm the best person in his life. Jennifer, Kayla, Jack or Joe will become his life and the decisions they make will influence him more than I ever will. Sure, we will teach them the difference between wrong and right and we will make sure they know that kindness is key to everything in life but will that be enough for them to always make the right choices? I didn't always and some of those choices could have led me astray. I hope that my core values that I was taught growing up was what kept me on the mostly straight and narrow but was I just lucky? Will one of the boys fall in with the bad crowd? Can we really stop that? When I see good kids turn into kids I barely recognize, I get scared that I won't be a good enough mom to make my sons strong enough to say no when it counts. I, of course, can't predict the future nor will I be able to control all the decisions my boys make but I will do the best I can do and hope to God that I don't screw it up along them way.

So yeah, all I can say to those of you who have kids close to high school age, keep a close eyes on the friends your kids hang out with because 90% of the time, it's not you who will influence their choices but their friends. Sorry, just having a scared mommy moment.

Back to the regular programming...

We had SUCH a busy weekend!!! We had TWO birthday parties on Saturday and a movie event this morning on top of all the other million things we have to do over the weekend...

I drove up to Shediac on Saturday morning to get weighed and I brought Zachary with me. He did so great, even sat through the whole meeting just hanging out and looking around. I drove home just in time to get the other two ready to go, hop in the van and across the river to Riverview we went. My friend Sarah's son Isaac was turning three and she organized such a fun event! It was a toddler's dream! There was a colouring station, a hockey station, a bouncy castle!!!!! and lots and lots of balls to play with. The boys had a great time and ate a lot of food! We came home just making it on time for nap time.... which they didn't take. The boys are ruled by the routines we've set and the moment those routines are disrupted, their whole day is out of whack. After about an hour of hoping they'd fall asleep, we gave up and started getting them ready for party number two. They had such a good time there too just running around, eating junk and getting into trouble! We got home yet again, just in time for bed time. I do have to say that they were dead tired by the time the day was over and so were WE!

This morning we brought the boys to the movies. The Moncton Multiples group had put it on as an activity and we just figured that we would try it as we knew that no one would judge us if we had to leave... which we did... The boys did great before the movie, we had them all set up with some juice and popcorn. Jacob ate like a little glutton; almost finishing off a half a bag of popcorn by himself. We had brought them little bowls from home and all we heard from him was "more", crunch crunch crunch, "more" over and over again! When the movie started, all three were amazed by the huge TV in front of them, all was great for the first 5 minutes... and then the big scary elephant came on... it was ok for about 30 seconds and then all we hear is a little mouse squeak coming from Zachary which became more and more like a squeal then an all out cry as soon as Gab picked him up. He was so scared he was shaking. I took him out, brought him to the bathroom to pee and tried to talk him down. I asked him if he wanted to go back in and he said yes. We went in, he stayed on my lap and watched for a few minutes. I thought we were safe... and then the elephant came back on... it was over. He started squeaking and shaking all over again and I knew the gig was up! I got him out of there and Gab loaded up the rest of the crew and home we came. They enjoyed their experience and I'm sure they didn't know they didn't watch the whole thing. I'm sure we could have just stayed for the pre movie with the popcorn and the juice and came home without even having seen a second of the movie and they would have been just as excited. Toddlers are easy to please most of the time unless they don't want to do something and then game over!