July Fifth, Two Thousand Sixteen

Scene: It's June 25, Gill and I are sitting on the couch. The TV had recently died, so the wall-mount arm hovers ominously and uselessly over the proceedings. We’ve placed a back-up TV next to it. (What world do we live in where we have a back-up TV?)

The girls are writhing about on the gym mat that covers the space in front of the couch. Martha and Sadie are army crawling all over the place. Ellie had been a little slow on the uptake as far as pure mobility goes, but she still had been spinning, grabbing, kicking.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a head bobbing above the rest, by the couch. There’s my Ellie, just standing there, smiling, hanging onto the couch cushion.

The smallest, the lightest; the first to stand.

The next day we were filming Ellie's new trick, and at that moment Martha started crawling over to me at a breakneck pace. Then, showing off a newfound competitive streak, she grabs my leg and stands up too. Incredible. And very nice to have caught the moment on video. Observe, from June 25, 2016:

Then yesterday for the first time Sadie followed suite. As is tradition, whoever comes in third place gets a lot less fanfare. Luckily, she’s been first in other things, so all is fair.

And of course it's not a race. They’re all going to get there, wherever there is. Now more than ever I’m convinced that the trial of being born three-of-a-kind will leave no scars, no psychological weirdness, no lasting harm. These are beautiful, smart, strong girls. All of them. They’re doing great.

They’re starting to sleep in a little bit more, and are having scheduled nap-time (after the lunch feed). The trade off is that they’re a bit harder to put to bed. Sadie usually goes first, then Ellie, and trailing far, far behind is Mar. If she goes down right after the 7 feed, it’s usually a red herring - she wakes up, cries, and then gets 90 minutes with mom and dad all to herself. A clever girl, that Mar.

Awareness levels keeps on ratcheting up daily - so slow and steady, but the difference between the girls now and a month ago is stark. Fully alert, intelligent eyes, and communicating through garbled speech (Martha ‘da da da’, Ellie ‘ba ba ba’, Sadie ‘AAAAAAHHH!!!’). They’ll all be walking before their first birthday, guaranteed. Not bad for being born a month and a half early.

But, yes, the long and short of it is this: we now officially have three small, standing (and falling) people. Observe, from today: