Today, Thomas, James, and Jack are the exact age that Ellie was when they were born. Both Wes and I recall a nurse who was critical of us having Ellie visit at the hospital. Though Ellie acted very well for her age, I now see from an outside perspective how young an almost two-and-a-half-year-old can seem, especially in that environment.
What stands out now is how mature Ellie was (and still is) and how much further along she was in her cognitive development than the boys are at this age. The professional in me is curious about gender differences, birth order differences, and simply the effects of being multiples. The mother in me worries and always wonders what we can be doing differently to advance their development. At the end of the day, I have to let it go and be grateful for normally developing children who are very healthy.
Looking back through the pictures of Ellie and the boys just after they were born was interesting. I don’t have much memory of Ellie looking like she did in the pictures, but I remember being with her and experiencing the events. It is almost like I take the image I have of her today and project that onto a two-year-old experience. I perceived her as very mature at the time, but I see her as baby-like in the photos. Now, more than ever, I feel the effects of lost time and days and months wished away. It still feels like we pass each stage with James, Jack, and Thomas with a sense of relief and victory and don’t really look back. Meanwhile, it is a much more nostalgic feeling when thinking about time and milestones passing with Ellie. It is odd to live in the middle of both realities.
The other thing I concluded from looking at the pictures are the similarities between Ellie and Thomas. I recognize this often, but I see the physical similarities highlighted here. One thing people often forget is that fraternal triplets are genetically the same as any set of siblings. So, Thomas is just as likely to have similarities to Ellie as he is to Jack or James. Besides the obvious similarities that occur in sharing a developmental age, I truly think Ellie and Thomas are the most similar of any combination of our children. They share the curly hair, blue eyes, fuller faces, friendliness, emotionality, tenderness, temper, facial expressions during tempers, and a zest for life.
Enjoy this trip down memory lane:
Ellie meeting her brothers for the first time:
Checking to see who's crying (hint: all of them!)
Keeping watch
Ellie and James (and they are best buds now, though not for the first two years)
Early days as a larger family
The Barry Patch 