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The boys need discipline.  Kung Fu movies always talk about discipline, so Mommy suggests that the boys learn Kung Fu.  Kung Fu movies constitute all that either Mommy or Daddy know about Kung Fu.  Daddy hesitates.  Kung Fu movies also involve a lot of ass kicking and Daddy is a little concerned about how old the boys would be before they could kick Daddy’s ass.  This could turn the whole discipline thing on its head.

Mommy and Daddy take the boys to a free introductory lesson.  Terrance is the Sifu. “That means teacher”, says Terrance.  Daddy suspects it means master, but master doesn’t translate well into American English.   Sifu Terrance starts the class.  Hands together, Terrance bows to the photographs of the lineage masters, bows to the school founder, and bows to the boys, “the future masters”.  The boys fumble around, distracted.

Terrance shows the boys how to stand.  Stance is important in Kung Fu.  Niko stands, sort of. Devon looks around the room, fascinated by the giant lion dance head.  Xander spins around and pays no attention at all.  Terrance shows the boys how to kick.  Niko sort of raises his leg.  Devon kicks Niko.  Xander starts to wander around the room.  Terrance corrals Xander.  More stances.  More kicking.  More distracted boys.

Terrance decides to teach the boys the ‘stranger danger’ game. He explains that they should not be talking to strangers alone because it could be dangerous.  The boys nod that they understand.  “Ok”, says Terrance optimistically, “I will pretend to be a stranger.  You boys stand there.  Then you walk toward me.  When I start talking to you, you run away and yell loudly ‘stranger danger’.   Ok?”  Xander starts walking toward Terrance.  “No, not yet, stay there; don’t walk until I tell you.”  Xander returns to the line.  Terrance picks up a baseball bat and a ball as stranger props. “Ok, come toward me.”  Nobody moves.  “You boys walk toward me now.”  As the boys approach, Terrance starts his act.  “Hi guys, would you like to play ball with me?” Terrance says evilly.  Niko smiles and grabs Terrance’s hand.  Xander walks right past Terrance to investigate something interesting at the door.  “Hello”, replies Devon brightly.  “Ok”, says Terrance with somewhat diminished optimism, “go back to the line.  Back to the line.”  The boys meander back to their appointed spot.  Sifu Terrance continues.  “When I speak, I want you to yell ‘stranger danger’ really loud and then run away.  Ok?  When I speak, yell and run away.”  Terrance then modifies his act and calls the boys forward again.  “Tranger danger”, says Niko enthusiastically, standing still.  Devon runs away … for a bit … and then immediately returns to examine the orange cone Terrance is using as the next prop.  Xander continues walking.  “Ok”, says Terrance in the even handed tone of someone with plenty of discipline and patience, “wait for me to speak before you yell ‘stranger danger’.  And then all of you should yell it, and then all of you should run away.  Let’s try again.”  Xander is headed out the door.  Devon is over visiting Mommy who is trying to shoo him back into his class.  Niko is on the line. Terrance gathers up Xander.  Devon joins his brothers.  “Ok”, says Terrance without a hint of frustration, “come toward me”.  All three boys walk toward Terrance.  “Hi there.  Would you like some candy?” says Terrance in mock friendliness.  “Yes, please”, says Niko.  “Tranger danger!” yells Devon while Xander sort of runs back, providing an encouraging hint of progress.

Daddy is impressed. Not with the boys so much, but with Terrance.  Sifu Terrance spent an entire hour with a class of three boys, not one of whom did what Terrance asked, and not once did he loose his even demeanor.   Maybe there was something to this Kung Fu thing.  Mommy signs the boys up for their first month of Kung Fu lessons.

Sei Ping Ma … horse stance.  Ding Ji Ma … bow stance. “Kung Fu difficult”, says Devon, struggling not only with the stances but also with the underlying basics such as which leg is right and which one is left.  Sifu demonstrates the stances repeatedly, but repeats them quickly, too quickly for Devon, whose intelligence shines in the quiet solving of complex puzzles. The world of rapid eye-hand coordination … not so much.  In the next class, Mommy is equipped with a video camera and films key teaching vignettes. She then shows Devon at home, picking up his body with one arm and positioning his legs with the other.  One step at a time.  One position at a time. Devon starts to learn.

Xander doesn’t have much commentary on Kung Fu.  He’s also not so interested.  Class time is spent mostly flirting with four year old fellow student Gracie.  All the boys flirt with Gracie, presaging teenage sibling quadrangles in the years to come, but for now Xander does little else.  Xander pokes at Gracie, tugs at Gracie, looks at Gracie, chases Gracie and, when not in class, asks when he will next see Gracie.  Mommy tries to set up a play date with Gracie, but Gracie is half Balinese, and Balinese Mothers apparently don’t mess around with frivolities like play dates for their daughters.  When not in Kung Fu, Gracie is studying ABCs, math and other academics, and when not studying she’s at swimming, when not at swimming … and so on.   Xander must content himself with flirting at Kung Fu.

Niko, the seeming heir apparent to Triplet Leader, works hard.  Niko kicks.  Niko jumps.  Niko stands, turns and listens.  Mommy works with Niko at home and shows off his Sei-Ping-Ma Ding-Ji-Ma Sei-Ping-Ma transitions to Daddy.  Daddy is impressed.  Mommy is pleased.

The other day Daddy showed mommy an article on parental favoritism, the tendency for parents to have a favorite child.  Favoritism is inevitable, the article says, as inevitable as best friends.  It’s also devastating to the children.  The un-favored child risks a lifetime of low self worth.  The favored child risks a lifetime of entitlement and arrogance.  Either way, favoritism’s a killer and few parents are immune to it, truth be told.

Daddy shows the article to Mommy.  Mommy thinks a bit and says, “I don’t have a favorite.”  “The article says every parent says that, but it’s not true”, says Daddy.  Mommy thinks a bit more.  Then she pauses.  It’s one of those long, deep, contemplative pauses, at the conclusion of which Mommy clarifies, “I have different favorites at different times.”  Mommy scores a direct hit on the only hopeful perspective in the article:  favoring different children under different situations.  Mommy has favorites, but the favorites change.  And when it comes to Kung Fu, there is no doubt who the Mommy favorite is:  Niko.

Mommy is pleased with Niko.  A pleased Mommy takes Niko alone to art class.  A pleased Mommy lets Niko go first for solo visit to Auntie Beverly.  A pleased Mommy pulls no punches in showing her pleasure.  Sifu Terrance is pleased with Niko and gives Niko his first stripe.  Niko is pleased with Niko and reminds his brothers at every chance.  “Niko work hard”, explains Niko.  “Devon, Xander, no work hard.”

The rewards get noticed.  Devon and Xander complain.  “Devon go art class?”  “Xander go art class?” “Devon get stripe?”  “Xander get stripe?”  “Not unless you work hard at Kung Fu”, replies Mommy.   Mommy doesn’t budge and rewards continue to rain down on Niko.

Devon turns a corner first.  “Devon work hard”, he explains after a chance to go to Kung Fu alone with Nanny Loann.  Out from under the shadow of his superior sibling, Devon shines.  He kicks.  He jumps.  He listens.  He works hard and pleases both Sifu and Loann.  This pleases Mommy.  Xander follows suit.  Xander, it turns out, has a love of kicking.  Xander kicks hard.  Whack!  Whack! … against the mat.  Xander works hard.  Once again, Mommy is pleased.

Mommy is so pleased, Mommy gets inspired.  Mommy wants to keep helping the boys, but what they are learning is getting too complicated for Mommy to follow just by watching; she wants to make sure she gets the subtleties right.  Mommy signs up for her own Kung Fu.

Mommy stands.  Mommy kicks.  Mommy works hard.  Every weekend Daddy comes home to another demonstration of what Mommy has learned.  “Here … grab my arms like this”, says Mommy.  Daddy grabs Mommy’s arm.  “Grab me hard”, clarifies Mommy.  Daddy squeezes Mommy’s wrists hard.  Schwoop!  Mommy twists and twirls and breaks free of Daddy, no matter how hard he grabs.  Mommy kicks.  Mommy kicks high.  Wow!  Mommy looks just like the movies!  Daddy is impressed.  Mommy looks hot.  Maybe this Kung Fu thing is good for something other than discipline.

Sifu is pleased with Mommy.  Sifu says Mommy has excellent control.  Daddy is a little ashamed … he just thought Mommy was a control freak.

Daddy is ashamed of other things as well.  Daddy looks in the mirror.  It’s one of those full length mirrors that women have installed when they move into houses so they can see everything clearly.  Daddy sees everything clearly.  What Daddy sees isn’t looking so good.  Daddy used to be a hard core mountaineer and that’s how Daddy likes to think of himself, but the mirror tells a different story, an updated story. The mirror tells the same story that the boys tell.

“Why Daddy belly so big?” asks Xander.  “Daddy ate too much hum”, says Daddy sadly.  Xander attempts to understand more fully:  “Daddy need go poo?”  “No”, says Daddy, “a poo won’t make Daddy’s belly go away.  Daddy ate too much hum for many years”.  Xander arches his lean frame backwards and thrusts his muscular abdomen forward with as much distension as he can muster.  “Daddy belly BIG!” pronounces Xander to a responding chorus of brothers laughing.

Kung Fu develops discipline.  In the ways of the body, Daddy has little these days.  Kung Fu develops speed, agility and flexibility.  Daddy has less than little.  Kung Fu teaches the martial art of fighting.  Daddy has never fought a physical fight in his life.  Kung Fu develops mastery of emotion and anger.  Daddy has a volcanic temper.  Kung Fu develops everything that Daddy is terrible at.  There is nothing further from what Daddy imagines himself being able to do than Kung Fu.  To Daddy, Kung Fu is pure unobtainium.

Daddy ponders the mirror.  Daddy talks to Mommy.  Mommy is encouraging.  Mommy is more than encouraging.  Mommy signs Daddy up for Kung Fu and brings home a uniform for Daddy.  It’s a large.  Daddy tries it on, but it’s too small.  Daddy needs an extra large.  Mommy encourages Daddy.  The weeks go by and Daddy still hasn’t made it to class.  “Daddy go Kung Fu?” ask the boys.  Yes, but not yet.  “Daddy go Kung Fu, now?”  No, not now.  More weeks pass.  More encouragement from everyone, and finally Daddy attends class.

Daddy bows to the photographs of the lineage masters, bows to the school founder, and bows to the others in the class.  Daddy stretches; Daddy does push ups; Daddy assumes the Horse Stance, none of it particularly well.  Sifu reminds Daddy to not push himself beyond what he is ready for.  No need to get injured, Sifu says.  Daddy twists and kicks and punches and jumps, flopping down exhausted and sweat drenched at the end of class, but with a smile on his face.  Daddy is happy.

Sifu compliments Daddy on being relaxed.  That’s good, Sifu says.  Relaxed?  Daddy thinks Sifu must have dug deep for something nice to say.

Daddy attends another class.  He’s all excited.  Mommy and the boys are excited.  It’s Kung Fu Family!!  Mommy and Daddy have been watching more Kung Fu movies.  Daddy starts to imagine that maybe, you know, maybe, if Daddy works hard, some of those things that Kung Fu develops could actually be developed in Daddy.  Daddy is hopeful.  Daddy goes to his third class.

After the stretching come the exercises.  In one of the exercises pairs of students kick a tall, vertical kicking bag from opposite sides.  It’s man-on-bag.  The only reason for the pairing is that it helps keep the bag from walking as it gets kicked.  Daddy is paired with a strong young man with colored fringes.  Fringes are a badge of experience, of which Daddy has none.  Every time Mr. Fringe kicks the bag, it wobbles decidedly toward Daddy.  Every time Daddy kicks the bag, Daddy wobbles more than the bag.

Daddy tries to hold his own.  Daddy tries to kick the bag at the same time as Mr. Fringe.  Daddy tries to kick the bag hard.  Daddy kicks the bag.  Kick!  Kick!  A sudden shooting pain and images of calf muscles recoiling up the leg in tight little knots of agony flash through Daddy’s mind as he instinctively finds himself hopping around the room on his remaining functional leg.  Sifu Terrance comes over to Daddy. Sifu suspects a cramp, probably underestimating Daddy’s inflexibility and overestimating his strength.  Terrance suggests a stretch to work out the cramp.  Daddy recoils in a flash of pain.  Sifu Terrance, in the barely detectable way of compassion tempered by a disciplined demeanor, flinches sympathetically.  Daddy bows to the room and departs early, calling for Mommy to meet him at class and locate a pair of crutches.

That night Mommy and Daddy watch a Kung Fu movie.  Kung Fu movies are always full of second chances.  The hero always gets his ass kicked and then returns to save the day.  Mommy and Daddy watch Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.  It’s disproportionate to the point of arrogance for Daddy to compare himself to Bruce Lee, but in the middle of the movie Bruce Lee gets his ass kicked, a broken back, and returns to make his mark on the world.  Daddy just got his ass kicked.  Inspired by his three Kung Fu boys, his hot Kung Fu wife with excellent control, and legendary Sifu Bruce Lee, Daddy hopes that he, too, will be able to return to develop the Kung Fu unobtanium that for a brief few lessons seemed to be obtainable.

Provided that Daddy works hard.

Before triplets, Daddy listened to other parents who loved to wax poetic about the fresh eyes with which children see the world. “Everything is new!”, they said, “Everything is exciting to children!”. Mystical traditions world-wide speak of seeing the world through these same fresh eyes, the eyes of a child. But Daddy is learning that this may not be the whole story. The truth may not be so simple.

Years ago Daddy used to do mountain search and rescue. Daddy’s team belonged to the Mountain Rescue Association (MRA), whose unofficial motto was “we will go anywhere to help anyone at any time for no charge.” MRA teams trained for steep cliffs, raging waters, high altitude, rock, ice, snow and all of the baddest of the bad rescue situations. The call would come in at 2am … lost climber in the Sierra Nevada. Daddy would grab his pack, drive all night, sleep for an hour and spend the next day or the next week traversing cliffs and rivers in search of clues and climbers. It was challenging! It was exciting! It was real-life life-and-death drama!

One of the greatest things about mountain search and rescue is getting helicopter rides. Helicopters sometimes ferry rescuers into the mountains for urgent placement in areas of high probability of success. Helicopters are cool! Helicopters accentuate the drama, the excitement, the beauty and everything that made search and rescue special for Daddy, including the danger. Although they present the image of hovering stability, flying a helicopter is akin to balancing a cue ball on top of a pencil. They constantly want to roll over and crash, and it is only the skilled reflexes of the pilot that keep the cue ball off the ground and in the air. As with most flying things, landing a helicopter is more dangerous than cruising in level flight. A dead vertical landing is more dangerous than an airplane-style landing. Landing in the wind is more dangerous than landing in calm air. Landing in a grove of trees is more dangerous than landing in an open field, the smaller the grove, the bigger the danger. And landing at high altitude is more dangerous than landing at sea level because the air is thinner and the blades have less to push against. So a high altitude, dead vertical landing in a small grove of tall trees with a wickedly high wind blowing is an exceedingly dangerous maneuver for a helicopter to perform.

And this is exactly the ride that Daddy was getting for a particular operation in Yosemite. The pilot was an ex-Vietnam veteran. He had seen it all, done it all, trained for it all. Only the most skilled and experienced of pilots would even attempt the kind of landing that he was performing. The engine was roaring at near full power to deal with the altitude. The mountain wind, gusting harshly from this direction and that, rocked the helicopter violently. The pilot, eyes scanning 360 degrees simultaneously, kept his wary attention on the towering caldera of trees that seemed just inches from the whirring blades. As the rocky, uneven ground slowly approached from below, the pilot abruptly spoke:

“I’m too old for this shit!”

You see, although the pilot had done it all and seen it all, he saw it a long time ago and had been doing it a long time. Although in that moment Daddy was enthralled with a sense of adventure, the pilot was jaded. This was not fun to him, it was just dangerous and stressful. Daddy was horrified. “No! No!”, thought Daddy to himself, “You are not too old for this shit. You are young! You can do this, at least one more time. Please don’t cash in your chips now! I’m not too old for this. It’s too early for me to go. I want to live. Hang in there!”

But Daddy has come to realize that it is not just craggy old pilots that encrust with the jade.

One of the first adult chores that the boys helped with was taking out the diapers, garbage and recycling. Every morning Daddy would change three diapers and throw them in the flip-top garbage can. Daddy would remove the liner full of diapers, tie it off, and put a new liner in the can. Then Daddy would take the little bag of diapers upstairs, grab the grocery bag of garbage from under the sink, add to it the grocery bag of recycling, and take the whole lot of it outside. Diapers and garbage go in the black garbage can. Recycling goes into the brown recycling can. On his way back to the kitchen, Daddy swings by the carport refrigerator, picks up a bottle of milk and brings it back to the kitchen. That was the highly routine morning routine.

The boys wanted to help. They wanted to help a lot. At first, mostly the help wasn’t helpful. Niko would toss a diaper into the can and miss. Xander loved to replace the new liner and tear it up in the process. Devon would haul the diapers upstairs and then drop them downstairs. Garbage got spilled. Bottles got broken and tops got tossed. Gates got slammed and Daddy got frustrated. But the boys wanted to help and worked hard, focused hard, practiced, prodded and bungled their way into an ever increasing proficiency with the morning routine. Diapers slowly started making it all the way to the big can without a miss.  Milk started making its way all the way back to the kitchen without a delay.

As they became more proficient, they even started to fight for the opportunity to help. No, Niko want to take out the garbage. Xander want the recycling. Devon want the recycling. Every morning Daddy had to divvy up the tasks … OK, Niko, you get the garbage. Who wants the milk and who wants the recycling? The worst days were the ones where there was no garbage or recycling to take out. Tasks needed to be subdivided into ever smaller jobs … OK, Niko, you open the door. Devon, you bring the milk back to the kitchen. Xander, you get to open the milk box.

Gradually, the routine of help became routine. The boys became proficient at dividing up the tasks, choosing their favorite, mastered opening the latch just within reach, and coordinating with Daddy on the final lift up to the can. “Hey, this isn’t so bad”, thought Daddy. “This could work. They are actually being helpful.” Daddy starts to allow himself to dream of the days ahead when three enthusiastic young teenagers pick up the skill saw and paint brush to help Daddy with the Daddy-Do projects. Things were looking up.

Until … the boys became too old for that shit. Overnight. First having clamored for the opportunity just beyond their ability, then struggling and working to master that opportunity, and finally having achieved a harmonious rhythm of productive effort, it all came to a screeching halt. They became jaded. There was nothing new to learn. The routine became work. Became boring. The boys moved on to greener pastures of experience. Nobody wanted to help with diapers. That was so last month. Nobody but Daddy took out the morning garbage or brought in the morning milk. Jaded.

There’s a baby gate at the top of the stairs. In the early days it would stop toddlers cold. “Grunt! Grunt!”, point! … meaning, “Daddy, open gate, please”. Then master of engineering Devon figured out the latch and, viola, he could open the gate with some effort. Niko learned from Devon and, being a little beefier than Devon, routinely opened the gate with ease. Xander tended to just bang on the gate in frustration and ask for help, “Niko, help!”. Infinitely proud of his newly acquired skill, Niko would scamper up the stairs and, viola, open the gate for Xander. After Xander learned to open the gate the borders were open … gate open, gate closed, gate open, gate closes … a free flowing stream of capable boys moving between floors. All was well.

Until they became jaded.

Gate opening has become no longer interesting, no longer a challenge, no longer evidence of developing manhood. It’s boring. It’s a hassle. It’s annoying. Now all three boys will gather by the gate like three fat old men sitting in their lazy-boys bugging the wife to bring them the TV remote. “Daddy, open gate, please”. If they had the vocabulary, Daddy is pretty sure they would add, “We’re too old for this shit!” It takes decades for hot-shot helicopter pilots to traverse from young warriors to jaded old volunteers ferrying rescuers into the mountains. It only takes a year or so for young toddlers to grow old, too old for their previous frontier of development.

Today’s exciting kid frontier is the morning bath and bed routine. The boys get up, make their bed,  remove pajamas,  take a shower, hang their towel, dress themselves and brush their teeth like troupers. Applying toothpaste to the brush without eating the paste, dropping the brush or smudging their clothes is just beyond the frontier. So is turning on the shower. But otherwise, they have become self-sufficient, proficient and productive. They love that they get to do all this stuff. It’s interesting. It’s challenging. The jade hasn’t set in. Daddy beams with pleasure watching three little monkeys hop up onto the bed dragging their three layers of blankets each, flipping them through the air just like Mommy does to lay them out, skittering around to the corners to neatly flatten the blankets down, negotiating with each other every morning about who gets the sailboat blanket and who gets trains. Voila … three boys make three neat beds.

But for how long?

When will bed-making go the way of gate-opening? Or taking out the garbage? Hell, the only reason Daddy makes the bed is that Mommy insists on it. “A tidy bed sets the tone for an orderly day and welcomes me back to the bed each night”, says Mommy. “OK, whatever”, thinks Daddy, who tends to launch himself into the day and not look back at the rumpled mess.  But Daddy knows that a rumpled bed will bring undesired commentary from Mommy, so Daddy makes the bed. Daddy is jaded, but his jade gets polished by Mommy. Which leads to one of the ways in which Mommy deals with jaded boys:

Rules.

The boys get rules. The boys must make their bed, hang their towels and brush their teeth. Non-compliance is not an option. They have learned how to buckle their own car seat. Now it’s exciting. Tomorrow it will be a rule. Mommy and Daddy polish the boys’ jade. What was once exciting becomes obligatory. It’s good polish. It’s good training. But … still … it’s still compensating for the process of becoming jaded to an ever more familiar world. Obedience to rules might mask the outer behavior of jade, but that doesn’t mean there’s no jade.

What’s a parent to do? It is true that children see with fresh eyes, but apparently only because children haven’t had the opportunity to jade up. But jade up they do, and they do it quickly. Daddy’s watching the jade crust up their perception of the world right quick. From what Daddy can see, the boys are using the same jade-prone eyes that Daddy has, they just haven’t seen as much. Same eyes. Just less experienced. What would really help is the ability to stay fresh, to not jade up in the first place. To be as excited about opening that gate for the 10,000th time as the first time. To be as committed to a tidy bed at age 40 as age 4, and not get jaded about beds at age 5. Daddy isn’t like this. The boys are not like this. Fortunately, there is someone who is like this.

Mommy.

When Mommy and Daddy got married, Daddy put in a skylight for Mommy just above the dining room table. Oh, Mommy loved the skylight. Mommy is a daughter of the sun and loves light. She loved how much brighter the room was. She loved how much more cheerful she felt during meals. She even loved how the moonlight would beam through in the evenings. And Mommy would tell Daddy this. Mommy would sit around the table at dinner and tell Daddy how much she loved the light, the brightness, the cheerfulness, the skylight, and how much she loved Daddy for having it installed. And Mommy would tell Daddy this each night. Each and every night, with the exact same enthusiasm, in the exact same level of detail and specificity, with pretty much the exact same wording, Mommy would regal to Daddy her love of the skylight. Every night. Night after night. Pure happiness. About that one skylight.

Daddy, like the boys, became jaded. “Ok, ok, I get it, yes, yes, you love the skylight, enough about the fucking skylight, already!” thought Daddy. It is Daddy’s great fortune that by the time those words made it to Daddy’s mouth, there had been some editing and softening. “Have you noticed, perhaps, my love, that you tell me every night, and don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy that the skylight gives you such pleasure and I do want to hear about it, however, it’s interesting to me, that you tend to, just a bit, tell me the same thing every, ok, well not exactly every, but many nights. You know. You tell me how much you love the skylight. Have you noticed that?” Daddy expected Mommy to have some grand realization about completely blanking out, being inattentive to the point of bizarre, and validating Daddy’s obviously objective observation of the facts of the matter: Mommy was repeating herself ad-nauseum, clearly a result of not listening to herself. Alzheimer’s came to mind.

“But I’m just in the moment, expressing my feeling right now how much I love the skylight”, replied Mommy with a mild surprise.

Oh. Feeling. Love. Daddy uses words to communicate information. Mommy uses words to communicate feeling. Daddy’s mistake was listening too much to the content of the message and not enough to the feeling behind the message. Daddy became jaded to the message, but Mommy stayed true to the feeling underneath the message, a feeling of love. Daddy’s subsequent thought was, “Well, if it’s just about the feeling, why do you need to talk so much? It’s distracting as hell.” What Daddy actually said was something like, “Oh. I understand.”, which worked a lot better.

But this is how Mommy avoids the jade. She stays with the feeling. Daddy tends to focus on the task and ignores feeling. That’s a helpful thing if you are standing in front of a Mastodon and throwing a spear, but less so in general. Which brings us back to those fresh eyes that children are supposed to have.

It’s not the eyes, it’s the heart. Their eyes cloud up with jade faster than a grey-haired veteran. It’s easy to miss this fact because they have so much ground to cover, so much new stuff to jade over. Children appear fresh because the environment is fresh to children. But deeper down, what’s happing with their heart? What’s happening inside? What’s happening with their feelings? Honestly, Daddy’s not sure. Mostly the boys don’t talk about their feelings. You know, guys. Or maybe they don’t know how, beyond “like” and “no like”. Or maybe they don’t know themselves how they feel.

But it occurs to Daddy that the progression of the boys’ internal feelings will be as important or maybe even more important than their simple, child-like fascination. Fascination fades and jades. It consumes an endless stream of fresh externalities … new things, new experiences, new challenges, new gadgets, new features on those gadgets never-ending. Feelings hold the possibility of love lasting, steady, unwavering, self nourishing, self replenishing. And although this may be a hypothetical problem for the boys 50 years from now, it’s a present moment problem for Daddy. Daddy used to defy death in adrenaline pumping dangerous helicopter landings while rushing to save the life of lost climbers. Now Daddy changes light bulbs and diapers with all the enthusiasm of the fat old man in a lazy-boy yelling for the remote. Daddy is most severely jaded. Daddy has not solved this problem and is thus incapable of resolving it for the boys.

It is utterly beyond Daddy’s ken what develops the Mommy-style feeling state inside the boys or himself. It is Daddy’s great desire that by some miracle this might occur.

Mommy is a woman of uncompromisingly high standards.  Daddy keeps expecting that any day now the grindstone of motherhood will soften Mommy’s limits and lower the bar.  But Mommy grew up in former Czechoslovakia under a totalitarian regime.  The Communists never broke her, they only strengthened her resolve.  Mommy’s father was held as political prisoner for over ten years and sent to forced labor.  The Communists never broke him, either, they only strengthened his resolve.  It is only just starting to dawn on Daddy … the boys may not break her, either.

The boys spent their first two years in an orphanage without toys or stimulation. They slept on bare, wooden cribs, and their entire world consisted of a few empty rooms with tile floors and bars on the windows. The boys look you straight in the eye.  As four year olds, they may still wear two year old pants, but their bodies are lean, ripped even, with a strength to weight ratio a rock climber could envy.  These boys will not go down easily.

The most powerful force in any conflict is not the one with the most strength or the biggest brain, but the one with nothing to lose.  Once you have given everything up, there’s no place to move but forward and no price is too high.  On this field of life, Daddy is a relative amateur among a household of titans.

The family was on vacation staying in a hotel.  If possible, Daddy books a configuration that has a separate bedroom behind a closable door.  The boys get the master bedroom.  Mommy and Daddy’s reward for taking the sofa bed is a night of relative peace and some sleep.  But this room was just a room.  And the boys love hotels.  Hotels make them excited, which keeps them curious, which keeps them awake.  With Mommy and Daddy trapped in the same room, perhaps a dim light or low volume TV to help Daddy unwind, sleep is impossible.  Daddy’s been driving all day.  Daddy’s tired and agitated.  The heater is making noise.  The boys refuse to sleep.  Food, water, promises, threats, timeouts, bribes, begging, wrapping, darkness, lightness … no prescription for sleep brings anything but more ramping up of the action.  The night drags on past midnight.  A long day of driving the next day wears on Daddy’s mind.  Something must be done.

From out of the frantic, sleep deprived chaos, Mommy concocts the ultimate timeout.  Her threat is clear and specific.  “If you don’t go to sleep now, you will sleep in the minivan.”

The minivan is outside.  It’s freezing outside. It’s dark and windy outside.  The minivan is parked far, far away.  This threat has an impact.  Eyes widen.  The action subdues.  They understand the threat.  The question is … does Mommy have what it takes to back it up?  Silence … for a moment.

No way can Mommy back up this threat.  It’s over the top.  It was probably not the best card to play in the game of parenting, but the words have been spoken.  Desperation prevailed.  And the boys are not stupid.  After sufficient intuitive reflection, they resume the night’s banned activities.  Sleep is not on the horizon.

Now it’s Daddy’s move.  His eyes are sullen and his mood is worse.  He thinks about the next day’s drive.  He thinks about the loss of parental integrity caused by vacuous consequence.  But he’s so tired, he’s not really thinking clearly at all.  Daddy stands up.

“OK, boys, you heard what your mother said.  Let’s get our shoes on.  We’re headed for the van.”  Daddy puts his jacket on.  The boys are stunned.  “Noooo!”.  “Come on, boys, let’s go.  You’re sleeping in the van tonight.”  Daddy puts his shoes on.  “Get your shoes on, boys.”  “Nooooo!!!!”.  Daddy grabs a boy’s hand and ushers him over to the pile of shoes next to the door.

The crying begins.  Real crying.  After two years Daddy has heard a lot of different cries, different tones and different timbres, but this one was new.  This was the deep, pitiful cry of the damned, lamenting the horrific fate that awaits them.  Mommy hides her face … she can’t bear it.  Daddy’s insides are being ripped to shreds.  Daddy’s mind is struggling with how far to run with this charade … how far does he have to walk down this path before he can back down.  If there was anyone in an adjacent room, Daddy assumes they’ll be on the phone with the management within minutes.  These are not the kind of cries that anyone with an ear and a heart can ignore.

And in the midst of it all, the most impressively frightening thing was yet to be noticed by Daddy.

It turns out that only two boys were crying.  Xander was silent.  While Daddy was struggling to get Niko and Devon over to the pile of shoes, Daddy failed to notice that Xander quietly walked over to the end of the room and put his shoes on.  Daddy only noticed when Xander started making noise about not being able to open the door.  Xander was on his way to the van.  No complaint.  No problem.

That … was power.

This boy is four years old.  Scale up that level of willingness to take whatever comes and you have a man who might do what you say, but only as long as he decides to.  Daddy worries a bit.  Daddy worries about the days ahead when uncompromisingly high standards meets steely eyed, orphanage hardened teenagers.

Upon seeing that Xander was headed to the van, Daddy knew that his bluff had been called.  Was Daddy ready to drag screeching-of-the-damned triplets down the hall, past the front desk and into the freezing, windy night?  No.  Not a chance.  With Xander standing there in his shoes futzing with the lock and two boys gripped in fear, it was time to offer an armistice, a last chance for detente.  Go to bed now and we forgo the van.

The boys took the deal.  Xander, still nonplussed, pulls his shoes off and returns to bed.  Niko and Devon follow.  The crying subsides.  Probably more from exhaustion than any real change in attitude, the boys finally slip off to sleep.  Mommy and Daddy, having achieved no moral, parental or educational victory, settle for the simple reward of sleep as well.

In the time Before Triplets, every father Daddy ever spoke with about his children said some version of the following:  “Oh, god, they are a pain the ass, but don’t get me wrong, I love them and wouldn’t change a thing”.  Or “My kids make me soooo angry.  It’s really difficult.  And they’re great. From the highest highs to the lowest lows”.  One father went so far as to describe his children as “parasites that suck the life out of me” followed by, as is typical, “and I love them dearly”.

Back then Daddy-to-be figured they were telling the truth about the first part and lying about the second.  Fathers spoke about the difficulty with passion.  Fathers spoke about the love with timidity bordering on political correctness, as if they knew it wasn’t ok to just plain hate being a father, or as if they couldn’t admit to themselves their regret at having signed a lifelong contract.  Why couldn’t fathers just say straight up how they felt?   The closest thing Daddy-to-be ever heard that sounded straightforward and honest was, “I think children are cute so that their fathers don’t eat them.”  Daddy-to-be knew some guys who would enthusiastically say, “Oh, man, I love kids.  They’re so funny and un-self conscious.”, but those guys were single Uncles.  It’s not the same.  Otherwise, it was always “this but that”.   Why was there always a “but” in the sentence?

Daddy is reading a book called Reality.  The book is an analysis of the esoteric poems by Parmenides (Greek, ca. 550BC).  Parmenides’ poems are often quoted by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and are generally credited by historians as the seed of our western values for logic and reason (in ancient Greek, logos).  You can draw a straight line from Parmenides to western civilization.  The author, Peter Kingsley, builds the case that, starting with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Parmenides’ poetry has been completely misunderstood, mistranslated and distorted.  Logos in ancient Greek did not mean logic; it meant ‘word’, as in the word of god.  Parmenides was not advocating for the use of thought and reason; just the opposite, Parmenides’ paradoxical poetry presents the message that we of humanity are lost and confused in a house of mirrors, that the more we reason and think our way our way out of it the more lost we become, and that the only hope is to surrender to the direct guidance (logos) of divinity.

So … what does this have to do with children?

Parmenides’ poetry is highly paradoxical.  It constantly contradicts itself.  Previous interpretations were that Parmenides liked to be flowery and often didn’t mean what he said.  Kingsley takes the point of view that Parmenides was an accomplished mystic, that his work was a direct channel of his shamanic journeys to the underworld.  His poetry was logos.  And, like the world itself, it presented an illusory mirror in which we can see what we want.  We can see ourselves.  When Socrates, Plato and Aristotle looked into that mirror, they saw reason and logic, and Western thought was born.  But the real message is that his poetry, and the world in general, presents nothing more than a mirror in which we see ourselves.

Daddy thinks children are a little bit like Peter Kingsley’s view of Parmenides’ poetry.  They are closer to logos than we are, closer to the divine source.  But whereas our imaginations want to believe that closer to divine implies closer to bliss, Parmenides reminds us that this is not the case.  Logos makes them paradoxical mirrors for all who gaze upon them.  We see in them everything, everything we love and everything we hate, everything we accept and everything we reject.  Fathers speak of their children in sentences with polarized extremes not because they lack the courage to tell the simple truth, but rather because the truth is not so simple.  They are a pain in the ass, and we do love them.

As a personality, Daddy has a reasonably conceptual relationship with humanity.  Daddy is a nice person but you wouldn’t call him a warm person.  Daddy treats people well because he thinks people should be treated well, not because he genuinely opens up with warmth in his heart.  Daddy can probably count on his fingers and toes the number of people who over the course of his life have truly tugged at his heart, tugged in that way that you think about them when you are away from them; you smile at the thought of seeing them again.  Luckily, one of those fingers counts as his wife.  But, oddly, three of those fingers go to the boys, these little beings who simultaneously count among the bucketfulls of people whom Daddy has, in a rash moment of uncontrolled frustration, thought the worst of thoughts about.  Before triplets, if there was something in Daddy’s life so completely annoying, he would simply have removed it from his life or removed himself from it.  Loving it was unthinkable.

No earthly experience prior to children could have created such a paradox inside of Daddy.  Children are indeed the ultimate manifest paradox, the ultimate mirror, an earthly gateway back to the source from which they recently arrived.

Fathers used to tell Daddy that as well.  “Boy, you really see yourself in your kids”.  Daddy thought that was simply genetics at work.  Daddy didn’t understand.

Daddy’s lucky.  Daddy gets to “go to work”.  Daddy helps with the triplets, but he also does Daddy work.  Before Triplets, Daddy’s work felt like work.  Daddy thought work was hard.  After Triplets, work feels like relief.  Sometimes Daddy wonders if children were the reason corporations were created … places for Daddies to create something they could control.

Mommy takes care of the triplets.  Mommy is with the triplets all day.  Every day.  Mommy is going a little crazy.  Would you like to know what Mommy’s life is like?  That’s impossible, of course, unless you adopt triplets.  But let’s listen in on Mommy’s brain.  These are what Mommy’s thoughts sound like:

… gotta get more bread Xander stop hitting me Devon don’t touch that bing! dryer is done turn down stove this could use some broccoli Xander! I told you to stop hitting me open gate close gate Devon give the toy back to Niko I’ll be right back hey where did this spot come from where is the spot remover what’s that sound need to tell Daddy to fix the doorbell open gate close gate Devon! that’s a timeout mister where did Daddy put that pillow now you stay there until the timer rings where is the third boy oh the stove is the quinoa burning? where is that broccoli! this fridge is too full need a second fridge Niko don’t climb that No!  that’s a no-no bing! yes you can come out now put pillow back house is a mess I really must clean my desk boys! boys! no no no no no get down off that …

Mommy calls this multitasking.  Daddy calls it insanity.  Mommy can track a hundred things at once.  Daddy can hit a nail with a hammer, but only one nail at a time. Before Triplets, Mommy devoted a lot of attention to Daddy, although he wasn’t called Daddy then.  Did Husband take his herbs?  Did Husband get a spot on his shirt?  Did Husband fix the broken widget?  Did Husband exercise today?  Daddy thought that with Triplets, all that would change.  Daddy thought that with triplets, Mommy wouldn’t have time to worry about Daddy.  Daddy thought that After Triplets he would be off the hook.

Daddy was wrong.  It’s amazing what Mommy can keep track of.  It’s amazing what Mommy bothers to keep track of.  Mommy still tracks Daddy … Daddy herbs, Daddy spots, and Daddy-do’s.  Mommy also tracks three boys … Boy herbs, Boy spots, Boy-don’t-do’s. Mommy tracks the house and garden, converting them to new Daddy-do’s.  Above all, Mommy tracks two refrigerators worth of food.

Daddy got a frantic call from Mommy the other day.  Mommy was out of goat milk.  Mommy tells Daddy excitedly, “They didn’t have any goat milk. I went to the small Whole Foods and they said maybe Friday, and I came back Friday and it wasn’t there and the guy said tonight, so I came back tonight and no goat milk.  Where’s the goat milk? The lady said that they are actually never supposed to say when something is going to arrive because they really don’t know. So he lied.  How can they do that?  How can they call themselves a health food store and not carry goat milk?  I went to the big Whole Foods and they said they don’t carry it.  But this is a health food store, I said. And the woman said haughtily ‘we’re a grocery store’ – well then, if you’re just a Safeway, there is no need for me to spend a Whole Paycheck here.  I’m not shopping here any more.”

Daddy tries to add a little perspective.  “You know, it’s just milk we’re talking about. We could get them cow’s milk.”

“Oh, no, they are sensitive to lactose.”  Daddy might as well have said, ‘we could give them vodka’. “They miss their goat milk.  Last night all the boys were crying, ‘No goat milk?  Where goat milk?  Milk please.’  You don’t know because you’re not there but the boys count on their goat milk.  Not having goat milk is a problem.  They love their goat milk. “

But Daddy does understand.  Daddy understands that he’s going to have to look for goat milk.  Fresh goat milk.  Just fresh goat milk.  Organic or very close to it, of course.

Daddy goes to the Whole Foods across the street from work.  No goat milk.  On his way home he stops at the Whole Foods in Cupertino.  No goat milk.  In Palo Alto?  Sixty minute’s worth of detour added to a ninety minute commute and still no goat milk.  When Daddy gets home, Mommy is gone.  Where?   Mommy drives ninety minutes round trip to the Shangri-La of grocery stores, Good Earth, in Fairfax from which, finally, Mommy returns with goat milk.   Mommy is victorious.  The boys are elated.

Mommy plans, schedules, and chauffeurs swim lessons, gymnastics, soccer class, music class, doctor visits, play dates, hikes, bikes,  parks, food cooking, food shopping, internet shopping, nanny help, neighbor visits, poops, pees, and runny noses.  She keeps an annotated spreadsheet of every piece of clothing she’s ever purchased for the boys, with images, to insure that every shirt, pants and pajamas thematically match without being identical.  Mommy snaps photos by the thousands, downloads and organizes them by date, activity and ‘best-of’.  Mommy insists that the boys eat their meals European style … fork in the left hand, knife in the right, and never touch the food with their hands.  The boys eat with more style than Daddy.  Mommy is consistent and persistent.

Sometimes Mommy yells when boys don’t listen.  Mommy doesn’t understand how boys cannot listen at such high volume.  “What’s wrong with his ears?” Mommy exclaims.  Mommy doesn’t fully appreciate the male species’ ability to tune out all distraction, and focus with laser-like intensity on whatever silliness grips their current fascination.  But simply tuning out Mommy, as bad as that is, doesn’t compare to what happens in the worst case.  The worst thing that a boy (any of the four of them) can do with Mommy is get defiant.  Boy defiance meets only Mommy defiance.  A defiant Mommy recedes into secret places from which there is no light and no progress.  Without some change in strategy, a cross-armed, foot-stomping, angry-faced boy will find himself in maternal darkness for all eternity.

This is where Daddy comes in.

Daddy mediates on behalf of the boys to train them in the ways of Mommy.  Daddy is a well trained husband whose extremes have been rounded on the grindstone of a thousand failed relationships.  Daddy knows how to coax light out of the deepest black.

“Niko!  Come here.  This is what you have to do.”  Niko is petulant.  He doesn’t want to cooperate.  He doesn’t want to change.  He wants Mommy to soften and he wants it now.

“Mommy no listen!  Mommy need listen!” says Niko.

“That’s not going to happen”, says Daddy matter-of-factly.  “Either you do as I suggest, or you’re in for a long spell without Mommy” Niko hesitates.  But the boys have learned.  Just as Daddy has been trained, the boys have been trained as well.  Remember, Mommy is nothing if not consistent.  Niko knows that Daddy is right about Mommy.

Daddy coaches Niko.  For just as steadfastly unreachable as Mommy is in the face of defiance, she is impossibly available, open and loving in the face of apology, love, and tenderness.  “I’m sorry.”  “I love you.”  “Submissive bear.”  The combination to unlock Mommy’s heart is not a complicated one, but it must be applied with absolute sincerity, good intention and forgiveness.  Niko starts to repeat the words, but he says them defiantly.  “I’m sorry!”.  “No, no, no, Niko, you have to mean it.  You have to actually be sorry, not just say it.”  Niko practices.  Daddy coaches.  Devon and Xander join in with suggestions of their own.

The most powerful conflict resolution technique among the Manns is “submissive bear”.  It’s a family tradition.  Years ago on Mommy & Daddy’s honeymoon, then Bride and Groom were traveling in Yosemite.  Mommy was asking about bears.  Daddy had learned much about bears during his years as a backpacker and mountain climber, especially in the wild Alaskan bush.  For Black Bears, such as you find in Yosemite, the general advice in the event of a confrontation is to make a lot of racket and scare it away.  For Grizzly or Brown Bears, such as you find in Alaska, the advice is the opposite.  You do not want to take a confrontational stance with a Grizzly.  You will lose.  If confronted by a Grizzly, one turns to the side, looks down, hunches over gently, and presents a posture that in bear language communicates submission.  Mommy took that explanation to heart.

A few years after that, Daddy was really angry with Mommy about something or other.  Mommy was in the wrong about whatever it was and Daddy was right and nothing gets Daddy into a lather quicker than being both angry and right.  Daddy, red in the face, was starting to raise his voice.  Mommy turns to one side, looks down, hunches over gently, holds her hands close to her chest with paws folded down and says, “Submissive bear!”.  Instantly, Daddy was defused and the conflict ended, and ended in laughter.

Niko, now prepped, heads over to Mommy.  Mommy, highly suspicious, begins to lean away.  Daddy assists with a door opening introduction.  “Mommy, Niko has something he wants to say to you.”  Mommy relaxes.  Niko approaches.  “Torry Mommy.  I luv you.  Sut-missus bear.”  Mommy melts.  Mommy hugs.  Mommy and Niko tear up.  Mommy radiates healing love that washes away whatever it was that set off the now long past defiance.  And after a little educational conversation, all is well.

Daddy is grateful beyond measure to have met and married Mommy.  Daddy still doesn’t fully understand how Mommy picked Daddy.  Daddy thinks he married out of his league.  Daddy thinks Mommy is an awesome mommy.  Daddy doesn’t understand Mommy most of the time, gets driven absolutely crazy by her some of the time, but deeply loves her all of the time.