Family Forum / Parenting / Twins / December 2004

When we decided to start trying around August... I knew I wanted to be pregnant
in time to have the baby by the Sept 1st cut off for school.  The girls would
be close to three and a little more independent and hopefully potty trained.
It was all very idealistic.  Up until this summer though, I wouldn't have even
considered getting pregnant.  It was too tough keeping up after E+A.  

~Kimberly
Mommy to Alexis Iliana 07/17/99 and
Emma Elidia & Aislyn Gabriela 10/01/02
come see us...
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/a/aislynemma/

Our fourth came 4.5 years after the triplets.  It made life easier at first
that the older ones were not poking her in the eye, hitting her with blocks,
etc, although we still had to be careful that they didn't crush her with
their love.  It also helped that they could dress and feed themselves and
were potty trained.  It was also nice that they were in school and I had
time with the baby, as Cindy said.

As time goes on, however, I am somewhat regretting it (not that we had any
real say in the gap at all, it just happened that way for various reasons).
The "easiness" of the first, say, two years, is not a lot compared to the
difficulties we are running into now and which will continue for the rest of
their lives in various ways.

-- Apart from when Holly is in K and 1, I will *never* have the 4 of them in
the same school again, so I will be meeting four buses or running from
school to school twice a day for most of the next 10 years.
-- By the time Holly is old enough for the older kids' current activities,
they will have outgrown them, so we shall (again) never benefit from having
them all in the same activity at once (swim team and swim or ski lessons in
particular, but it would prob. be the same if the girls were into gym,
horses, soccer etc etc etc).
-- Holly gets cheated on activities because as I encourage the older kids to
diversify from each other there just isn't time for me to get everyone
everywhere they need to be.  I worry that if one of the older kids gets
really "into" something (e.g. needs to go to several practices a week) then
Holly and the others will be even more cheated down the road.  Of course I
suppose this is the same whatever the age gap -- it's more of a "why did we
have 4?" issue.
-- Similarly, I would have liked to put them into private school but with 4
to pay for -- ha ha.
-- Holly will still have four long years of school to finish by the time the
older ones go to college (fingers crossed, touch wood, etc.) -- I expect she
will be very lonely when they leave.  I remember this experience myself (I
had two years left) and those were a tough couple of years.
-- OTOH, as a youngest child whose older sisters mocked, abused and made fun
of me intensively ... I also wonder whether she may suffer that, perhaps
even worse than I did, when they are "adolescents" and she is still "just a
baby".
-- Holly desperately wants to "keep up" with her siblings but simply can't
in many ways, which is frustrating for her.  It's good that she learned to
climb up and get into her car seat at a very young age so she could be like
them.  OTOH, we are finding that for example just coloring while the others
do their homework is no longer satisfying to her but since she can't manage
letters (and isn't happy trying) we are experiencing regular meltdowns at
the moment -- and over many other things like this.
-- My age -- I wish for Holly's sake that I had been a bit younger when she
was born.  I had a lot more energy when EHC came along than I do now, 8
years later.

A girlfriend of mine had triplets and then her fourth one is only 22 months
behind.  Mayhem at first (she "solved" that with grandma visits and lots of
babysitters so that she could get breaks and she could also take some but
not all of them out at once) but now she is reaping the benefits of having
them all in grade school together (three in 2nd, one in K).  They are doing
their swim, gym and ski lessons together.  They all went to -- and
enjoyed -- the same camps last summer.  They were all on the "junior" (8 and
under) swim team together.  They all learned to inline skate at the same
time, etc etc etc.  When the older kids started to get homework, the younger
was of an age to be able to do some real letters and feel big about it.

Of course the grass is always greener -- I guess any degree of separation
has its pros and cons, but it seems to me that 4.5 is a bit too much.

Just a few thoughts.

--Janet
Elliot, Hanna, Connor  (10/21/96)
and Holly  (4/4/01)