Chapter 3
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Anderson was frozen in the living room, staring at his nieces, hoping he had the right stuff to handle this op.
One of the triplets looked up at him with a funny look on her face.
Then her face scrunched up, as if she didn’t like the look of him.
Suddenly her face cleared, and moments later a raunchy smell filled the air.
“Good God,” Anderson whispered. “I’m all about helping family, but wow.” He groaned and wondered out loud, “I hope we have diapers here, with instructions.” He quickly raced through the house, leaving the three babies alone in the living room, knowing that he probably shouldn’t even do that.
Thankfully both bathrooms had diaper supplies and changing tables.
“Jesus, Talia must be exhausted just from motherhood,” he muttered, to no one in particular, as he frantically got his bearings.
Nobody should have to handle this on their own.
Then he quit ruminating and got to work.
First he scooped up all three in his arms and moved everyone to the nearest bathroom.
It took him a few minutes to figure out how the disposable diaper worked. He would have been done in half the time, but his first target wouldn’t stop moving.
He repeatedly told her to hold still, but she just laughed at him.
Thank heavens she was laughing and not crying because he didn’t know what he would do if the tears came.
Plus, he remembered Talia saying that, as soon as one ended up crying, it was a signal for everybody else to turn on the waterworks.
Before long, he had babies hanging off his legs, and he had no idea what to do about it. He managed to get the first one changed, and that’s when the smell of the next one came up. “Good God, you guys are all synced like clockwork.”
And, sure enough, it took at least twenty minutes to get all three of them cleaned up and changed. Now as he faced a pile of dirty diapers and the lack of organization in his world, he noted that he may not be that well equipped for this special op.
He groaned again, whispering, “Dear God, Sis, you’re a freaking miracle maker.”
The trouble with three babies was—and this was undoubtedly just one of many other troubles he hadn’t contemplated yet—how the hell did you carry them?
He managed to loop his right arm around two at the same time, then grabbed the third in his left.
That way he could get all three of them where he needed to go, but it wasn’t the easiest plan, and his sister, sure as heck, couldn’t do it this way.
Nonetheless, with all three babies held awkwardly in his arms, he headed to the kitchen.
Everything from sniffles—as if they were tired and frustrated—to screams began. This part would get to him fast, he acknowledged. “Nope, nope, nope, not happening,” he declared, tamping down on the rising panic he felt.
He found three highchairs in the kitchen, thankfully.
Yet it took him a bit to safely put all three infants on the floor.
Regardless he managed, then plucked them up, one at a time, and sat them in the highchairs.
By the time he got them all strapped into the chairs, the first one was already trying to get out of the straps.
As soon as he got the straps back on her, the second one was just about to fall on the floor. “Oh no you don’t.”
He quickly turned and snagged up number three. He didn’t even know how to tell them apart at this point, and he would have to deal with that issue very quickly. He presumed it would make a difference to how they responded to him if he could at least get the right name for each of them.
Maybe it didn’t make a darn bit of difference to any of them. Maybe they just wanted to be left alone. How could he even tell what they wanted?
He wasn’t sure which one was Lisa, which one was Lily, and which one was Lana. But Lisa was the name that first came to mind, so he just kept calling them all Lisa, knowing that was ridiculous. Desperate to establish any routine or something workable for the moment, he went with it.
As soon as he got them all secured into the highchairs again, he made the mistake of giving one a spoon. She immediately smacked her nearest sister across the head, and the screams just ripped him apart. He’d been in the fridge, trying to find baby food, while not at all sure what it looked like.
What did ten-month-olds even eat? Thank God they weren’t still breastfed.
Pamela had mentioned formula, so he was good on that point.
In theory anyway. He groaned yet again. “Sis, it’s about time for you to wake the hell up.
I’ll help you with damn-near anything. But, man oh man, I could really use your help right now. ”
But it wasn’t to be.
He found some pureed baby food in the cupboard, and, searching the internet on his phone, he quickly managed to read something that he hoped would work here.
As soon as the girls realized that food was coming, it was like a signal went off in their heads. Things got even louder and crazier, and they all started hollering.
“It’s as if you guys somehow tell each other to yell together now,” he grumbled, trying to figure out how to quiet the din that would further drive him crazy.
It’s not that he held it against the babies, not at all.
But, good gosh, how did anybody function with all that noise going on?
How could three small babies shout so loudly?
And so went the rest of his day. Changing diapers, feeding the little poop machines, and changing more diapers.
By the time he got the babies into bed that night, he didn’t have a single ounce of patience left in his body.
He was worn out and stressed out, and all he could think about was getting some sleep himself. He hoped that, come morning, things would be much easier. The trouble was, morning happened after nighttime. And apparently for these three, nighttime meant getting up.
When he got up for the third time in the dark to calm down a crying baby, his admiration for Talia knew no bounds.
As far as he was concerned, she was the freaking Saint of Patience.
Anybody who could handle kids had some magic in their genes that allowed them to overlook the screaming, hollering, and demanding natures of these little poop-making bundles of joy.
“I had no idea,” he murmured to Lisa, or at least he hoped it was Lisa, as he held her in the middle of the night, walking her gently back-and-forth across the room. “Your mom is a real-life superhero.”
He was aware that these babies had already been through more than their share of stress and hard times in the last few days.
And, with no mom around, they weren’t listening to anybody, even though he was trying to make them feel better.
By the time he got this one back to sleep, he heard another one starting up.
He just walked over and started rubbing number two’s back. In the back of his mind, he could almost hear Talia laughing.
What? You numbered my babies?
When this triplet finally fell back asleep without having fully woken that time, Anderson went to the spare bedroom and crashed again. He was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
He woke up a few hours later to something akin to a scream, but he wasn’t exactly sure. He broke out of the bed at a high run and raced into the triplets’ bedroom. One was laughing, chortling, and smiling, until she took one look at him and started screaming.
“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” he murmured, as he walked over and picked her up, hoping she would remember him. But the light of day didn’t seem to help, and she was not interested in being consoled. He quickly changed her, knowing that he could do nothing else right now.
Done with that, he changed the next one and then the final one. All of them were crying just because one was crying, and so it went.
He shook his head, wondering if they did anything but scream and poop and eat, other than moving pretty fast on the floor.
He picked up all three of them awkwardly and was about to take them downstairs when he detoured into his bedroom.
He wasn’t even fully dressed, just had boxers on.
So he put the three energetic babies on the floor, closing the door before they got to it, and quickly put on pants and a shirt, adding socks and shoes, foregoing the shower he had promised himself earlier.
Not sure when that shower was supposed to happen, he grabbed the triplets, and they all made their way to the kitchen.
After securing them in their highchairs, he quickly washed his face.
That should keep him awake. Besides, they needed food, and that was the first order of the day.
He knew it would be the same cycle as yesterday.
Once he got them fed, they would soon fill their diapers.
He already could pick up that smell now.
He sat down and just stared in shock as anything within the triplets’ reach was thrown onto the floor, onto him, onto each other. … He was out of his depth. And, yes, he needed help.
The question was, who the hell did he call for help?
There was the social worker, who was busy enough herself.
Plus, if he appeared to be completely inept, she wouldn’t let him keep his nieces.
He knew that all too well. Of all the things he needed to do, keeping them was non-negotiable.
Talia would get out of this. She would wake up and would get back into this crazy-ass routine that she professed to absolutely love.
But absolutely no way could Anderson, in good conscience, do anything less than what he was trying to do for Talia right now. And that was looking after her most valuable assets, these babies.
But holy crap …
He got up, made a pot of coffee, sat back down, and watched as the triplets, at least contained for the moment, made an absolute mess of the kitchen that had been impeccably clean when he had started this day.