A Christmas Goose

Friday night, I received an email from a friend thanking me for posting the NICU reunion Christmas party information on the forum page.

It's funny, because his email is what reminded ME that it was this Sunday. When you have three babies and a teen, planned events like that can often times fall by the wayside and go quite forgotten!

Anyways, Husband and I decided to try and take the kids and go to the NICU reunion party since we missed it last year because our babies were too sick to go.

Since all of the little newspaper blurbs and news station clips touted that this was a party that would be attended by miracle babies, many of them multiples, all dressed in their Christmas finest, I figured that we shouldn't disapoint and that the babies should wear their Christmas outfits to the party in spite of the weather.

So, the boys had to wear their turtle neck onesies with their sleeves rolled up. Lucky for Vivienne, her dressie is one of the shorter ones with the bloomers that are supposed to show, so her legs would at least be cool and hopefully keep her a bit cooler as well!

Husband and I managed to get everyone (even Bregon) dressed up and ready to go on time.

As an afterthought, Bregon and I sat everyone on the fireplace hearth while Husband was finishing up getting ready for the party.

Bregon made silly noises and faces while I grabbed the camera and took as MANY pictures as humanly possible of the babies in their little outfits.

I think we may have one good one of the 20 or so ones that were taken. After the pictures, we loaded up the van and headed for the party.

For once, we were on time and had everything together. We didn't anticipate any delays, because this party was supposed to be the one place where there would be a lot of multiples (or so the paper and the news had reported!)

Almost the second that the stroller was unfolded and locked into place, a man walked up to us and said, "Are those triplet? I have never seen triplets before!"

We were still in the parking lot, and I had yet to even strap one baby into the stroller yet! My husband took this one for me so that Bregon and I could get the kids out of the car and into their limo and the van locked up.

That man talked to Husband for the entire duration of the time it took for us to get loaded up, too! I wanted so badly to tell him that, if he were to go inside the hospital and check out the auditorium, that he might see a whole lot of triplets inside, but I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut (besides the other triplet Mums might shoot me over that one!)

We managed to get the babies across the street as we joined the throngs of people also dressed in their Christmas outfits, all headed towards the hospital auditorium.

The party was very crowded. We all signed in, and the babies were given name tags and stickers and coloring book favors. We tried to put the name tags out of their reach by attaching some to the hoods of the stroller, and Kai's on the front of his tray.

Kian almost immediatly began trying to get his off so he could eat it! Vivie just sat there and watched all of the people go by. Kaiden had a HUGE smile on his face and looked like he was ready to party (he is always ready for a party, though!) Little did I know that his smile was really some sort of warning!

We sent Bregon for some cookies and Husband found the coffee. I kept the limo out of the flow of traffic so that we weren't in the way. We decided to try and jump into the line to see Santa Claus, and headed into the cafeteria.

There, we ran into our friends who had sent me that reminder email! Their little girl is almost a year old and also a NICU graduate. We sat in the corner of the cafeteria and talked to our friends for awhile until the line to see Santa started dwindling down a bit.

The babies all enjoyed watching the little band that was providing the Christmas music. They all swayed back and forth to the music.

We ran into two other sets of triplets while we were sitting there. One set belonged to a lady that I had made friends with in the freezer section of Target a few months back!

I felt better, because she had her kids in the Choo Choo wagon, which is almost three times the length of our stroller and it doesn't appear to have any restraints to keep the kids inside it!

I know it sounds funny, but I always feel like we are in the way whenever we try and go anywhere because the stroller is so big and hard to drive. It's good to know that I am not alone out there and there is someone who has something even bigger and larger than what my kids ride in!

We all decided to hop into the Santa line together and we slowly inched our way towards the little Santa room.

The news camera was in the entryway to the cafeteria, and we seemed to be the camera man's favorite people to watch when the reporter wasn't interviewing anyone. Every time we looked up, it seemed that he was there.

Meanwhile, we were getting closer to Santa. The kids had been really super good up until this point, in spite of all of the loud party noise and all of the people.

Kaiden did get a little bored, or so it seemed, while waiting in line. It was in the doorway to the smaller room that I noticed that he was starting to reach out and touch things.

Nothing was immune to Kai if it was within his reach. There were people on both sides of us and in front and behind us. I couldn't move the stroller any direction but forward, and that was only if someone moved up a bit in line.

All of the sudden, I noticed that Kaiden had grabbed this lady's pants leg and was pulling on it.

The next thing I knew, he was rubbing the back of her leg. I guess he liked the feel of her trouser material or something. I think it might have been corduroy, but I was to horrified to look!

I tried to move the stroller sideways, but another stroller was coming towards us. There were people behind us who were talking and didn't see or hear me trying to excuse us as I tried to move the stroller out of the way to keep Kaiden from getting any more, um, friendly.

We were stuck. I tried distracting him verbally, but as he is in the front seat of the stroller, and I was standing at the back of it, and we were in the middle of a very crowded party, he couldn't hear anything I said over the noise.

I had to stand there and hope that this lady didn't mind that my one year old really liked her trousers. I was so embarrassed, but what's a Mum to do? He couldn't hear me, and I couldn't get to him to stop or redirect him. I couldn't even move the stroller out of the way to keep him from reaching her.

I watched in horror as he kept petting her trouser leg. Then the inevitable happened. His hand moved higher and higher and he did it. My one year old goosed that poor lady. I did not know what to do or say. Luckily, she didn't seem to mind and seemed to think it was funny.

I just kept smiling and talking to the kids. What could I do, really? I have an overly friendly child. Thankfully, it was our turn to see Santa. We each took a baby out of their stroller seat, and converged upon Santa. Poor Santa, he looked a bit overwhelmed, but quickly figured out the best way to tackle his tiny trio task.

Each of the boys took a knee, and Vivienne ended up in the center. The second I sat her down and took my arms away, her lower lip came out, and began its quiver. That quiver quickly gave way to a wail as she voiced her unhappiness to all. I quickly tried snapping pictures of the moment.

Unfortunately, they didn't take for whatever reason. But I still had the pictures from earlier of them on the fireplace in their Christmas outfits.

We decided after the Santa incident that it was time to leave. We bid our friends goodbye and Merry Christmas, and headed for the van.

It was an interesting first Christmas party for my tiny trio. I learned a lot that day. Even at a party where a lot of the kids are multiples, we can still draw a lot of attention (even if Kai keeps his hands to himself!)

And sometimes, even in the best of situations, you just have to grin and bear it and accept that there are some things that just cannot be avoided.