I received this list from a group I belong to. Not sure who started it so I can’t give credit. If anyone knows, please let me know. I was laughing so hard when I read them, please enjoy them too.
You know you are parent of multiples when….
Your stroller has it’s own zip code.
Dinnertime is officially declared an Olympic Event
You can remember the answer to “did you take fertility drugs”, but not your own name.
You ask the clerk at Sam’s club if they sell Duct Tape in bulk.
You consider going to the hospital for any procedure a vacation.
You are the only parents who can utter, “Stop playing with that, it’s not YOUR penis” with a perfectly straight face.
You arrive at your doctor’s appointments early just to read the magazines in peace.
Root canals are a great chance to catch up on your sleep.
You are afraid that if there is ever a tornado they will find you in the basement killed by a falling wall of diapers.
You laugh at singleton moms that are struggling to get their stroller out of the car.
You wonder how come singleton moms need a diaper bag the size of a suitcase, while you travel with enough for your babies in a bag half the size.
You can unload two, or three babies (or more) from car seats and put them in your stroller WHILE you are laughing at the singleton mom getting her stroller out of her car.
Your husband has seriously tried to motorize your stroller.
You can hold both infant car seats at once and still have a spare hand to hold your 2 year old’s hand as you go to your car.
There is no room in your refrigerator for food, all available space is occupied by pre-prepared bottles of formula.
You can pump (breast milk), feed the babies, and read a book at the same time.
Your tummy tuck was a two week vacation and you love every minute of it.
You look at a closet full of diapers and think “I’m running low”
A regular sized pack of diapers lasts only 3 days.
Every morning you mentally prepare yourself for the worst before your enter “that” bedroom, (naked toddlers, wet bed sheets, diapers on the floor and three little voice saying “poop, poop”)
Your biggest dilemma is how to keep those dang diapers on.
You are obsessed with diapers.
You can throw French-fries to the rear set of seats without looking and none end up on the floor.
You can change diapers standing up, while in line, at the Children’s Museum.
You feel like a sheepherder instead of a parent
You have people asking if you run a daycare because that’s what your yard looks like.
You can throw a balled taped diaper across the room and hit the bucket every time.
You can carry 3 plates of food and 3 cups to the table without spilling anything and you’ve never been a waitress.
A trip to Walmart for diapers is a vacation even at 1:am.
Your stroller costs more than your first car.
You can hold at least three conversations at the same time.
You no longer have a proper name you are either “The lady with Triplets (Quads, Quints) or Moooooooooommmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyy
You consider the commute to work Mommy time
You find yourself singing songs from the Wiggles while at Walmart
You can quote Monster’s Inc. verbatim.
You can’t figure out how the back of your suit got slimed.
You automatically divide or multiply everything by 2, 3 (4, 5)
You have diapers in your purse, in the glove compartment, your desk drawer and in every room of the house – just in case.
You hope that the FDA counts ketchup as a vegetable.
You stop and tell a co-worker that you are “going to the potty”
Pooh Band-aids showing through nylons is considered trendy.
Every square inch of seating in your vehicle is taken by car seats.
And airborne French Fries take up every square inch of the floor space. Who said food fights in your vehicle aren’t allowed?
You know you are a MOM when you can sweep, talk on the phone, AND read to your children all at the same time.
Your monthly grocery budget is greater than the annual budget for the State of Rhode Island.
Four hours of sleep is “fully rested” and falling asleep over the kitchen sink is a “fulfilling nap”
The first thing you ask upon arriving home is for the poop and pee report.
You never miss the diaper can.
Every single electronic device’s buttons in your home are covered by duct tape (And you were wondering when you read earlier why someone would buy duct tape in bulk….. )
Your kitchen chairs have taken permanent residence on TOP of your table.
Your dryer becomes a better climbing and hiding toy than the $250 wave climber you just bought at Walmart.
Your blow up ball pit and swimming pool sit helplessly deflated, covered with bite marks.
2 minute tasks take 30 minutes because you have to keep returning to the play room to break up fights, peel the kids from the wall, change a diaper you can actually smell from the next room, break up more fights, remove a child from the top of the couch, perform surgery on the VCR because there is an UFO inside of it, fill sippy cups back up with water because whatever was in them disappeared mysteriously (only later when you sit down on the couch you will find where it went) remind them not to jump on each other, break up a few more fights and change more poopy diapers.
You not only are familiar with what a 300 count box of Kleenex looks like when they are all removed from the box one at a time, but you know for a fact you can’t put them back because you’ve tried.
You curse stores for only having two of something in a package, or for only having two of something on their shelf.
You buy Baby Motrin, Cough Syrup, etc, 3 at a time, and the clerk looks at you funny, while the whole time you are wishing they sold it in gallon containers.
You pull 3 tickets for Car seats at Toys R Us to take to the register, and when you get there the clerk says, “Ma’am, I think you picked up too many of these or they must have been stuck together”
You’ve fallen asleep in any of these places: The shower, washing dishes, sitting on the floor reading them a book, with your fork on the way to your mouth..
You agonize over what it will be like when they get to school and you have three teachers to visit on parent night, three different sets of homework, and your babies aren’t even out of the NICU Yet.
Instead of a wallet full of photos you carry around a CD because it holds 700 megabytes of them.
700 megabytes is 1 nights worth of photos.
Everyone in the neighborhood knows who you are, even though you’ve never met them before.
The grocery store clerk has commented on the 6-9 gallons of milk you buy each week, telling you it would be cheaper to buy a cow.
You’ve ever truly considered strangling someone who said, “you’ve got your hands full” or “I’d shoot myself”.
You’ve ever been so sleepy that you can fall asleep with the baby lying on your chest and fail to wake up despite the fact that the baby is screaming directly into your left ear.
You are both shocked by the rudeness, and amazed by the kindness of strangers in the same 60 seconds upon entering Walmart.
Walmart is probably your favorite store, since its open till Midnight, diapers and formula are cheaper there, and they have triplet carts. Oh, and you consider going to Walmart at 11pm “going out”
If you’ve ever charted poops pees and food intake.
You consider a sale on diapers better than sex.
You know at one time you did have a spouse, but now you can’t remember
You have to wash the dinner dishes by hand because the dishwasher is full of bottles.
The singleton mom in front of you at Walmart buying one can of formula and one bag of diapers complains about the price and you have to restrain yourself from hitting a complete stranger.
The clerks at the grocery store have to regularly restrain you from pummeling any singleton mom that takes the last multi seat-shopping cart.
You know what its means to “live better through chemical intervention”
You are both revered and hated by the staff at your pediatrician’s office.
You don’t see anything unusual with the fact that you know not one, but several, quad moms.
You no longer have to wonder what a “poop painting” would look like.
A complete stranger walks up to you in the mall and says “my niece has triplets, her name is _________ do you know her?” and you can answer “yes I do”
The awareness of silence strikes terror into your soul.
You know the black market value of a Runabout stroller.
You consider cereal dumped on the middle of the floor, not to be bad parenting, but rather a unique picnic breakfast!
All kids are aware that any sippy cup left unattended is fair game.
Whining is heard not just in stereo, but in surround sound!
You go to an amusement park with your triplet stroller only to realize YOU’VE become the source of amusement, or you go to the Zoo and find the other visitors watching your kids more than the animals!
Your husband affectionately calls you “Tiger” because of the stretch marks.
Your peri says you look like a beached whale at 24 weeks.
You know what the word Peri stands for.
You use the word singleton.
You need a hitch for your stroller
You refer to your babies as A B and C
$15.00 baby outfits seem too expensive.
You buy a single weeks worth of formula, and the clerk asks you if you are stocking up.
You laugh at singleton moms for sterilizing pacifiers. You can’t stop yours from sucking on each others fingers, nose, ears, toes etc, so you just shake your head because you know those germs are building up their immune system.
You pick up a dropped paci, and just blow the dust off rather than rinsing it because after all, 5 minutes ago they shared it with the dog, and you didn’t get to it in time before they put it back in their mouths. What’s a little dust?
You intentionally feed all 3 kids from the same spoon and bowel even though one is sick, because you can’t bear the thought of 3 consecutive 2 week cold sessions, you’d rather have them sick at the same time.
You enroll them in or join every activity and playgroup you can, you visit every playground in a 10 mile radius, sometimes more than 1 a day, just so you can be out of the house from dawn to dusk so you have less to clean up.
When discussing child proofing and singleton moms say “you just have to tell them no, you can’t child proof everything” and you laugh and say “Wanna Bet?”
You don’t mind taking a shower, with the door open, and with an audience. You are just glad to be able to get a shower.
After 20 minutes in the car you realize you are not only listening to the kids tape, but you are singing along with it, and there are no kids in the car.
The $250 travel system stroller that singleton moms complain about being too big, look like toy strollers to you.
You do things with your feet that you thought you never could do (or should)
You’re not sure if what you squeezed on your toothbrush was toothpaste or diaper ointment, but you’re too tired to care, and too tired to check, so you keep brushing anyway.
You say to your husband “if you wake up these babies I’ll kill you” and you mean it.
You say to your mother “if you wake up these babies I’ll kill you” and you mean it.
You say to your cat “if you wake up these babies I’ll kill you” and you mean it.
It doesn’t matter, you ARE buying them out of ProSoBee, and the other moms can just get over it.
All of a sudden everyone you know, knows someone with Twins.
You go to the grocery store at 1:30 AM to buy baby food because its on sale, and because you are buying 400-600 jars, and it takes time to pick them out, and longer to get through the checkout with them.
You have to spend an entire evening at high school conferences because you have to see 24 teachers.
You sit at the drivers license testing station actually hoping they all three pass so you don’t have to console someone all the way home, while their brothers discuss who gets the car when you arrive home.
Crib Tents? You can’t afford NOT to buy them.
You consider leashes a viable safety option
Velcro is your new best friend.
You burst into laughter at the site of a diaper Genie… AS IF….!!
You celebrate the birthdays of the people who invented the spill proof sippy cup and the auto repeat replay function on DVD players.
You bought a dog to cut down on post meal cleanup time.
On the way to rescue a paper towel roll on the verge of destruction you suddenly realize that it might buy you 5 minutes to check your e-mail.
The next day, the kids wake up too early, you open their door long enough to throw in a couple of rolls of paper towels and you go back to bed.
Duct tape practically pays for itself.
You discover Nirvana when you finally convert to that all one color/all one size/all one style of socks, system.
You know what a crib tent is!
You no longer have a coffee table, end tables, or lamps in your living room, and everything else is 4 feet off the floor.
Your home has become a complex maze of gates, locks and barricades.
Your kids have never actually walked through the zoo or store, because getting out of the stroller is NOT an option.
You are not horrified at the idea of “waking a sleeping baby” to eat. After all, it is time to EAT so sayeth the master schedule!
You seriously wish someone would sell Orajel in a toothpaste-sized tube. Is this little tiny tube supposed to be a joke? And that’s with the one day supply of infant Tylenol… don’t they know I need a 10oz bottle?
You make a grilled cheese sandwich, put it on a little green plastic plate, and cut it into little tiny pieces. Then you realize the kids are napping and the sandwich is for you.
You delivered 16 lbs of baby, and didn’t set any records.
Your nickname for a period of time was Bessie.
You spend more time pumping than sleeping
You gave your pump a name
You know that bras come in 36I, and you also know where to buy them.
You don’t think the Suburban is a large vehicle.
When hearing of a new pregnancy, you first question is “just one?”
You call one baby a singleton (before your HOM arrived, it was just “a baby”)
Taking a group shower with a gang of toddlers is the only way you’re getting one.
You actually enjoy Bob and Dora
The lady at the drive through at McDonalds knows your name.
If the choice is sex or sleep, the answer is ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
All your friends have multiples.
You send 7 invitations to a birthday party, and you have 15 kids show up, and you were expecting more.
You don’t want to potty train because the though of trying to take all 3 to a public bathroom yourself sends shivers up and down your spine.
You make formula by the gallon and it lasts only 24 hours.
You haven’t been to your parent’s house in a year, and they only live three blocks away.
You realize you can sweep up small milk spills with your broom and dustpan.
Your pediatrician’s office recognizes your voice.
And you will know you have a friend who is also a M.O.M mother when:
She gets as excited as you by the phrase “Buy one get one free”.
You don’t find it strange that she has driven to five or six doctor’s appointments this week.
You can remember her children’s birth weights, and gestation at birth, but you can’t remember her phone number.
You know you will have someone to grumble with you about the establishments that require a one child/one parent policy
You’re not embarrassed by the fact that she has seen the inside of your house, van, diaper bag, etc.
You refer to her as “your support group”
Outsiders think you have your own private M.O.M. language of terms and jokes, and they are right!
It doesn’t matter if the two of you had nothing in common before your kids arrived because you have EVERYTHING in common now!
A married woman must often leave God at the altar in order to find Him in her housework ~~St. Francis of Rome
Managing Mayhem and Multiples 