Shhh. They’re sleeping.
In four cribs nearly filling the small dark back bedroom of a modest, two-bedroom brick home on a quiet street in Skokie. Four little daughters: Malynn, the oldest, who turns three next month, plus triplets Annette, Samantha and Cecilia.
It’s 5:50 a.m. The day is about to begin – well, the sun is coming up. When any given day begins or ends is an arbitrary distinction for a mother of four children under the age of 3. You could just as well say the old day is about to end.
“Samantha just went down,” whispers Michelle Baladad-Widd, 38, sitting in her dim living room a few days before Mother’s Day. Okay, “living room” is deceptive. Think “nursery.” Much of the floor is interlocking squares of multicolored foam. The entrances are barred by child gates. Toys are scattered about. A Dora the Explorer play house. A single orange plastic ring speared on a yellow post. A changing table. Three identical red high chairs wait against one wall.
“It was a little rougher night – not too bad,” Michelle says. Cecilia – Ceci – was up from 1 to 2. Sam got up around 5. Michelle thinks she herself slept from 2 to 4.
Did she always want to be a mom?
“Did I?” she wonders, as if considering the question for the first time. “I didn’t have that burning desire that a lot of my female friends did to be a mom. I thought it would be cool. But it wasn’t anything that I sought growing up.”
News that she was to be the mother of triplets “was a shock.”
“I never thought I’d be a stay-at-home mom. But I really love it.” She considers this. “It has it’s challenges, of course.”
Michelle was raised in Wood Dale. Her parents – her father a doctor, her mother a nurse – are immigrants from the Philippines. She went to Fenton High School, then Loyola, has an MBA and a masters in information system management from Keller.
The living room is dim because the electricity is out; it went out yesterday. ComEd says to expect it back sometime today. Michelle’s partner, Jennifer Baladad-Widd, 36, returns with coffee. They have been together 17 years, meeting when both were sisters at Sigma Kappa at Loyola University.
They bought a house and moved to Skokie 12 years ago, hoping to raise a family here.
“Skokie has great schools in general, just a great community in general,” says Michelle. “The park district is fantastic. The school Malynn goes to is incredible.”
At 7:07 a.m., a sound imperceptible to non-maternal ears sets Michelle to her feet and into the back room. She returns with Ceci – always first out of the blocks.
“She’s our wonderful challenge – she’s just much more active,” Michelle says. “She gives us the most run for our money. Being the most active she’s also the most interactive.”
One by one the girls awake. Malynn, the eldest, appears, clinging sleepily to Jennifer. Both women busy themselves helping ready the girls.
The first diaper of the day is changed. The record is 31, one awful day of triplet diarrhea. “My mother counted,” says Michelle.
“All right ladies, why don’t we get dressed,” Jennifer says at 7:35 a.m. – she has the calm command of a public school teacher, reflecting her seven years in the Chicago Public Schools.
Ceci cries and twists away from her clothes as if they hurt. Samantha – Sam – awakens, the most steadfast triplet, then Annie, who has had problems with her neck, goes to physical therapy, and is the only one of the triplets who doesn’t yet walk, but rather scoots around on her butt. Michelle packs one end of a large diaper bag while Ceci mischievously pulls things out of the other.
The next half hour is a chaotic ballet. Pajamas are removed, and identical pink and white striped T-shirts and gray leggings – Malynn’s choice – are tugged on. The triplets are strapped into their chairs, eventually, and kept occupied with Honey Nut Cheerios while Michelle prepares scrambled eggs. Whatever ends up on the floor doesn’t stay long, thanks to rescue dogs Destiny and Duke. “The clean-up crew,” Michelle says.
At 8:10 Jennifer, holding a frozen meal, hurries to the door, late. “Okay momma, I’m heading out,” she says. A sub after the four month bed rest required during pregnancy, today is kindergarten.
Malynn announces she didn’t get her expected sticker for pee-peeing in the potty.
“Alright Malynn, let’s give your sisters a couple Cheez-Its while we get you a sticker,” says Michelle, allowing her to pick out which one she wants.
Sticker affixed, the girls play, toddling, jostling. Ceci gradually encroaches upon Malynn until she’s draped over her big sister.
Michelle separates them, then gets the girls into carriers, then ferries them, one by one, to the van in the driveway. They head to the Tot Learning Center on Howard in Skokie, where Malynn goes to pre-school. The other 3-year-olds in her class rush over to greet her sisters, some pressing their hands against the triplets’ cheeks, delighted to meet babies younger than themselves.
Ideally, all four girls would go, so Michelle could return to work – well, return to paid work as an information systems manager. Only an idiot would suggest that being a mother of four isn’t work of the most exhausting kind. Constant lifting of 24-pound squirming babies, plus their carriers. Constant split-second decision making. An endless stream of conversation, instructions and requests. “Give it to mommy.” “Thank you for listening.” “What does a sheep say?”
Sending all four would cost $70,000 a year, and the money isn’t there.
“I know once I go back, I’ll miss this,” says Michelle. “But it’s necessary.”
The state offers subsidized child care to working parents, but here the couple is in a Catch-22 – that’s for couples with jobs, and Michelle’s full-time job is watching four children. She needs day care to watch the kids so she can find a job to qualify for day care. A challenge.
Next stop, the Lincolnwood mall, which opens at 10 a.m., and where there is a play area for the girls to – the plan is – exhaust themselves upon. A soft car to be climbed on, cushioned carpet, an enclosure with a slide, a tunnel where Michelle has, on certain days, considered climbing into to sleep.
But first more diapers. There isn’t room for the triple stroller in the family restroom, so Michelle props the door open. Shoppers walk by, offering comments.
“You should be Mother of the Year,” says an elderly gent with a neat white mustache. Annie navigates the four blue stairs to the slide by herself, for the first time, to much praise. Two of the triplets, at various points, make a break for freedom and are herded back.
Play accomplished, lunch begins at 11:10 a.m., a slice of cheese pizza, subdivided. Michelle snags three high chairs, goes over them with wipes, the table, too. Dime-sized bits of pizza are cut and passed. The floor around the table is soon spattered with pizza and Cheez-Its. Michelle and two friends she’s met here clean up with napkins. “Sometimes moms feel we have to do everything by ourselves,” says Michelle. “Fortunately, we have family and friends and church to help.”
Then, it’s back to the restroom for diapers number 8, 9 and 10. A woman pauses. “Three!” she exudes, happily. “Quintuplets!”
The attention can be unwelcome – the girls finally get to sleep and some stranger rushes up and screams a compliment.
First up, Ceci is first to fade, her head nods on the way to the van. At 12:35 p.m., home, the carriers ferried back inside. The girls nap.
For fifteen minutes. Michelle has begun doing dishes, then realizes she better rest. She closes her eyes. Five minutes later Sam awakens with a cry. She is rocked, read to, and falls back asleep at 1 p.m. Just as the others awake. Games, stories, snacks.
At 4:30 p.m., Jennifer collects Malynn at the Tot Center on her way home from teaching.
“It’s very strange,” Jennifer says. “I think it would feel a lot less strange if I were with upper grade. It feels odd to leave mine and be coloring chickens with other people’s little kids.”
Supper begins at 5 p.m.: pasta and broccoli. But first the family holds hands and prays, each girl led through crossing herself, “in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit.” Michelle was raised Catholic; they attend St. Luke Episcopal in Evanston. Neither woman has an uninterrupted minute to eat. Berries for dessert, then the brown sofa cushions go on the floor and there is roughhousing, tummies are tickled, shrieks and laughter. After 7 p.m., the mood shifts. “Please recognize playtime is over,” Jennifer says. Diapers 15, 16 and 17 are changed. One by one the girls get baths.
Stories are read, teeth brushed. Play is monitored. “Show me gentle,” Jennifer instructs. “We do not pull our big sister’s hair.” “Girls, girls, that is not how we treat our toys.”
Again leading, Ceci fades, early.
“How hard did you work them today, momma?” Jennifer marvels. “You did good, you really did good.”
Malynn, who tucks away any quarter she finds “for college,” snuggles with a picture book.
Sam and Annie are set in car seats before a video of fish and waves. Still, the girls stiff arm sleep. Past 8 p.m. Pacifers are flung away, returned, flung away, returned. Flung away. Returned. Past 9 p.m. Annie seems about to go, face slack, eyes glassy. At 9:30 p.m. she goes down. Sam fights, feet straight out, toes pointing and flexing. Jennifer strokes her hair, coos gentle sounds, rubs her neck. Finally, at 10:30, Sam drifts off.
Still, lots of work to do. Overflowing baskets of laundry to wash. The dogs to play with, the dinner dishes on the table to be cleared, clean dishes in the dishwasher to be put away – 24 baby bottles in the upper rack. Showers to finally be able to take. Tomorrow is liable to begin at any moment. But right now, the girls are sleeping. Shhh.
