Triplets

Margie, my best friend from high school, is visiting with her triplets. Two boys and a girl, eight years old.  Margie had joined the air force, become a colonel, met her colonel husband, and left after 13 years when there stopped being a guarantee that you could be a lifer. Then came babies.

Triplets are wild. It's like having all the kids in the neighborhood over, except they never go home. And, they're used to laying on each other a lot more than neighbor kids. Like, the boys were playing guns. One boy was fiercely concentrating on choosing a target, aiming, firing. The other boy WAS the gun, his arm stuck out with a fist at the end, while his brother's head laid on his shoulder to aim it. When he fired, the gun boy took off, ran over to the target and hit it with his fist. The first boy never told the second what he was aiming at, but the second always knew.

When they were very little, these three used to sing spontaneously, making up a long song together. 

Driving home: 
   Their mom: "Look kids, it's Puget Sound."
   Boy, shouting: "WE're MILLIONAIRES and we live on a LAKE!"
   Mom: "No, honey, we're not millionaires any more."
         Short silence.
   Boy: "Mom, are we thousandaires?"
   Mom: "Yes, we're thousandaires."
   Boy: "WE're THOUSANDAIRES and we live on a LAKE!"