How to trick strangers

I don't know if the holiday weekend had anything to do with it but the triplet comments were on overload this weekend. It started Friday afternoon when Grammy and I brought the girls to the outlet mall to check out the sales. We managed to convince them to ride in the strollers (a single and a double). A bribe of ice cream may or may not have been involved. They were dressed in their coordinating (not matching) Winnie the Pooh outfits.

I could not believe all the comments/questions. This all carried over into our beach trip on Saturday.

Now, if I hear someone say, "Oh, look at the twins," I don't go over to them and correct them. If someone asks me, then I will tell them the real deal but I don't go out of my way to correct someone who isn't actually speaking to me. We had quite a large crew of family members at the beach on Saturday so I'm sure it was difficult for strangers to figure out who was who and I did overhear a "Look at the cute twins" comment.

Did you notice those swim shirts that Anna and Em are wearing in the beach pictures that I posted this weekend? I picked those up last year on sale as part of a three piece set. The other two pieces being a bikini. These bikinis are so big that the girls may be able to wear them when they are seven years old so I pulled out the swim shirts and made comments about the cuteness of them until I had convinced two of my children to wear them. Allie was in a no way, no how mood all weekend.

Rich and I and the girls and some other family were down at the shore line on Saturday for one last splash in the icy water when an older gentleman approached me and said, "I was wondering if you could help me settle a bet. Are those twins and another girl or triplets?" It was not the question I was expecting but after taking another look at the girls, I could totally see it. The swim shirts made Em and Anna look younger than Allie in her purple bikini and it was probably difficult for someone to see that the girls are identical from a distance.

Monday. Same swim attire. Different beach. Almost the same comment.

I found the whole thing amusing because the confusion was completely unintentional.