A first

For the first time, tonight, Avery told a stranger Zoe was in heaven. My urge to burst into tears, rip her out of the stroller, and hug her was almost uncontrollable.

The girls and I had a long, but fun day today. We travelled a couple hours north to visit a mom and her trio who don't have a lot of support nearby. The girls had so much fun playing with their new friends, and even after 4 hours in the car and not a very good nap they were actually quite well behaved and not nearly as cranky as I expected them to be. So, I promised that if they ate a good dinner we'd go downtown to the brand new "Sweet Shoppe and Soda Stop" for a ka-choc-o-yet ice cream.

They did eat a decent enough dinner so I loaded them up and off we went. The downtown district in our town is actually quite close and if there were sidewalks all the way from our house to the middle of town I would have just walked...but for safety's sake we drove. They got right into the stoller and were pretty excited to get their ice cream. The weather tonight was absolutely perfect for walking, not too hot with a tiny little breeze blowing.

Our downtown business association sponsors free concerts the first friday of each month during the summer and tonight they were hosting "The Best of Beach Music" so there actually quite a lot of people walking around, music was playing in the background...I actually felt for a moment that I didn't live out in the country!

So we walk into the Sweet Shoppe and there were just the two ladies working (the owner and her mother, I presume) and an older couple sitting down in one of the booths. The women "ood" and "ahhd" and said how cute the girls were. They asked what their age difference was (Avery is 2 inches taller than Lily, noticeable even when they're sitting down) and I told her they were actually two of my triplets, to which she answered the standard "Oh my, you have your hands full." I just smiled and said "yes", paid for our ice cream and strolled the girls to the booth near the window and sat down.

The older woman then sat down with the couple who were already seated and I overheard her say "triplets." It didn't take long for the other woman to walk over and say "I heard they're triplets. I have twin grandchildren." I replied "yes, they are. This is Lily and this is Avery and their sister is Zoe." (Normally I say "was", but for some reason tonight I said "is") The woman didn't ask any further questions but Avery then said "Zoe's in Heaven with Jesus." My heart melted. It was the sweetest sentence to come out of her mouth and I can tell you without a doubt that this kid (and her sister) say incredibly sweet, loving, considerate things all the time. But this, which I did not prompt, had not even said anything about Avery and Lily being surviving triplets, or anything...she said it and I loved it!