Being published

Exciting times this week as Lizzie got a letter saying one of her stories was being included in a Young Writers Anthology and my first article appeared in MADE magazine.





When we got back from holiday last week we had a letter from a publishing company called Young Writers letting us know that a story which the school had submitted to a schools writing competition on Lizzie's behalf last year when she was 6 had won and had been selected to be included in an anthology called My First Story.

My First Story gets entries from schools all across the UK and overseas so she did really well to get selected. A copy of the finished book will end up in the British Library. For her efforts she received a certificate of merit which she is very proud of.

Lizzie with her certificate

Lizzie's Space Story

Ellie and Spencer were flying by the sparking stars.

They landed on a spaceship and saw an alien.

The alien took Ellie and Spencer to his ship.

The alien, Ellie and Spencer were flying.

A monster attacked them. The monster got them. He took them to his den but they escaped.

They took Ellie home.

Lizzie Joyce (6)
Craigour Park Primary School, Edinburgh

The certificate framed and ready to go on her wall

In addition to this I also had my first article published in MADE magazine (Mums and Dads Edinburgh).

MADE is a glossy 2-monthly magazine designed to cater for families in Edinburgh with young kids (0-11). When Louise who runs the magazine asked me to do an article about being a triplet dad I had expected it to be on the inside back cover but it actually featured much earlier in the magazine and even got a trail on the front cover.

The magazine is distributed to lots of sites in the Edinburgh area, including schools, libraries, Edinburgh Leisure venues and some shops e.g. Ikea. I saw a copy in Meadowbank when I was there for a run on Tuesday night and got very excited.

For anyone outside Edinburgh who can't get a physical copy of the magazine I've copied a text only version of the article below. In the magazine it is presented with a brilliant illustration of a dad with three kids looking appropriately bewildered. I really enjoyed writing it - I just need to think up some more ideas for future issues now.


Diary of a Triplet Dad


Look at that poor guy over there in the play park making life hard for himself by trying to be fair to his three kids, making sure each one gets the same number of goes on the slide and pushes on the swing, and the same amount of cuddles when they invariably self combust because they’re only seven years old.

That guy is me, and I'm a dad of triplets. I'm the one you see moving food around on plates in restaurants to make sure everyone gets the same amount. I'm the one who knows which child pressed the lift button the last time they went to the cinema and whose turn it is now.

My friends tell me I'm mad to try and treat my kids evenly, fairly, and uniquely all the time but for me it’s essential. Being triplets they face a barrage of stereotypes and are constantly confronted with comparisons which only serve to make me more determined that they’ll be treated as individuals and not as a collective unit.

Like any Dad I have my own agenda and the major upside of treating them uniquely means I'm more likely to get three separate hugs, and to experience the pleasure of three little people all desperate to share their personal news with me at the same time. Life with triplets is a joy and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Of course it would definitely be cheaper for me to buy a single birthday present and card when they get invited to a party but I want them to get separate invites rather than just one addressed to “the triplets”, or in one random case “the three twins” so I have to buy everything separately too.

And don’t get me wrong, I understand they look alike, and in fact two of them are biologically identical but they are individual people and I want everyone to treat them as such.

The issue of looking alike even confuses the kids themselves at times. Our triplets are made up of a pair of identical twins and a singleton. The singleton doesn't really understand why her sisters look alike but she doesn't. It doesn't faze her though; her theory is that as she was born last the hospital must have run out of her sisters’ type of face so she got a different one instead.

I realise I'm perpetuating a myth that life is fair and equal and everyone gets treated like individuals rather than collectively but there’s plenty of time for reality to set in once they make their way out to the big wide world. For now it’s within my gift to present to them a life where they are unique and different, both to each other, and to everyone else.

So the next time you see some poor guy in a restaurant counting out the peas on a plate then think kindly of me, I'm a Triplet dad trying my best.