A few words about this picture

turtle Ru
Originally uploaded by triplings

Okay. You see this sweatshirt that Ruthie has on? The girls have been fighting over it since they were approximately the size of a loaf of bread. It's dark blue, maybe just this side of navy and has that a very pleasing texture inside; it's extremely soft, no matter how many times it gets washed, probably owing to some ghastly permutation of polyester. It also features yellow snaps and a yellow string to tighten the hood. This sweatshirt came from the thrift store up the street, Value Village. In fact, I don't think you can even find new kids' sweatshirts with strings anymore because people are so paranoid about strangulation, etc. Well, the girls all love this sweatshirt and have been passing it around since it was way too big for them and today Ruthie was the lucky one. So she puts it on and immediately tries to get me to help her make her "like a turtle." She is pulling up the hood and repeating over and over again with varying intensity, "pull the stings! Tie it! Make me like a turtle!" Meanwhile, I'm sort of absentmindedly helping all three girls into their various wraps and so Jason goes over to Ruthie and gets her situated. I go into the other room to get something else together and Ruthie joyfully gallops in looking like this photo and says with pure glee, "Mommy I'm a turtle! Thanks for nothing!" and gallops off.