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By Tiffany Erickson
HYDE PARK -- Child rearing can be a lot harder than it looks. Just ask Brandon and Jan Murdock. For most couples, parenthood brings baby gates, bottles and sleepless nights; multiply that by three and you have the Murdocks. Brandon and Jan have been married for four years. They planned to have their first child in their fifth year, however just under three years ago, Paige was born. Then a mere 20 months after her, Jan gave birth to twins, Oliver and Cameron. Now the Murdocks have their hands sufficiently full with three children, all under the age of 3. "It's crazy from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed," said Brandon. Jan said when she first found out she was pregnant with the twins she was pretty intimidated and tried to prepare herself by reading a lot of twin books. "I was scared to death," said Brandon. "I was excited and worried. It's taken a while to sink in, even now I will come home and think 'Oh my heck, there's twins.'" Brandon said for the first 10 months Jan's mother helped out a lot, but even with the efforts of three people they were only able to get etween four and five hours of sleep. If one woke up, they all woke up. Finally the kids are sleeping through the night now. With the Murdocks, every day jobs such as bathings, feedings and changings can be quite the ordeal. Jan said it takes over an hour to get them dressed in the morning. "You're trying to get one out of the toilet while one is pushing the other down in the bathtub," said Jan. "You get soaked. If you have already showered you need to do it again after you get through." With all three being in diapers, Brandon said that it gets really expensive. They entertained the idea of pushing Paige into an early potty training but found they don't have the time needed to invest into the notion. Paige was hit with quite a shock, along with her parents, when the twins were born. Jan said that she somewhat regressed. She went back on the bottle and wanted to be held more often. "They [the twins] fight with her a lot more than each other. They invade her space," said Jan. "When they were younger she would get frustrated and yell 'no babies!'" Though she is the oldest she has still taken liberties of bestowing her artwork in the front room in the form of toddler-high blue scribbles on the wall. "There are even more in the other room," Jan said with a chuckle. Jan said that one of her preconceived ideas of being a parent was that everything had to be perfectly clean. But she has learned that if she were to focus completely on cleaning she would get nothing else done. "It's still important to me but I try not to get caught up in it," Jan said. Playing with their kids is a big priority to the Murdocks. "You have to have fun with it or it would be miserable," said Jan. Brandon said his preconceived idea before becoming a father was that you could have a life and kids at the same time, but so far it hasn'tt happened. With his full-time job at a design firm combined with his children, there is no time left for anything else. "Basically our philosophy is focus on the second behind you and the second ahead. Nothing more," said Brandon. Jan said she also has a part-time job as a typist to help her sanity and get her out of the house. "You can get really depressed if you are in the house all day every day," she said. Overall the Murdocks said that though it is a large commitment it is also a lot of fun. Jan said she would maybe like to have one more baby, "but not until the twins are at least four."
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