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"I have a cushioned chair in my room," volunteered Terry, going to his bedroom and placing the comfortable seat in the doorway for Abby.

"Really, Uncle Terry," she continued to resist, "thank you, but I don't need it. I'm perfectly able to stand."

"Abby," Jake spoke up in a firm voice, "sit down."

Without another word of protest, Abby did as she was told. Grinning, Terry glanced at John.

"All right, then," smiled John, with a shake of his head, "let's get to work."

There wasn't much room in the crowded nursery to assemble three cribs at the same time, but Abby kept this observation to herself. The men were acting as though they knew exactly what they were doing, so she decided it was best to keep quiet-- especially, if they didn't.

In the space of a few minutes, the guys had the entire contents of three identical cribs strewn about the room, making little effort to keep them separate. Curious as to how they were going to get themselves out of this growing mess, Abby watched from the doorway, trying to hide her amusement. She could easily find John and Terry's attempts entertaining, but when she noticed Jake was struggling to keep up, Abby wasn't smiling anymore.

As the young man puzzled over what John was telling him, Abby knelt down on the carpet beside her husband and picked up the parts list for one of the cribs.

"Abby," said Jake, now realizing that she was joining him, "you should be taking it easy."

"When you think I'm overdoing it, I'll back off," replied Abby, beginning to separate out the pieces belonging to Jake's crib, from John and Terry's.

After watching her for a few seconds, Jake went back to work. He had to admit that it felt good to have her on his side. Soon, Jake's crib was taking on a recognizable form, while John and Terry were still trying to sort out the duplicate parts from their own piles of unassembled hardware.

"Look at him," said John, nudging Terry in the direction of Jake. "His crib's nearly done."

"Well," sighed Terry, "he had help."

"Maybe we can learn from AJ," mused John. "Why don't you help me with my crib, and then I'll help you with yours?"

"Beats doing all this on my own," chuckled Terry, turning around on his knees to help out his friend.

When the cribs were finally assembled, Jake took Abby back to her seat, while the men cleared away room against the wall where they would place the baby cribs. Next, came the high chairs, and this time, they didn't make the same mistake of dividing up. All three men worked on one chair, before moving on to the next. Abby mused to herself that they were looking like a baby furniture assembly line.

"We're getting pretty good at this!" exclaimed Terry, encouraged by their progress.

While the men worked at piecing together the changing table, Abby set up music mobiles over each crib. It was hard for her to imagine, that in a short while, three baby sisters would be occupying these very cribs. Abby wound one of the mobiles and let the small stuffed animals rotate to the music above the crib. The sound of the lullaby soon quieted the men.

"It's really happening," sighed John, "I'm going to be a father, again. You know," he chuckled, "when I heard that we were having triplets, I felt tired. When I learned that I was going to be a grandfather as well, I felt tired and old!"

"It's going to be fun, John," grinned Terry. "Just think of six little feet running all over the house... getting into trouble... climbing over everything imaginable... putting absolutely anything within reach into their mouths..."

"Okay, enough!" laughed John. "I get the picture!"

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