Jack's mother waited a whole week after they were born before flying down to meet her grandbabies. This was more or less against her will, but Jack and Sam made very persuasive arguments on the phone about how two, and then one of the babies was still in the hospital. It would be far better for her to come and help out when they were all home.

Still, she arrived two days before little Mia made it out of the hospital.

Jack went to pick her up from the airport, all the while listening to the usual complaints about how he didn't have time to do that, being a new father and all.

"You are going to be saving us a lot of time when you get there, so it's really an investment in the future," he'd muttered. He then laughed at his own joke, thinking himself really witty. It was only when he looked at his mother he realized that this must be another side effect of sleep depravation.

"Why don't I drive, sweetie?" she asks softly.

"That might be for the best," he admits tossing the keys to her.

"Honey, how much sleep have you gotten?"

"Not enough to do the math on that Mom, but we're fine."

"I can stay as long as you need me to," she says.

"I appreciate that mom, but at some point we are going to have to take care of them by ourselves."

"I can come to live with you, Jack, for a couple of years if that's what you need."

"What?" Jack asks peeping at her from beneath his half open eyelids, "are you and Dad having some sort of trouble?"

"No, but we talked about it, and…we want to help you get through it."

"I appreciate that mom, but I'm pretty sure that Sam is not going to go for it. She's pretty big on us doing the child raising alone."

"She might just change her mind when she finds out how much work it is," she points out.

"I think we already know how much work it is, mom."

"It's only been a couple of weeks, and you don't even have all of them home from the hospital. I don't think you have any idea how much work it is going to be, Jack."

"Well, I'll keep your offer in mind, mom," he promises.

-0-

It wasn't until Jack went back to work, and his mother went back to Chicago, that Sam started to break.

It was the second day that she counted how many more days it would be before her maternity leave was over, and they would be Jack's problem for the biggest part of the day.

One the fifth day she had counted up the hours.

On day six she spent more than an hour crying (in unison with at least one, and at one point in the hour all three of her babies). She dried her eyes, and plastered a big fake smile on her face by the time that Jack came home though.

On day seven she wasn't able to put the smile back on her face by the time that he came home.

"Jack, I don't think that I can do this. They are just…crying all of the time, and it's not fair. It's not fair to them. They deserve to be well taken care of. You know, babies are developing their lifelong psychology right now. When they are hungry, and they are not getting feed, because I am taking care of one of their siblings, they are learning that the world is not worth trusting."

"It's also possible that they're learning empathy, and patience," Jack says.

"They are too young to learn that, Jack."

"My mom offered to live with us," he says quietly.

"We can't ask her to do that. She has her own life, and she wasn't the one who decided to have these kids."

"To be fair, we didn't really decide to have these kids either. At least not when we were in our right minds. Besides, we're not asking her to do this. She already offered. She would love it. You know how she feels about the kids."

"I still won't feel right about it. I would feel like I was taking advantage of her."

"We could also hire help," he offers.

"Well, I would feel even weirder about that."

Jack knows exactly how to get her to really consider his mother's offer. He hated to bring out the big guns unless he really had to though, "I guess then we're just going to have to let our babies cry it out, and develop a mistrusting view of the world."

"I'll think about it okay?" she ask getting up to switch the baby that had fallen asleep in her arms for one that still needed a feeding.

-0-

When Jack returns to work the next night he sees Sam in the middle of a pile of laundry that is terrifyingly large.

"I tried really hard today. I thought if I just really stuck to the schedule, and really just did my very best parenting and cleaning than everything would turn out okay. It didn't. Jack, I just can't do this anymore. So, you can go ahead and invite your mom to live with us. Make sure she knows that we don't actually have a room for her, just a pull-out couch, and that we have no idea for how long it is going to be. If she still really wants to, and I don't mean is willing to because we really need her to be, but really and truly wants to than she can come out and live with us."

"I'm glad you decided on this," Jack says with a smile for his wife.

"And after that you can do a few loads of laundry," she tells him.