One of a kind, times 3: North Bend triplets grow up to be surprisingly different

Telling the Woods triplets of North Bend apart these days is far easier than it was, say 17 and a half years ago. You could probably do it just by listening to them talk.

“I’m the oldest,” says Ursula, adding after the briefest hesitation, “and the smartest, too.”

“She says that all the time,” says Frank (his family calls him by his middle name, Lowell), imitating her, “You should listen to me, I’m the oldest.”

Muriel, the third of the North Bend triplets who recently turned 18, just laughs. That “smartest” jab may have stung a little, but the privilege of being the oldest doesn’t mean quite the same thing among siblings born only a few seconds apart.

Eighteen years ago, Oct. 11, 1996, the Woods family of Roy, Jean, and their 6-year-old son, Tyler, doubled in size. They had known Jean might have multiple births with her second pregnancy—she was an identical twin, with identical twin nieces—but were still taken by surprise when they first saw it in an ultrasound.

Roy “is a software engineer, and he actually works on ultrasounds,” Jean said. So at two months, when she had the scan, “he saw the ultrasound, and he put his fingers up, like this,” she said, holding up two fingers. “Then he started doing this,” she held up another finger, and her jaw dropped.

When the trio came home, young Tyler told the Valley Record “They’re noisy, but they’re cute.” Now that they’re all basically adults, Tyler is still impressed with how they express themselves. He wrote in an e-mail message that the best part of having multiples for siblings “was watching them grow, and become their own people, developing hobbies, personalities, and finding their own voices.”

Muriel, who’d been hoping for “something sarcastic” from Tyler, said they didn’t really have a big brother relationship with him because of the age difference, but got along as well as typical siblings do.

“He liked us for a year or two,” she joked, “but then he got annoyed.”

Three’s a crowd

To be fair, the three were a lot to handle, and they didn’t really need an older brother; they had each other.

“They always had someone to play with, and to get in trouble with,” said Jean, recounting incidents of them escaping their cribs, setting off fire alarms to see what would happen and once, while she was doing laundry, flipping over the family’s loveseat to use as their imaginary boat.

“You couldn’t turn your back!” she laughed. Especially not on Ursula, who was the first of the three to reach many children’s milestones, from walking and talking to tying her shoes. “She’s the one who got up on the counter one day, when she was 2, and started handing out all the medicines and vitamins,” Jean said.

Jean got a lot of support from Mothers of Multiples, which she joined when she knew she was expecting triplets. She also was able to pick up some of the special gear required for that many infants, triple-wide strollers, for instance, at a discount. Daily life with three babies was a challenge, she admitted, but it became even more difficult when they got to school and began joining sports and clubs. Both Ursula and Frank played football at Twin Falls Middle School, and were involved in clubs (Ursula) and jazz band (Frank) in high school at Mount Si. Muriel started at Bellevue College through Running Start last spring

“It was a lot of driving,” said Jean. Luckily, Ursula showed her “oldest” initiative and got her driver’s license early on, followed by Muriel.

Being the oldest seems like something Ursula has always taken seriously, but she’s not above telling embarrassing stories about her siblings.

“Lowell (Frank) had a leash!” she announced.

“I had a harness,” he corrected her, “and I was an explorer!” He is good-natured about everything, says his mom, and has been since he was a baby.

Each of the three developed a unique personality early on, Jean says. She and Roy worked to encourage that by taking one of them away each week for a day all his or her own, doing whatever they wanted.

“I remember that!” says Muriel, and Frank agrees. The two do an under-the-table fist bump, their own code, and a sign of how close they are.

“We get each other really well,” said Muriel. “We don’t even have to think sometimes, and we just get it.”

This spring, Frank and Ursula will graduate from Mount Si High School. Muriel will finish her associate’s degree at Bellevue College, then go on to the University of Washington, for sociology or a related field. While Ursula plans to go to college out of state, studying pre-law and maybe aspiring to politics, Frank wants to continue in music, and will go to Central Washington University.

They’ve never known life as anything other than being a triplet, Muriel said, but they’re all ready to explore what’s next.

“I don’t think they even realize it, but it’s kind of a bittersweet time right now,” sighs Jean.