Dave has been a software engineer since 1991, with several forays into management, and even ran a small consulting firm with a couple of friends for 8 years. He’s currently the DevOps Service Area Lead at Excella Consulting, a father of 10 year old triplet boys, is the director of the nonprofit LoudounCodes, helps organize the RubyNation and DevOps DC Days conferences, and co-organizes a handful of meet ups in the Northern Virginia area.

Dave and his wife did IVF. They were hoping for one child and were delighted/shocked to have three! The odds for three embryos implanting was 2%. They always wanted three, just didn't expect them all at once. 3x of everything! It was 3x the work with only two of them. Now that they are older, they do help each other a lot.

Leveling up the difficulty by quitting his job and starting a consultancy 3 months into the pregnancy. Dave talks about the tension with billing hourly and feeling like you're losing money if you're not working while trying to manage three newborns. They realized with triplets all milestones (walking, talking) happened within days of each other too, so you need to be paying attention. It took a while to get the consultancy to the point where there was a good work/life balance.

The stages are spread out across longer years vs doing all the work for each stage at once.

We continue talking about how the triplets have their individual personalities and how they've nurtured that individuality. They've kept the kids in separate classrooms with their own friends and such. They go on one-on-one outings with each kid. Invidual personalities come out when they are on their own but blend when the kids are together.

The kids develop a sense of fairness early on.

Spread out kids have different technology available when they get to a certain age. Triplets hit the same tech at the same time.

Dave talks about how he's volunteered for years in different capacities and at different places. That's allowed him to influence the curriculum the kids are exposed to regarding technology. He suggested Hour of Code and they've been using it since his kids were in first grade. He also teaches highschool kids and runs the LoudounCodes program. He buys started kits that teach his kids how to solder and build electronics. Also local events in the community, playgrounds, museums, etc. Programming with Scratch. Letting the kids find something they like to do and giving them free time to do it.

After a long and varied career, Dave's wife decided to stay home and work at home with the children. She's the one that keeps everything running. Dave also credits his mom with helping keep things going. She has an in-law suite at their home and helps with the children and dinner. Andy talks about how he and his wife have been able to work from home while having their children. JC talks about being able to work from home for a large part of his children's early years and how that helped the balancing act with his wife who eventually went back into the workforce. Allison talks about mental load and how difficult it can be to mentally unload the home management part of life while working full time. Dave talksa about being equal partners and sharing the load. It's called parenting, not babysitting your kids

Dave talks about a few ways they've pranked the children. Zombies, the Walking Dead and RubyDCamp. Gummy bear addiction.

JC - Decided to take his kids to see Black Panther as a surprise and forgot about his daughter's end of season pizza party which she missed. #FAIL

You can usually find dave under bokman on various sites. He's bokmann on Twitter, Github, Skype, and just about anywhere.

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Allison McMillan

Special Guest: Dave Bock.