``Several times a day -- `Daddy, Daddy, where's Daddy? Ba-bye,' '' Hetherington, 36, said of her triplets Saturday morning from her San Clemente home -- floors littered with toys and toddlers walking here, stumbling there, with an occasional fall and not without some crying. ``I'm doing fine, but I am definitely not motivated for this one. ... It's harder because you don't know what's ahead for (the military).''

Alex, a Marine Cobra helicopter pilot from Camp Pendleton, returned in June from a six-month deployment in Afghanistan last spring. He was deployed again in February, this time to Kuwait. Hetherington said her husband had taken a staff job to prevent any deployment in the near future.

``So we would have a few years of peace and quiet, but the staff deployed also,'' she said.

Hetherington now must not only go through the separation anxiety of losing her husband and the worry of having him in harm's way, but must also care for triplets and a 2-year-old all on her own.

Luckily she is not completely on her own.

At her church, St. Clement's Episcopal, she met Miki Cumming of the Kiwanis Club and Kiwanis adviser to the San Clemente High Key Club, a Kiwanis-sponsored community service youth organization. Cumming saw this as a good project for the youth of San Clemente and a way to give Hetherington much-needed help. ``The kids learn how to be leaders in the community,'' Cumming said.

There are 85 members of the Key Club and volunteers sign up every week for a shift to help out Hetherington watch her babies on weekends, when the babysitter that helps her during the week is not there. The students work Saturdays and Sundays and are currently on their fourth week of helping her, Hetherington said. They work in two shifts -- from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. -- and usually work in groups of two to three.

``I'd be in an insane asylum if I was doing it by myself,'' Hetherington said, in between doing anything from changing Sarah's dirty diapers to taking Will upstairs after he hit Tom over the head with a toy, as happened Saturday. Will could then be heard joining his brother in tears. Hetherington said as she picked Will up that Tom hit Matt once with a block toy that sent Matt to the emergency room and left him with two stitches under the eye.

Romina Labanca, 16, was the Key Club member who helped out Hetherington Saturday morning. She was alone on her watch that day.

She said she was used to the crying.

``The first day I was sort of overwhelmed, because I didn't expect it,'' the high school junior said. She says if Hetherington can't get to the children when they're crying, she tries to distract them with anything silly. She might take them outside for a walk, which was out of the question on this rainy Saturday.

``It's just play the whole time,'' Labanca said. ``Whatever they're up for.''

They love blowing bubbles outside, she said.

Labanca said she will continue helping Hetherington as long as she needs help, even when Alex gets back.