Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, particularly during the years of feeling like the only child free home on the block.  However, George absolutely LOVES Halloween.  He decorates our home with the gusto of Clark Griswold at Christmas.  Our house is the only one on the block complete with a kitschy graveyard (I swear that thing MUST go when the babies are old enough to know what it is, but for now I let him do it.), spooky lights, and large silhouettes of a witch and cat highlighted with a strobe light.   The neighborhood kids seemed to appreciate his kooky spooky decor and came by the droves.  We always seem to underestimate how much candy to buy.  I always start out overly generous, giving several pieces to each little spook and by dusk realize it’s just one bite size piece per kiddo.  I think we had 400 pieces this year and only gave out two per kid, which means we had about 200 little spooks come a knocking.

Despite my lackadaisical attitude towards Halloween, it was much better this year with our four to dress up.  It will be even better when they can join in the festivities.  I already have grand plans for next year’s costumes.  I just hope Aunt CiCi is up for the gig! Perhaps Halloween will become a beloved holiday for me one day.

It’s a bit hazy, but here is George’s graveyard.

And, here are his silhouettes

The babies sported Halloween bodysuits for the day courtesy of Marin’s Boutique. Rylin was not too happy with her get up.

Mommy and the gal mummies. I couldn’t resist the Halloween hair bows for them!

Here are Mommy’s Mummies handmade by Aunt CiCi herself!

The babies chilled in Rock ‘n’ Plays in the garage while we passed out candy. When the neighbors realized the babies were out the mummies stole the show. The little spooks did a great job of not touching and just looking.

First Halloween family photo!

George and I both have very small immediate families.  I have just one sister, Courtney (aka Aunt CiCi) and he is a lonely an only child.  That means that the fab four have just one aunt and no uncles (At least not yet….ahem, eligible bachelors).  They couldn’t have a better person for the job though.  If you are going to have just one aunt, Aunt CiCi is the gal for the job!

I often conjure up creative ideas and crafty projects, but execution isn’t always quite right.  I can’t cut in a straight line to save my life and I usually glue my fingers together if adhesives are involved.  When Mom tried to teach me to sew, I ended up with wonky pajama pants that had the drawstring backwards and uneven legs.  Thankfully, Courtney is excellent and executing my next great idea, and she enjoys doing it too  I even have a board on Pinterest entitled “Things Courtney Should Sew” because the heavens know I could never make these fab things come to fruition.  Her baby gift to the crew was sewing their curtains and bedding.  She still has quilts in the works, but they don’t need them for quite a while anyways.  Perhaps they’ll make good first birthday present?

A few weekends ago she helped me alter elastic headbands to fit the girls and hot glue hundreds (well not hundreds, but lots) of flowers to alligator clips.  Every baby girl needs a headband with huge flower to go with EVERY outfit, right?  Well, as our first Halloween is fast approaching I realized we needed costumes of course.  There aren’t exactly tons of cute costumes for newborns so Courtney found a really cute idea on Pinterest.  This particular idea involved sewing so of course that meant this was no task for me.  Courtney couldn’t let her nieces and nephews go without adorable first Halloween costumes so she came over for the day and helped make made the babies costumes.  I have to say they turned out absolutely fantastic!  You will have to wait until our Halloween post to see the final product.  Any guess as to what they will be???

Harper and Rylin made sure to wear shirts showing their love for Aunt CiCi. They figured if they flattered her a bit, she’d keep up all the crafting. Notice the huge flower on Rylin’s head? That is all thanks to Aunt CiCi.

“Team Aunt CiCi” plus one furry fan

While Rylin and Harper wanted to flatter Aunt CiCi, Mason and Sydney gave props to mom.

“Team Mommy”

Courtney’s got all the pieces out and ready to go!

Courtney’s roomie, Carlyn, is kind enough to share her sewing machine with us. When they no longer room together, I’ll have to buy Courtney a sewing machine so she can keep up all her crafting on our behalf.

While Courtney was busy crafting, I realized that Sydney already enjoys being read to. Green Eggs and Ham seems to be a favorite. The limited color palate in the books is probably quite appealing to an infant.

hugs!

Amber

Whac-A-Mole arcade redemption game with dogs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Despite our valiant efforts, the babies suffered their first cold this week.  Our visitors will be relieved to know it came from none other than Papa Bear himself.  That means Mama Bear’s wrath was directed towards him.   It started when George came home Friday night with a burning throat that quickly progressed into nasal congestion. By Monday night, Harper was fussier than usual and ate much less than usual.  Tuesday morning, his eyes were glassy and he was terribly congested.  Being a dutiful first time Mommy, I looked through all of my books to see what to do.  I was on track using saline with nasal suctioning, cool mist humidifier, sleeping upright, and cuddles.  The books all noted that I should go to the pediatrician for a first time cold to rule out anything else (e.g. RSV).  Knowing that we have four preemies, the letters R, S, and V together are very scary.  I was flying solo on Tuesday and wasn’t sure how to manage taking one baby to the pediatrician with three others in tow so I called our “Johnny on the Spot” aka Father in Law aka Grandaddy.  I probably called with a tinge of distress hoping he could help manage the four at the doctor’s office if needed.  Without hesitation, he said, “I’m coming over!”.

Meanwhile, I called the pediatrician and the nurse assured me that I was doing everything I should.  Thankfully, there was no reason to take Harper in for an appointment unless there was fever or dehydration.  Even without having to go to the doctor, I still had one sick baby and three others to contend with.  Remember that arcade game where moles pop up from a box and you whack them down with a mallet?  Just as you take care of one, three more pop up in the first one’s place.  That was Tuesday for me, a game of Whack a Mole.  I was doing my best to prevent cold pandemic with quads by sterilizing bottles, washing hands over and over, disinfecting all surfaces, and separating all baby stuff.  I would get finished feeding the fourth baby as the first began refluxing.  Once I finished taking care of reflux, another one would be wailing of a stinky diaper.  All the while, Harper still fussed of total discomfort.  Amen for Grandaddy!  While he doesn’t generally do diapers or spit ups, it was nice having him there to help console fussy babies and manage the feeding frenzies.   He was so sweet that he stayed with us until George came home late in the evening even though I told him he didn’t have to stay.  By the end of the day I’m pretty sure his batteries were totally drained.  Keeping up with four babies one of which is sick is not for the faint of heart.

You may recall…I worked hard to keep the cold pandemic at bay?  You probably predicted, those efforts were absolutely futile.  Each day this week another baby fell victim to the cold.  Harper then Mason, Rylin and finally Sydney.  As of now, we have four stuffy nosed babies with little appetite and a predisposition to reflux.  I probably shall run, I think I need to whack a mole!

I decided I needed to snuggle all four at once.

My idea worked!  Here they are from my point of view.

Grandaddy consoling a fussy Rylin. Notice there are several Rock ‘n’ Plays? We now have four because everyone needs to sleep upright with all the mucus and reflux we have going on.

Here is my first attempt with bottle propping to feed all at once using props from a triplet Grandpa. Epic fail. The props work like a bib so if a burp or reflux is coming on it’s bad news bears!

Attempt #2 at bottle propping just using towels. This worked for a moment, but we didn’t have much stability. We also tried bottle buddies suggested by another quad mama, but didn’t have much luck yet. We may try again when the babies are tad bigger.

Here’s what it looks like when everyone is wearing their angry eyes.

In honor of the Red River Rivalry we wore our Texas socks for the Texas/ OU game. Too bad our lucky socks didn’t help Texas a bit.

At 3:00 am when George and I stumble out of bed bleary eyed for a feed, we have to pause for a moment.   In the evening when Harper’s colic kicks in and he begins wailing to be held, we have to pause a moment.  As George and I wash yet another batch of a trillion bottle parts, we have to pause for a moment.  At moments like these we feel like we need to escape to a far away place.  We can easily start wishing for our babies to go ahead and grow up, grow out of needing feeds in the wee hours of the morning and stop crying already.    But, when we pause for just a moment, we realize how precious and fleeting these moments are.  Every day there are tough moments, but there are are so many rich moments interwoven.  At the moment, we have babies tiny enough that we can hold more than one at once.  At the moment, they actually like being snuggled.  While we complain that  formula can break the bank, it really only costs about $5/ day to feed each baby.  It won’t be long before teenagers clear out the fridge and it won’t cost just $5/ day.

Sure, we can dream about the days of potty trained kids who partake in family game nights.  We can imagine little girls with enough hair for braids adorned with huge bows and little boys that play catch in the yard.  We can dream about when they are old enough to appreciate the magic of Santa and Disney Land.  Those times will come with different tough moments, and we must treasure them too.  For now we shall embrace every little moment as it happens, even the tough ones.  There will come a day when we will miss having a tiny baby who wails to be snuggled and when we could feed them for just $5 day.

At the moment, everyone seems to enjoy letting Rylin chew on their fingers. Here’s Mason giving it a try.

I said I didn’t want the babies dressed alike so they could be individuals. However, we’ve received quite a few matchy sets.  At the moment, I’ll admit it’s fun to dress them alike while they don’t mind.

Looks like Rylin is going to give Sydney’s fingers a try.

At the moment, they can all fit in one crib. Here’s Harper, Sydney, Mason, and Rylin having yet another pajama party in Rylin’s crib.

Sydney and Mason at the moment.

Rylin and Harper at the moment.

It’s hard to believe that our tiny babies have already outgrown preemie clothes and are stretching out of newborn sizes too.  The boys have graduated from tiny 4 oz bottles to the full sized ones and the girls are not far behind.  Our tiny ones are growing so fast already.  I better get going before I miss more moments.

hugs!

Amber

Having four premature babies in the NICU is a difficult journey no matter how prepared you are ahead of time. However, there are some very special nurses who made our NICU time much better. They did everything from teach us how to feed our babies to letting me cry on their shoulders.   Some nurses became “Medela Wranglers” when I had to share with a miserly mother. When we couldn’t be at the NICU, they advocated for our babies and snuggled them like we would. They dressed our babies in their best clothes with coordinated linens and sweetly spoke to them.  They never treated our babies as just another patient and instead treated them like little people.  I have no doubt they are called to do this work.  It is not easy, but they do it with such love.

During our stay we had many nurses and care partners who helped care for our babies, but we were fortunate enough to have several “primary” nurses. Primary nurses sign up to care for particular babies each time they come to work. This helps with continuity of care and bonding. It proved very important to have the same nurse from day to day when Sydney was getting sick because her nurse, Liz, was able to compare her health from one day to the next. This ultimately helped change Sydney’s care plan so she could get better.

While we are soooo happy to leave the NICU, these special people will never be forgotten as they were the first to care for our babies. When I left Cook for the last time, I was overjoyed but felt a little sad to leave these wonderful people behind.  I’ll admit I shed a few tears on the way out.  Thank you, Cook Children’s NICU nurses and care partners!  We will see you at the reunion!

hugs!

Amber

A special team of nurses transported our babies from the labor/ delivery hospital to the children’s hospital.

This was the team who admitted our four.

Jennifer was our night primary who made sure our girls had the cutest linens in the unit. Dani helped take care of Sydney when she was so sick.

Lisa showed us how to bottle feed the babies side laying and how to pace them.

Denny always treated the girls like “little ladies” as he called them.  He was really special and took the germs for the babies when I had the stomach bug.  Thanks to him the room was fully sanitized and no baby got sick.

Katy taught me how to give the babies their first bath.

Peppa was the “baby whisperer” who could get all of the babies to burp when no one else could. She became an honorary “primary care partner” because we got her to spend so much time with us.

Mindy was the babies’ first nurse alongside Tyra.

Lisa always loved on the babies as if they were her own. She made sure they were always dressed their best, got lots of attention, and helped stage many a picture. I really loved it when Lisa and Rylin greeted me OUTSIDE the room with this ladybug outfit.  That really made my day.

It’s been almost two weeks since all of our babies have been home and we are constantly asked, “How do you do it?” or are told, “I hope you have A LOT of help!!!” In the first few days of having just one or two babies home, I felt disheartened when numerous people seemed to think it impossible to care for all four without a 24/7 entourage. I often thought to myself, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle with Him at your side. That means we CAN do it!” Of course, we welcome the help from friends and family, but ultimately we need to be at least capable of going it alone. There will be numerous times when one of us is home alone with all four. In fact, I am proud to say that both of us already spent a day alone while the other went to work. While it’s been a short time with all four at home, we’ve learned that we don’t have time to contemplate everything we just start doing and making sense of what needs to be done. After all, it is sink or swim isn’t it? There may be times there are sharks in the water so we’ll just have to swim faster.

The first week of all babies home, we were both off work and spent the entire week just figuring things out. It’s all a case of trial and error to figure out what is most efficient for our family. In our week’s time we came to really appreciate particular items we use regularly and will continue to rely upon for quite some time. We call these things our “survival tools”. Here are some of our favorite tools, in no particular order:

One of the first things we figured out when having multiples is you MUST figure out a way to tandem feed. This is because the babies are on a three hour feeding schedule and each one can take up to 30 minutes to eat. If you do the math, that means feeding babies individually with one person, it would take about 16 hours to feed everyone. That is just too long and we would NEVER sleep! We experimented quite a bit on this one. We tried sitting with Boppy pillows on the floor, but the babies were just too small. Also, as preemies they eat side laying to prevent choking on milk. We then started sitting on the floor with regular pillows, but our backs were screaming after a day of that.  Plus the babies would sink into the stuffing. We finally figured out a way to tandem feed sans back trouble. We sit on the couch or in a chair with a memory foam pillow covered with burp cloths. We then lay two babies on the pillow back to back and hold one bottle in each hand. With both of us in the night, it takes as little as 30 minutes to feed and change everyone! That means more sleep for mom and dad!

We found that “The Big One” contoured memory foam pillow from Kohl’s works quite well for feeding.

We may have figured out a stellar way to tandem feed, but let’s face it there isn’t much time for solid sleeping at night. We get back to bed pretty well, but we only get to sleep in 1-2 hour increments about three times per night. That means we need to learn to live on less sleep and more coffee!
I gave George a Keurig for his 30th birthday, but it is our new BFF! Every parent of multiples absolutely must have one. It’s so nice and easy to make a quick cup of coffee or tea with this bad boy and we don’t waste a whole pot of coffee. Also, it’s simple to use even for the most sleep deprived of people.

A friend loaned us this Fisher Price Rock ‘n’ Play. At first I scoffed at it. I hate that it is baby pink and a total eye sore in my living room. But…it is a blessing for parents of colicky babies, or babies with reflux. It snuggles them up and lets them sleep at a slight incline. You can also rock it with your foot to lull them to sleep. Harper has spent several nights sleeping in this thing and it bought us a few hours of precious sleep. We love it so much we sent my father in law on an excursion to pick a khaki one up from Babies R Us!

This is a Mama Roo swing, which is actually the best hand me down we’ve ever received. Amen to Britney for sharing it! This is a high-tech swing with multiple swing and sound settings. The best by far is “car”. It mimics the motion and white noise of riding in a car and lulls even the fussiest of babies to sleep. The babies have literally spent enough time in this contraption to have traveled from Dallas to Austin many times over. We love this one so much we have considered buying a second one. With multiples, they tend to prefer the same contraptions and don’t always want to wait their turn.

In order to get everyone’s bottles ready for a feed, we simply pop them into these Avent bottle warmers for 4 minutes. We started with just one and quickly added another so we can have two heating at once.

When the babies were in the NICU, their physical and occupational therapists introduced us to the Wubbanub. They are Soothie pacifiers attached to a small plush animal. They are cute and all, but the point is to help babies keep the pacifier in their mouth, which keeps them calm (and quiet). For us, it also helps us identify each baby’s pacifier since they each have a different animal. The only problem is making sure our Yorkie, Lily, doesn’t turn them into doggie toys.

I don’t know it it’s just our babies, or all babies, but we have a serious case of boogers. It is nearly impossible to extract a boogie without the help of Little Remedies saline. The babies and I are so happy it exists!

After being in the NICU so long with monitors keeping track of the babies, it was a bit hard to let them sleep in their own beds. We found these Angel Care monitors, which are intended to help prevent SIDS. They don’t check heart rate or anything, but alarm if a baby is not moving (e.g. no breathing is detected) for 20 seconds. At first, we got many false alarms because our settings were off. The first night was brutal because when I heard an alarm I bolted faster than Superman!  Now that we have them correctly set, they give us the gift of restful sleep. Since we don’t have many opportunities to sleep, restful sleep is a precious commodity.

A friend gave us these fantastic Aden and Anais muslin swaddling blankets. We started using pre made swaddlers, but Rylin and Harper already figured out how to bust out of those. These particular blankets are my favorite for several reasons. They are lightweight so I don’t feel as if the babies are over heated and are larger than typical receiving blankets so I can wrap them up really well. And of course, swaddling helps soothe fussy babies and helps them sleep better.

Sometimes we use multiple survival tools at once- Wubbanub, swaddler, Rock ‘n’ Play or Mama Roo. 🙂 We pull out all the stops when someone is particularly unhappy.

One thing we quickly figured out is to make all the feeds for a 24 hour period. That is 32 bottles per day! However, each baby takes a different amount at each feed and Sydney uses a different bottle. One way to keep them all straight is with these nifty little name tags I ordered from Mabel’s labels. Not only do they help us keep track of each baby’s feed (particularly at 3 am), but when helpers come it is easy for them to identify which bottle goes to each baby. We also love that these labels are dishwasher and microwave safe.

Yeah, I know this is just a good old crock pot. However, it is our new favorite cooking appliance. We are total foodies and miss the days of cooking meals from scratch, but there just isn’t time. We do still enjoy home ade meals so I have taken to crock pot cooking. Up ot this point our crock pot was exclusively for queso and pot roast. I’m still a novice, but thanks to Pinterest, I am finding simple tasty recipes to try. Ideally, recipes have about five ingredients or less and require very little effort yet turn out great. If you have a favorite crock pot recipe, feel free to share! Tonight I’m making chicken spaghetti.

And the best of all, is George’s own invention, the Diaper Chute! He created a way for us to send dirty diapers from the girls’ nursery closet directly to the garage. We love it because it contains several days worth of diapers (that is at least 32 per day) without having to be emptied. AND our house does not stink of poo. Surprisingly the garage isn’t really stinky either because of the charcoal liner.

In addition to our tools, we have been working on establishing routines like bathing boys and girls on alternating days and rotating the babies through various contraptions during the day.  The combination of survival tools and routines allow us to accomplish more and of course sleep as much as possible.  All and all, we are actually surviving infant quadruplets and having a blast doing it.  With each day that passes, we are thankful for our four healthy babies.  Even on the most tiring days, we must never forget the difficult road we traveled to get here or take our babies’ health for granted.  Each day is precious.

hugs!

Amber

Just a few short weeks ago, I was in tears over Sydney.  She had a mild case of pneumonia and reflux.  It pained me to see the color drained from her sweet face and how far behind she was falling.  Her neonatologist let me know that she was getting a transpiloric feeding tube to bypass her stomach for several weeks as she outgrew the refulx.  He did not want her attempting to bottle feed for two weeks at least.  On top of that she would need IV’s of antibiotics for a week.  I  fought back tears as the doctor told me Sydney would be many weeks coming home behind her siblings.  When the doctor left, the floodgates opened.

Later that week, Sydney had a blow out diaper and managed to push her tube out.  The neonatologists rotated so a new doctor was in charge.  This particular doctor opted to keep the transpiloric tube out and use a regular NG feeding tube through her nose to tummy.  As an added bonus, she was responding beautifully to the antibiotics.  I knew she felt better because she started fussing furiously when her diaper was left unchanged or if someone disturbed tape on her delicate skin.  Due to her improvement, the doctor said she COULD try to bottle feed once a day.  I was ecstatic the first time she got the opportunity to bottle feed, but it was an epic fail!  Sydney was no more interested in her bottle than I am in fly fishing.  We continued to expose her to bottle feeds tirelessly each day to no avail.  At best, she sipped 7 or 8 milliliters and that just wouldn’t cut it.  The NG tube remained.

When Harper was ready to come home I became very sad for Sydney and concerned about how we could slit time among babies in two places.  In a last stitch effort, I brought Sydney a few Dr. Brown’s bottles with a preemie nipple.  Most mothers of quads, triplets, or probably any preemie will say they used Dr. Brown’s bottles.  This is because they are pretty much the only manufacturer with enough sense to make a preemie nipple.  Practical (or lazy) me fought tooth and nail to avoid using Dr. Brown’s bottles.  Not because they aren’t fantastic products, but because they are a pain to clean and we have 32 bottles to contend with per day!  Each Dr. Brown bottle has a bottle, straw, connector, flange, nipple, and lid.  Multiply that by four and you have 24 parts x 8 feedings, which leaves 192 not so easy to clean parts.  Thus, I chose the easy to clean Avent bottles.  While Rylin and Harper took the to the Avent, they were just too big for tiny Sydney and apparently Mason too.  Within days of me bringing a new bottle, Sydney began taking FULL feeds and was expected to come home!  When we left Mason’s car seat, we had learned from experience to leave Sydney’s as well.  It paid off because Sydney came home just two days after Mason.  She was certain that no baby would be left behind!

Now that Sydney is home, our family is complete and it feels so good!  Don’t worry, the adventure is far from over. We’ve tackled a high risk pregnancy, birth, and seven week NICU stay, but having babies at home is an all new adventure.  Stay tuned!

hugs!

Amber

Thanks to this little pink bottle, both Mason and Sydney came home within days of their siblings.

car seat test in progress

George had to work the day Sydney came home, leaving Nisey and Grandad to babysit the others. Aunt CiCi came to pick Sydney up.

I shed a few tears when we said our final goodbye to Lisa. She made everything in the NICU better for us!

Siblings reunite