I have a long-standing tradition of celebrating birthdays with my college roommates, Neha and Kristen.   We always start the evening with homemade cake, which is usually sort of wonky looking.  We never intend for them to look bad.  It’s just that something always  goes awry so we end up with ugly cakes that taste downright yummy.  Before we devour the cake, we take a goofy picture using a timer and tripod.  Neha makes sure to find a prop for said goofy picture and there are plenty of outtakes.  We’ve got scads of pictures with someone half in them or a weird facial expression.  We then head out to the birthday person’s eatery of choice.  Over the years we’ve gone everywhere from mundane places like TGI Friday’s to chic wine bars.  I think, with age, we have gotten more sophisticated in our picks.

One year, Neha and Kristen attempted to make a rainbow cake for my birthday. It apparently got stuck in the pan, left a hole in the center, and the colors ran together. They attempted to “fix” it by filling the hole with frosting and adding red sprinkles to the top. This one “takes the cake” for ugly cakes, but is a good memory.

Here is one of our goofy pictures in our old place.  The extra guy is Faisal who lived downstairs from us.

We went to the Glass Cactus, which is a local “hot spot” one year.

No surprise, this year was a bit different with the additions of the newest Shawvers.  It’s not as if getting a sitter for four infants is an easy task.  Plus, we are currently on modified lock down to protect the babies from cold/flu/RSV season as much as possible.   This means we pretty much take them out only to visit the doctor.  Really, who am I kidding???  Even if we weren’t on lock down I don’t think we’d get four babies out in public it’s too much work.  We also restrict visitors to well people with current flu and Tdap vaccines, ask visitors to remove shoes and wash hands thoroughly before handling babies.

When Kristen’s birthday rolled around this month, I invited my roomies over for some take out Chinese food and baby fun.  Being the awesome friends that they are, Kristen and Neha accepted this change of plans and jumped right into our normal evening routine.  Once they arrived, both scrubbed up and started falling right into place with us.  In the span of one evening, the four of us changed babies, fed babies, burped babies, played with babies, put babies to bed, bathed babies, changed babies, fed babies, put babies to bed, made bottles, fed babies, burped babies, and tucked babies in for the night.   Whew!  Oh yeah, in between baby care we managed to enjoy a nice dinner with a glass of wine.  At the end of the evening, Neha looked at me wide-eyed and said, “You guys do this every night?”  Yes, we do.  We do all of these things all day long every day, but honestly we are accustomed to it because it is our normal and our routine.  I must say, it is so much more fun with a few good friends along for the ride!  I hope we didn’t scare them off….my birthday is coming up after the new year.  Maybe they will come back???

This was Neha’s first time feeding a baby. She did a great job with Sydney even though Sydney can be a bit tricky at times with her leaking and gagging antics.

It’s fun when we have visitors and everyone gets a baby!

This assembly line thing works well with a four member team!

We created an assembly line. Here George is filling bottles and Neha is capping them.

This is what it looks like when there are babies and baby feeders everywhere!

These two were pretty good at feeding by the third feed of the night.

Kristen’s birthday dinner 2012. We took a goofy picture, but I can’t seem to find it. Oh bother…

Here is this year’s wonky cake. Notice where I ran out of frosting for the sides and the top is a bit uneven? I did manage a checkerboard center though.

Cheers to good friends AND sleeping babies!

hugs!

Amber

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