Santa visits

Since the arrival of the crew, it’s been difficult to manage everyday things that involve leaving the house. Basic home maintenance is manageable, but running around town is a feat. We never enjoyed errands before, but it was nice to go together to take care of mundane things like grocery shopping and oil changes. Now, any type of errand happens when one of us is en route from work to home in the evening. This is after one of us worked a full day outside the home while the other contended with four babies all day and witching hour is looming. Needless to say, many errands take a backseat to sanity. Yesterday some special friends, Billie and Bob volunteered to care for the crew so George and I could take care of errands together. We arranged it so we would get the babies late morning feed done, dart out, and get back for the late afternoon feed.

When Billie arrived at the door, she stood alone as she glumly stated, “I’m really sorry, Bob wasn’t able to come with me today.” I looked back at her with a tinge of dismay. I was sad to hear Bob couldn’t make it, but I felt even worse to leave Billie on her own with the quads. She is totally capable of the challenge, but I felt guilty to ask her to stay alone. I think she relished this quick tease as she brightly announced, “But I brought a special helper instead.” I thought perhaps Billie brought one of her daughters along, but there was no sign of either of them. All of the sudden, Santa popped from around the corner of the house with a big a”Ho Ho Ho” and a twinkle in his eye! I don’t think I’ve been so excited to see Santa in over two decades.

Many have asked if we’d take the babies to see Santa for their first Christmas and the answer has always been a resounding, “NO WAY!” Not that we don’t want them to see Santa because it is a very special Christmas. It’s just that it would be excruciating to wait in line with four infants. Then, we would have to attempt to shield them from the bazillion germs finding sanctuary on Santa’s crimson suit. I would undoubtedly be the insane lady who doused Santa with two cans of Lysol and slathered his arms with GermX. I am fully aware that the babies haven’t the foggiest idea who Santa is and haven’t the slightest desire to meet him just yet. However, it is their first Christmas and I thought skipping Santa was almost a travesty. However, I knew skipping our first Santa visit was all in the name of good health. At the same time a tinge of jealousy ran through me knowing how a few of our quad friends had private visits from Santa this year. Thanks to the coordinated efforts of Bob and Billie, the babies were able to meet Santa this year. I hope they look back at our special pictures in years to come in awe knowing Santa made a special visit at our house when they were so small.

A year ago I never would hava imagined we would have EIGHT stockings hanging along our mantle. We used a curtain rod and brackets to hand them instead of stocking holders. It worked great for so many stokings.

A year ago I never would have imagined we would have EIGHT stockings hanging along our mantle. We used a curtain rod and brackets to hand them instead of stocking holders. It worked great for so many stockings.

Santa sees you when your sleeping (Rylin and Harper) and he sees when your awake (Mason and Sydney).

That is a lot of babies for Santa!

Sydney kept tugging at Santa’s beard. Here she has a handful of it! When I put the girls to bed, I found wisps of Santa’s beard wrapped between their tiny fingers.