{Daily Pics} Four Peas in a Tub, Shopping Haul & Other Things

After a busy Memorial weekend, the husband and I finally trekked home with the quad squad eager to get them fed and in bed. But first we had to do baths. Before we pulled up to the apartment, we were strategizing to see if there was any way to speed up the process. Typically, when I'm not doing baths alone and have a second person, I bathe the babies one at a time then hand them off to get dried, lotioned (is that even a word?) and dressed. This time, we decided to both man the bath tub and put all four kiddos in at once. Surely it would go a tad bit faster and could be kinda fun to have them all splashing around together.

The water was drawn and Logan was already in the bathroom with daddy, when Kailey decided to go check out the scene....

(fyi - the cord is our video monitor into their room,
we don't just leave safety hazards lying about unattended!)

We added Harrison to the tub and all three were happy little fish playing with their toys in the water. Then Trystan wanted in on bath time and we added her...

...and that's the last photo we got. Trystan decided she wanted to stand up and even attempt to crawl part of the tub, which knocked Harrison over then made both him and Logan want to stand up, which meant babies were slip-slidin' all over the place and mommy and daddy's hands couldn't keep up fast enough. Because they were getting water all over their faces, they began to scream. All four of them. And it echoed like banshees in a cavern in that tiny little hollow bathroom. Quickly we pulled them out and put them on top of towels on the bathroom floor. The husband dried off a couple and threw on some diapers, while I finished bathing the one baby I kept in the tub. Even if it was Bam Bam, and even if she kept screaming bloody murder. Let me assure you... ain't nothing cute about shampooing a screaming, slippery wet baby's head at a 45-degree angle with one hand while holding them by the elbow with your other hand so they don't drown in two inches of water. Contortionist I could become.

To wrap up my story, the husband and I were laughing but in that frantic holy-shit-this-didn't-work-out-at-all sort of way and moving as fast as we could to get the job done. We ended up having to do baths the traditional way—one at a time—and didn't really stop to catch our breath until all four were dry and sitting at the quad table for dinner. Note to self: do not bathe four babies at once unless I've grown eight extra arms, a spare set of eyes and am wearing ear plugs.

Yesterday, my mom came over in the late afternoon to help me with the quads since the husband was working late and had a dinner to attend with the company. (The night before as well, and his mom came to help me with that one. I'm so glad we're now living close to grandparents, hallelujah!) The babies were all being really good and I enjoyed some play time with them—I love to lay on my stomach on the floor and let them crawl all over me. They get such a kick out of it! Next on their gift list needs to be a soft jungle gym of sorts because they want to climb on everything.

Grandma also brought a couple new toys for the quads that she'd scored while thrifting and one of them was this cute Tonka truck. The other kids were figuring out how to get the better of it, when Logan crawled over and sort of pushed them out of the way in an "I've got this" fashion. She stood up, swung her leg over and crawled on top. Then started clapping her hands. It was to die for, so cute!

MVI 6809 from Texas Take on Vimeo.

This morning, I got a rare chance to take care of some shopping while my nanny stayed at the house and the babies napped. I had a couple returns to make, then hit up Carter's, Old Navy and American Eagle in lightening fast form. It's awesome what you can get with coupons, outlet mall prices and clearance racks. I scored lots of brand name stuff, everything in the photo below was $150!

shopping excursion gets a thumbs up!

Now it's time for afternoon naps and to clean up and prep things for the last half of the day. I just made some black iced tea (hello, caffeine) and there's piles of laundry making dirty faces at me. But every couple of minutes today, I am shaking my head and smiling as I think back upon this time last year. I was hanging by a thread, not sure how much further I could go with the quad pregnancy. I'd already been in the hospital for 56 days, had extremely blurred vision, intense bodily pains, couldn't walk, my skin was on fire and I felt like death from the magnesium sulfate I'd been on for eight weeks. Plus, I'd started contracting a lot and they were starting to hurt. And then those four beautiful babies arrived the very next day and changed my life forever.

momma with kailey and logan

They will be a year old tomorrow and it's such an incredible milestone for both us as parents and them as premature multiples. While we'll be enjoying a low-key day since their birthday party is the following weekend, I look forward to giving them a little cake and putting together a blog post with a few photos looking back on the last year, plus some new ones, and their 12 month stats. One year (nearly) down!