Good neighbors

This morning I took the kids to a splash park for the first time. Whenever we do something new, I have concerns about whether I can keep everyone safe and in line, but today I wasn't too worried. After all, a friend had invited us to meet her there (so I knew I would have a pair of back-up eyes and hands), and she had assured me that it was entirely fenced-in, with only one opening (so I knew I wouldn't have to monitor multiple points of exit).

And everything did go fine ...

Fun at the splash park!

 ... until we decided to have lunch. At that point, the girls followed me to a nearby picnic table to get dried off while my friend made sandwiches. Isaac was not far behind. I saw that Jude was still playing in the water, so I decided to let him have fun while I got the other kids settled. The next thing I knew, a lady was tapping me on the shoulder, saying, "The kid who is wearing exactly what he [points to Isaac] is wearing is outside the fence!"

Sure enough, I looked up to see that, during the short amount of time that I was drying off the other kids, Jude had exited the park, walked along the fence (next to the parking lot!), and ended up in the grass near the playground, on the opposite side of the splash park from the picnic tables. He was standing there all alone, looking very small and helpless. Supremely embarrassed and more than a little bit horrified, I thanked the woman, left the other kids with my friend, and ran to retrieve my boy.

Safe and sound!

Turns out Jude realized that none of us were in the sprinklers anymore, and—even though we were just a few steps away at the picnic table—he thought we'd gone back to the car and went looking for us. The woman who alerted me to his escape was at the park with seven kids of her own to keep track of, just happened to notice during a head count that one of mine was outside the perimeter of the park, and cared enough to let me know right away. Now that's what I'd call a good neighbor!

Incidentally, our literal neighbors have been pretty good to us this summer, too. Already we've enjoyed one's playroom and bouncy house, another's hand-me-down clothes, another's sprinkler and water table, and yet another's amazing trampoline:



Thank you, God, for good neighbors!

Hello, goodbye

Goodbye, school ...

Last day of the first semester of preschool

Hello, pool!

Opening day at our neighborhood pool

Here's to a great summer, full of lots of stuff to blog about!

Synchronized divers

Jude just got brave enough to jump into the pool by himself last week, and Isaac couldn't be more excited about it! Check out the new jumping buddies:

On your marks:

Get set:

Go!

Go!

GO!

Here's a short clip of my little synchronized divers in action:



Although the timing on their actual dives may be a little inconsistent, you have to admit that the way they get out of the pool together is picture perfect! Think they could be contenders for the 2024 games?

Puddle of fun

Ah, jumping in puddles. A pleasure that most kids take for granted, but something that mine had only seen on television ... until yesterday, when an overnight rainstorm left a tantalizing puddle on the walking trail behind our house. As soon as Jude saw it, he knew exactly what to do with it—and the rest of the crew soon followed:



Puddles of the world, you are no longer safe: If the Fab Four see you, they will jump in you!

Sprinkle, sprinkle

What do you do when it's too hot to go to the playground and there's no one to go to the pool with? You make Daddy set up the sprinkler in the backyard—for the first time ever, believe it or not! Happily, we just happened to have a round stationary sprinkler stashed away in the garage, perfect for four little people to share:

First time in the sprinkler 
(l to r: Jude, Dahlia, Lucy, and Isaac)

As I expected, Jude and Isaac dove right in and stayed under the spray almost the entire time we were outside. Dahlia and Lucy were more cautious, watching from a distance while the boys got soaked. Eventually, however, neither girl could resist the siren call of the "waterfall" (as Jude likes to call it), and soon everyone was enjoying the refreshingly cool water. We stood under it, drank from it, pretended to wash our hands in it, and, of course, ran through it:



I'm pretty sure we'll be doing this again!

Keeping our cool

This summer's been hot, hot, hot, and we've been taking full advantage of the warm temps by heading out to the pool as often as possible. Our favorite things to do by the water include jumping in:

Isaac

Filling buckets:

Dahlia

Making waves:

Jude

And laying out:

Lucy

We have a great time at the pool, but the kids can't let their guard down for a minute. You never know when a mommy shark will attack:



Hope you're having as much fun keeping cool as we are!

Rub a dub dub

From the beginning, I have been kind of a wimp about giving my kids a bath. At first—when they were fresh out of the NICU and I was still giving them sponge baths on the kitchen counter—I was scared because they were so, so tiny. As they got bigger, I dreaded baths because it was just so much work to stand at the sink and wash four squirmy little ones in a row. In fact, I disliked bath time so much that the babies were 4 months old before it even occurred to me to take a picture of them in the tub:

My bathing beauties, 4 months old
(clockwise from bottom left: Jude, Isaac, Lucia, and Dahlia)

By the time the kids were 13 months old, we'd moved the baby bathtub from the kitchen to the bathroom, but I was still too nervous to put my slippery babies directly in the big tub for another couple of months. When I finally got brave enough to bathe them two at a time, I'd scrub the girls, and then Ted and I would each take one to dry/diaper/dress before repeating the process with the boys. That remained our mode of operation for almost a year—until yesterday, when I thought it would be fun to change things up:

(left to right) Isaac, Jude, Dahlia, and Lucia at 26 months

Managing four kids in a tub was a lot easier than I thought it would be—probably because they are well past the stage of slipping and sliding all over the place. And since Lucy and Jude are out of diapers, we could easily get them dried and dressed right there in the bathroom while watching the other two.

We probably won't do this every time (logistically, two at a time is still easier for us to handle), but I am glad that we tried it at least once—from the looks of it, it won't be long before they won't all fit in the same tub anymore!

A pool, a picnic, and presents!

This weekend we were reunited with my cousin Glenda, who lived with us last summer but spent this summer as an intern in Hawaii. We missed her lots and were thrilled to have her spend a couple of days with us before she begins her (gulp!) senior year in college.

Three things we loved about her visit:

1. SWIMMING ...

Glenda arrived on Friday afternoon, and as soon as the Fab Four had their snack, we loaded them into the Choo Choo for their first trek to the neighborhood pool. Three out of four kids loved the baby pool (Jude tolerated it after initially refusing to get in), no one drowned (despite a couple of accidental dunkings for Isaac and Lucy), and there was only one meltdown (you guessed it: Dahlia didn't want to leave)!

2. REUNIONS ...

On Saturday morning, Glenda accompanied the six of us to our first NICU reunion picnic. The hospital where I delivered the Fab Four holds this event every year so that the wonderful people who cared for these miracle babies can see how everyone has grown since being released from their ward. We were happily surprised to run into some friends as soon as we got to the park, and Glenda snapped this shot of two healthy sets of quads with four very thankful parents:

The Fab Four meet the Murray Crew
(l to r: Isaac, Clark, Henry, and Brooks)

Although it turned out that our kids were too young to enjoy most of the picnic activities, it was still fun to walk around, talk to friends, and just do something different from our usual routine. Before we left, we ran into the kids' two primary care nurses, and Glenda once again stepped in to record a special meeting:

Gretchen and Amanda reunite with the Fab Four

Although Ted and I could have easily handled the outing on our own, it was nice to share the experience with Glenda, who visited the babies in the NICU and spent several months helping us take care of them last year.

And last but not least ...

3. SOUVENIRS!

The first thing Glenda did when she got to the house on Friday was to produce a box of presents. Among the gifts she brought us were four adorable Hawaiian outfits for the kids ... that I totally forgot to have them model while she was here. Oops! Hopefully these pictures, taken after she went home, will make up for my faux pas:

Dahlia and Lucy, in love with their beautiful muumuus

Jude and Isaac, goofing around in their Hawaiian shirt sets

Thanks for making this such a fun weekend, Tia Glenda!

It's pool time!

Yesterday we celebrated the birth of our nation by eating hot dogs and introducing the Fab Four to their new kiddie pool. (Yes, it's July and we are just now getting them into the water. Baby steps, people!) We filled the pool early in the day to give the water a chance to warm up, and then we initiated the kids into some of the most beloved rituals of summer: Swim diapers? Check. Bathing suits? Check. Sunscreen? Quadruple check!

Ah, summertime!
(clockwise from top left: Dahlia, Jude, Lucy, Isaac)

Once everyone was ready, we put the Fab Four in the water and waited for their reactions. They all seemed interested in the new experience—until the moment Ted activated the pool's fancy spray feature:



The unexpected blast of water scared Lucy away from the pool for pretty much the rest of the afternoon, and Jude was right there with her (kind of like how he refused to walk in the grass the first few times we were out in the yard). Dahlia, on the other hand, was not fazed and thoroughly enjoyed walking around in the pool and squirting the water out of bath toys. Isaac, too, was totally in his element, splashing and rolling around, climbing in and out of the pool, and sticking his face in the water like a pro.

Hopefully I can get everyone accustomed to the water so that we can try out the big pool in our neighborhood at some point. What I'm really looking forward to, though, is the day we get to take them to the beach for the first time—a girl can dream, right?