Hugging it out

Isaac is a pretty reserved fellow, and his public displays of affection are most frequently bestowed upon yours truly. Which is one reason that I was shocked (and delighted!) to witness these exchanges tonight, first with Jude:



And then—even better!—with Lucy:



Anyone who's met Isaac knows how huge this is. Perhaps Dahlia's friendly overtures have finally convinced him that these built-in buddies might not be so bad, after all!

Dahlia and Isaac share a hug in front of the TV

The essentials

We may not know our alphabet yet, but at least Lucy and Jude have a handle on some of the more important stuff:

Analphabet soup

analphabet \(ˌ)an-ˈal-fə-ˌbet, -bət\ n: an illiterate person who does not know the letters of the alphabet.

Yep, I'd say that definition fits the Fab Four to a tee—or should I say, "a T"? Fortunately, it seems that you don't have to know your letters to love your letters:



I guess I need to get serious about teaching my kids the alphabet ... they're definitely interested!

Head shaker

A mother wears many hats—often in quick succession. Like the other day at the table, when I was an enthusiastic entertainer one second, and an amateur paramedic the very next:



Who knew that my silly sight gag could induce a case of actual gagging? The real head shaker, though, is why Ted kept taping instead of telling me that Jude was choking—I'm guessing he was just as distracted by Isaac's delightful laugh as I was. One thing's for sure: These kids keep us on our toes from one moment to the next!

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!

Puzzle partners

Over the past few weeks, we've been seeing a special relationship develop between Dahlia and Isaac. It started with Dahlia feeding Isaac snacks to cheer him up, and it has progressed to her bringing him the books he likes or finding his pillow for him when he's looking for it. Dahlia will also randomly decide to sit down and "help" Isaac when he's working on a puzzle or shape sorter. She usually calls out the name of the puzzle piece or shape that she is handing to him, but yesterday I caught her letting him do the talking (much like we do for his speech therapy):



I think they demonstrate pretty good cooperation for 2-year-olds! And for the record: Both of the girls can name and pick out all of their shapes, and the boys are close (even though Isaac only names a couple of shapes in this clip). Thanks, Baby Newton!

Potty 'gin!

They say that time heals all wounds, and I suppose two months was just about enough for us to forget how difficult the first round of potty training was. So today we finally took the plunge (no pun intended) and gave Jude his turn on the potty!

Because he's been showing signs of readiness for a while now, I was pretty sure he'd do well. I was completely unprepared, however, for just how ready he was to pichí in the potty: All we really had to do was put him in big boy underwear and let him see Lucy get an M&M as a reward for using the potty—after that, all he wanted to do was "potty 'gin!" He was so excited about using the potty that he did not have even one accident all day!

We'll see how the next few days go, but really, we couldn't have asked for a better start to round 2 of potty training. If Jude can keep this up, it's two down, two to go—wish us luck!

In the blink of an eye

Isaac's first week in glasses couldn't have gone better. I would put them on him whenever he was distracted or in a mellow mood, and the second he started to fidget with them, I'd make them disappear until I saw my next opportunity to put them on. With this approach, Isaac quickly grew more and more accustomed to his glasses until, just a week after getting them, he successfully wore them all day (except for during his nap, of course). We were so proud of him!

But then ... Isaac scratched a lens. We're not sure how it happened, but it seems likely that he fell and hit them on a toy when we weren't looking, as the mark on the scratch-resistant lens was pretty sizable. It must have been pretty annoying, too, because, after that, nothing could convince Isaac to keep his glasses on. Naturally, we got the lens fixed ASAP (thanks, Uncle P!), and I thought we were good to go.

I was SO wrong.

This morning, while I was fixing breakfast and Ted was changing a diaper, this is what Isaac did to his glasses:

Note lens and screw popped out of the frame, temple rotated 45 degrees, 
and one cable completely removed from earpiece.

Talk about a horrible way to start the day! We don't know exactly how he managed to wreak such havoc on his glasses (he is not a destructive kid, by any means), but one theory is that he might have yanked them off to burrow into his favorite pillow, and then rolled over on top of them (I found the popped-out lens underneath the pillow). I really can't think of any other way that he could have mangled his wire frames so badly—I mean, he's strong, but he's not that strong.

In any case, we realize that Isaac needs close supervision while wearing his glasses. But the fact is that we happen to live with three other little people who almost constantly demand that we divert our attention from him! If only I could clone myself ...

Bed-der late than never

Two months after the Fab Four climbed out of their cribs and turned bedtime upside down (literally, for Isaac), they finally have real beds! The plain white toddler cots are made by KidKraft, and Ted was able to put all four of them together by himself in one afternoon—well, a week and an afternoon, as three out of four had damaged parts when we received them and we had to wait for replacements (boo for poor craftsmanship, yay for great customer service!).

Here are the kids seeing their new sleeping arrangements for the first time right before bed last night:



Ted and I thought we might be in for a long night of the kids adjusting to being in beds, as opposed to being confined to a crib or laying on a mattress on the floor, but we needn't have worried. They went right to sleep (even sleeping through the horrible thunderstorms that rolled through in the middle of the night), and then slept in a little later than usual this morning; their first nap in their beds has also been a merciful success. I think they like having their own defined space—boundaries are hard to come by when you're a quadruplet!

Many thanks to our abuelitos and Grandma and Grandpa T, without whom the Fab Four might have been sleeping on the floor for many more months to come!

The better to see you with

Isaac finally got his glasses! I didn't think my little boy's big, blue eyes could get any more beautiful, but I was wrong:

Handsome devil 
(in Fisher Price wire frames with unifit nose piece,
cable temples, and Crizal Avance lenses,
ground digitally to minimize magnification)

 
So far he is tolerating them very well, keeping them on long enough to read books, do puzzles, and perform various other activities that must seem like new now that he can see what's in front of him. Today he even pointed at a photo on the fridge for the first time and said "mama"—I think he recognized me because he could finally distinguish my face in the picture!

Thankfully, the other kids have been great with his glasses, too. Although they initially wanted a turn wearing them, they lost interest once I explained that now Isaac has glasses just like Daddy has glasses. They know that touching people's glasses is a no-no, so they have left his entirely alone. Let's hope it stays that way!

My messy Valentines

The Fab Four's Grandma T made them some yummy chocolate cupcakes for Valentine's Day. The kids enjoyed eating their treats after lunch today:

No, they reeeeally enjoyed eating them:

Hope you reeeeally enjoyed your Valentine's Day, too!

It'll grow back, right?

A couple of days ago, our weekly angel Tante Gabi graciously brought me a copy of Haircutting For Dummies. I wish I could say that I read it before impulsively deciding to cut Jude's overgrown hair this morning, but alas—I'm afraid the results tell another story:

Sorry, buddy!

The poor kid was a model client, but his hair is just so much thinner (and, therefore, much less forgiving) than Isaac's. At least the back looks okay:

I'm thinking clippers would help a lot. Anyone know where I can find some super-quiet ones that won't freak out my boys?

Snack therapy

Like his daddy, Isaac is rarely happy when he wakes up. Mornings generally aren't a problem because it's still dark out, but after his nap it usually takes him a good 10 to 15 minutes to fully acclimate himself to the bright and busy playroom. In the meantime, he is either pretty out of it or just plain fussy.

A few days ago, after trying—and failing—to get a grumpy, post-nap Isaac to accept his Munchie mug of snacks, I decided to just hold him until he got used to being awake. As I sat on the floor rocking him, Dahlia approached us, dug into her own Munchie mug, and stretched out her arm to offer her brother a goldfish cracker. To my surprise, he accepted—and then he accepted again. A half-dozen crackers later, Isaac was ready to play!

I was struck both by Dahlia's thoughtfulness and by Isaac's humble acceptance of her offer to help. (We all need to be more like both of them, don't we?) Yesterday Lucy decided to get involved, too, and Isaac had both sisters coddling him after his nap. Looks like this boy's got it made!

Just a trim

Well, I did it. The boys' last haircut was a full eight weeks ago, but we can't afford to keep paying a professional to cut the kids' hair—so I did it!

My guinea pig was Isaac. While everyone was coloring at the feeding table this morning, I gave him a sucker and got to work. I expected him to fight me, but he was actually surprisingly tolerant of my fumbling attempts to trim his hair:

"Dad, are you really gonna let her do this to me?"

Sadly, I did not work fast enough, and he got fed up with me before I felt like I was done (does a perfectionist ever feel like her work is done?). Still, it's not the worst hack job I ever saw:

Jude is up next, but I think I might try finding some online tutorials before I pick up the scissors again. Some days I wish I'd gotten a degree in early childhood education; today I wish I'd gone to beauty school!

Budding Beatlemania

It's no secret that Ted and I love the Beatles. Like any good fan, we listen to Beatles music on a daily basis, we often wear Beatles T-shirts, we own a wide assortment of Beatles DVDs, and we even have a collection of Beatles magnets on our fridge.

Naturally, we also hope that our kids will one day become diehard Beatles fans. Already, Lucy—who often requests "Buddles lusic" (Beatles music)—can identify every Beatle by name, Jude can name two out of four "Booh-doohs" (Paul and Ringo), and Isaac and Dahlia can each pick out Paul. It's a good start!

Lately I've been feeding the kids' fledgling obsession by showing them Paul McCartney music videos when they wake up from their nap. Ted thinks it's a bit much (he's not a big fan of solo Paul), but I've discovered that there's something about Paul that magically cures post-nap crankiness. As soon as I push "play," the kids forget any grievances and pile onto the couch to eat their snacks—and to point out every time Paul is on the screen, of course!

We've been watching Paul videos so regularly, in fact, that if I forget to put in the DVD right away, someone is sure to remind me of my oversight. I suppose it was only a matter of time until Paul made it into one of the Fab Four's imaginative play:



Someone sure knows how to make her Beatle-loving mother proud!