Caleb, bless his sweet heart, isn't one to take risks. He is the very last baby to learn anything new developmentally. He always figures it out, but there doesn't seem to be much motivation there. Everyone has a nickname, and his is "Noodle." As in, "Wet Noodle." Catch my drift?
So today, I was very surprised to see him stand at the couch, turn away from it, let go, and take a step before falling down. All of the other babies have been taking a few steps, but he has refused to let go of our hands and try anything himself.
I was SO proud of him for having the courage to do that! Naturally, I celebrated! "Good job, Caleb!! Such a big boy! You did that all by yourself! Yay!!"
And then Elijah and Ellie both stopped what they were doing, looked at me, and started clapping their hands! So funny and sweet!
Yet another benefit of being a multiple: You are born with your own cheering section!
***********************
On Sunday, we did it! We took our kids to church for the first time!
Yes, you may start applauding for all of us now. :-)
This was a long awaited moment at our house. We have so missed it! We haven't been to church since the day our first baby came home. I remember the day vividly. We went to church, went home and changed our clothes (germs!), and then drove to the hospital to pick up Elijah and bring him home. That was almost a year ago.
So for our first church adventure, we went to First Baptist Raytown. Although we didn't typically go to this church before we had kids, we definitely wanted to make sure that we visited. So many people from this church prayed for our family that we absolutely had to thank them in person. And this church also has some memories attached to it. It's where Sean and I first met eight years ago! :-)
I knew you all would want to see pictures of the occasion, so I took my camera!
Caleb thought this was quite possibly the worst idea we have come up with to date. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say, there were many tears and he didn't want to play at all. I'm sure the fact that church coincides with their nap time didn't help. One of the kind nursery workers held him the entire hour and rocked him until he fell asleep. This is a photo of the two of them after Caleb calmed down.
Abby, on the other hand, thought it was great! She explored all around the room and played with lots of toys. It was a much bigger than our living room, and she thought it was great that I let her roam free. Fun story about the photo on the right! That's a young lady who is a student volunteer in the nursery on some Sundays. She's an identical triplet! And she still thought we had a lot of kids! Haha!
Elijah wasn't a big fan of the nursery either, but he was willing to chew on the toy telephone for awhile. That lasted about 10 minutes, and then he decided he wanted to be held. He wasn't sad...more just cuddly and tired. So the sweet lady behind him in the photo let him fall asleep in her lap.
"Hi. Do I know you?" Ellie is probably my favorite baby to put captions on. Seriously. She is so hilariously expressive! She was an explorer like Abby, but also spent a fair amount of time being held. I thought she would have the most difficult time with her sensory issues, but nope! No tears, just Ellie doing her thing!
After the service ended, Sean came back to the nursery to pick the five of us up. We took the kids on a small tour of the church and introduced them to Pa and Ma's (Sean's parents') Sunday school classes. That was a lot of fun, and the most commonly heard phrase was, "That's a lot of babies!" :-)
And then they all fell asleep on the short car ride home. After a quick lunch, we put them down for a nap, and they slept for THREE HOURS! I must say, while I'm not a big fan of how cranky they get when they miss their morning nap, I do love the extra long nap that I get that afternoon!
***********************
And a quick update: Thank you for voting for us in the 25 Top Moms of Multiples Blog Contest! Don't forget that you can vote once every 24 hours. I added a button to the top left hand corner of our home page to make it easy to link to it. Last I checked, we were in 3rd place which is pretty darn good! Thanks for keeping us in the top five!
So they can go places now? Cool!
ReplyDeleteAwesome job mom and dad!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you all made it to church. The first of many, I'm sure.
ReplyDelete"Yet another benefit of being a multiple: You are born with your own cheering section!" SO True! I love seeing my kiddos cheer for each other.
BTW, I use to baby-sit that triplet (and her sisters)! Boy, she's grown up.
Oh my word! It's a small world if you used to babysit them! I was surprised that there was a higher-order multiple helping in the nursery anyway! I knew like 2-3 sets of twins before I got pregnant. Now I feel like just about everyone has multiples or is a multiple!
DeleteDo you know if the triplets' mom is in our multiples group?
So glad to have found your blog from the Multiples link up- Quads are amazing and its amazing they all get out together to see the world- no easy feat with four babies! You can follow me back at http://thelittlelillypad.blogspot.com Thanks! Amanda
ReplyDelete