Budding Artist or Troublemaker?

WARNING: This post is rated GP (for gratuitous poop) and may not be suitable for all audiences.

Rustin is not always the best napper. At least 1 or 2 days a week, I can hear him playing in his crib instead of sleeping. This particular day, I heard him driving his cars on the wall and singing songs to himself, but it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. It was about 2:45 pm when I finally went to get him out of his crib. I was expecting a visit from the people working on the HEB commercial at 3:00 pm. When I opened the door, this is what I found:

Rustin, his clothes, the crib, the walls, everything within striking distance, was covered in POOP! Rustin was still fully clothed, so apparently he just reached into his diaper to get to it. I was horrified---especially since I knew the commercial people would be there in less than 15 minutes!

I quickly took Rustin out of his crib and ran him down to my shower. I stripped him down and hosed him off. He had obviously been playing in the poop for quite some time, as it was caked and dried all over his fingers.

Once I got Rustin cleaned up, I started on the crib and room.

Toy cars + Poop + White walls = Big Mess!

No surface left untouched

Rustin looks quite pleased with his "artwork".

If Riley or Kaiya had done this when they were the same age, I am pretty sure I would have cried, or yelled, or both during the entire clean-up process. With Rustin, my first thought was "Oh, no! I think I am going to be sick! This is so DISGUSTING!!!", but my SECOND thought was, "This is going to make a great post for the blog!" So, I really have to thank all of you loyal blog readers for motivating me to write---you helped me get through a messy situation tear-free and with a smile on my face (well as much of a smile as you can have when you are plugging your nose).

Thankfully, the commercial people called to say they were running late, and I managed to get it all cleaned and disinfected by the time they arrived! Fortunately, Rustin has not done this again since, but I wouldn't be surprised if he or one of the others decided to paint with poop again in the future.

Budding Artist or Troublemaker?

What I thought ALL my days would be like...

Mornings at our house are always a little chaotic. The babies wake up between 6:00 am and 6:30 am. When they first wake up, they need a bottle. Riley and Kaiya wake up at 6:30 am to start getting ready for school. At 6:45 am we have family scripture study and family prayer, then Riley and Kaiya eat breakfast while I make lunches, sign homework folders and get backpacks ready. At 7:10, Riley and Kaiya brush their teeth and get their shoes on and they are out the door by 7:20 to catch the bus to school. During the frantic morning rush to get the older kids off to school, the babies all need to be changed and dressed. Most days I take the babies for a run/walk, so we also need to bundle the babies up in preparation for that.

This morning started off like any other morning, except that it was Halloween and the older kids were supposed to dress as a storybook character for school. Kaiya’s grade was going to be in a parade. So, in addition to the usual morning chaos, I had to make some mouse ears so that Kaiya could be Angelina Ballerina, get myself looking presentable enough to go to the school to watch the parade, and make the babies look as cute as possible (since people tend to look at us when we go out in public—especially when we take the stroller).

While I was hurriedly trying to craft mouse ears out of cardstock and a headband, I heard a loud cry from Kassidy in the family room. I looked over to find her flat on her face. She had tripped hit her head on the corner of the small trampoline in the family room. I picked her up and tried to apply ice to the rapidly swelling purple goose egg that was forming on the bridge of her nose, right between her eyes (So much for looking totally cute for our public outing--at least the bruise was purple, which matched her shirt!).

Kassidy--still able to ham it up for the camera, despite the earlier trauma

Meanwhile, Jayson was frantically trying to change all the babies diapers and find them some clothes to wear. When Kassidy calmed down, Riley brought over his homework log for me to sign. That is when I noticed the stench. I checked Kassidy, who was on my lap, but she was clean. I couldn’t imagine that Riley was the culprit, but I smelled him anyway, just in case his Harry Potter Robes were a little dirty. Just then, I saw Rustin out of the corner of my eye. He was completely naked, and there was poop smeared all over the lower half of his body! I ran over to where he was and saw that poop was all over the floor, wall, and stools in the kitchen. I yelled for Jayson to come quick, which of course was the WRONG thing to do, as it attracted all the other babies attention and THEY all came running instead. Jayson grabbed Rustin and took him off to the shower to be hosed off and I quickly gated all the remaining babies into the family room so I could clean up the poopy mess.

The Poopy Trail

More poop---it is hard to tell from the pictures, but I think Rustin must have dragged a couple stools through his mess because several stool legs were covered.

While I was cleaning, I glanced over to check on the babies, only to find that Kassidy had thrown up on the trampoline and she and Kaydence had decided it would be fun to finger-paint with the puke. Fortunately, I caught the “artwork” in its early stages, cleaned up the throw-up and went back to disinfecting the kitchen.

Kaydence and Kassidy--budding artists

Rustin's diaper, which ironically managed to avoid getting even a smudge of poop on it

About this time, my good friend, Virginia, showed up (she is such a lifesaver!). With only 10 minutes before we had to leave for the parade, I threw on some clothes (no time for a shower) while Virginia finished dressing the babies. We made it to the school in time for the costume parade with even a couple of minutes to spare!

Kyndall, Kassidy, Kaydence, Rustin and Ryder wait for the parade to start

Kaiya was the cutest Angelina Ballerina in the whole parade and the babies loved seeing all the costumes.

Kaiya, aka Angelina Ballerina

When I first found out I was having quints, I thought that every day would be like today was. I imagined that my life would be full of uncontrollable chaos and that I would always be running from one disaster to another. Fortunately it hasn’t been as bad as I imagined (at least not yet---maybe those days are still ahead of me!) In fact, having quintuplets has actually been easier than I expected. Don’t get me wrong---it is A LOT of work---but most of the time I feel like things are somewhat manageable. I think it is good to have a few crazy days like today so that I really appreciate how great most days are!

What I thought ALL my days would be like...