{Quad Squad} Oh, Poop...A Tale of Morning

Holy crap.

That about sums up my Wednesday morning. Oh, and the fact that I chugged a small glass of wine at 11:30am. Yes, that would be 11:30 in the morning. Not to say I've never had a drink in the morning. Just that it's usually a Saturday for starters and there's a group of festive people involved and I'm not sweating bullets in my kitchen, but rather gearing up for a day of concerts or a leisurely float down the river somewhere.

But there was no river or even other people. Just me. And my wine. And my four very unhappy toddlers. And poop. Lots of poop. Wasn't even their poop, either.

I have no pictorial evidence of any of this, of course. I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't jump for the camera when one of my kids comes traipsing in from outside tracking copious amounts of dog shit along behind him. The only photos I have from Wednesday at all are ones my mom snapped on her camera, so I asked her to send me a couple. Here's my sweet little man and Kailey doing her best impression of a kissy face. Or of a teenager. Whichever is most accurate!

It all started after breakfast. The babies slept late—which is never a bad thing—and they didn't eat breakfast until nearly 10am. (Although since then, I've decided that 9am is our cut-off point for late mornings because it just throws my schedule off a tad too much during the afternoon.) They were happily eating their sausage and hash browns with lots of fresh fruit and I was thinking, okay, good, this day is off to a nice start and everyone seems happy! I thought a romp around the backyard would be a nice thing since it was supposed to rain and storm the next two days. So I cleaned up breakfast and pulled out everyone's shoes, at which point the first torrential downpour of tears began. Kailey's favorite shoes are now two sizes too small but she doesn't understand that and wanted to wear them now, momma. I stuck to my guns and put on her new shoes—which even light up but she didn't care!—then moved on to the next one. She was still crying and throwing a fit and now Trystan was crying because she didn't have shoes on yet and was truly concerned she wasn't going to be included. Meanwhile, I couldn't get Harrison's puppy dog feet stuffed into his shoes very well and was starting to sweat again when clunk, Kailey had managed to kick off one of her shoes and clog me in the head with it.

Seething rage on the inside. Mixed with the growing desire to scream, shout or burst into tears. You know that moment where you have to decide if you're going to break down and cry or abort current scenario and come up with a Plan B? I pulled it together and moved on to Plan B, which was to start ushering everyone outside and I'd deal with Kailey last. By this point she'd finally accepted the fact that her new shoes were going to be the ones she'd wear and I was just about to get the second one on when I smelled shit. Like really gross strong smelling shit. I looked up and see Harrison happily hauling butt from the patio into the kitchen, covered in dog shit. Shit shit shit. I had no idea how he'd managed to get that much on him, but it was all over his shoes, his pants, his butt and part of his shirt. Oh, shit.

So I got him turned around and headed back out and took Kailey along with me. Closed the patio door behind me so no one else could track in more poop. Then I grabbed Harrison and managed to get his shoes and pants off, rinsed his shoes in the water spout on the backside of the house and turned around to see him step into a piece of shit on the patio with his clean sock. Ran inside and grabbed jeans and new socks from a laundry bin by the kitchen, ran back out and started to get him re-dressed. Then Kailey spotted the jeans (she loves jeans) and started grabbing for them because she wanted to wear them. Wrong again Kailey Poo, and hence melt down #2 began.

By this time everyone was clothing and shoed and I was soaked in sweat. It was way more humid outside than I had banked on and this was no longer fun. Much less a good idea. I retrieved some balls for the kids to toss around and noticed the big pile of dog diarrhea that Harrison had apparently slipped on and slid through. It's not like his butt just landed in the stuff, he slip-slided on down the whole thing. (And now I'm wondering why the hell one of the dogs has the runs, especially when I spotted a second pile, but that's a problem for later.)

Now Kailey has tripped and fallen into some grass and there's dirt on her hand, Lord help us all. So I pick her up and carry her around while simultaneously playing kickball with the other two girls and keeping an eye on Harrison to be sure he doesn't end up in a pile of shit again. But then Logan loses it and my face is radiating heat by this point, so I'm all, we're through here. I call everyone over to a small patio on the side of the house with a door that leads directly into the play room and proceed to strip them all down to their diaper, one by one. I escort them through the door one by one, which confuses the hell out of Logan and Kailey, who proceed to have meltdown #3. I must note that both Trystan and Harrison were both very calm, cool and collected during these proceedings. But by the time I've gotten all four inside, they've all had enough and everyone's crying and screaming. I gathered up the balls they were playing with and take them in so the dogs don't destroy them, pick up the pile of dirty clothes and shoes and dump them in the sink in the laundry room, fill the dog's water bowls back up (the kids had dumped them everywhere immediately upon entering the back yard) and let the dogs back out.

When I came back into the play room, Kailey had just thrown up snot and spit on the carpet from crying and getting so upset. I baby-wiped that clean, then the quads were all too happy to oblige me and head upstairs for bath time. I went up the stairs with them and put them in Trystan and Logan's room, shut the door, went back downstairs and poured a glass of wine. I was halfway through a big gulp when my parents showed up and I opened the door looking like a sweaty hot mess that smelled like wine and shit. But boy was I glad to see them! Mom took one look at me and ditched her bags to help me give the babies baths and we hung out upstairs while everyone calmed down and cooled off. Once my glass of vino was gone, I was starting to feel better and less like a frazzled crazy person. So I headed to the kitchen to make lunch, which was immediately followed by naps for the babies.

Things improved from there though the "damage" had already been done and I was exhausted! But my step-dad and I got out in the afternoon for a few quick errands and grabbed shakes from Sonic. I hadn't had one in ages and got a chocolate cream pie shake, which Trystan took an immediate liking to! She would come get in my lap and say "sit" then look at me and say "good girl" and then giggle and eye my shake. Naturally, I let her have the rest of it. Please disregard my tired, makeup-less face and icky hair in the photo below. I told you the morning wasn't pretty!

While the quads ate in their table, I ate my dinner on the stairs, shoveling in the food while everyone was occupied for a few. We were nearly an hour behind getting them all in bed since our day had started so late that morning and two out of four were screaming bloody murder in protest. But they must've been, um, pooped and fell quiet a few minutes later.

Thank God for grandparents and wine.

How was your day?!