TBT: Living Birthday Greetings

​Yesterday I read on BBC News that Kim Tucci, a woman in Australia, recently gave birth to quintuplets. Those kinds of stories grab my attention, since I had a litter of babies myself.

This many years after having them, I’ve put behind me the thousands of diapers we went through (each WEEK) (I kid you not!) and the fact that the number of bottles we filled, fed, and washed was in the millions. (That is NOT hyperbole folks, really!) When I see other moms join the special club of Moms of Higher Multiples, it’s fun to revisit those memories—well, what few of them I have. I zombie-walked through so many months/years, my mind isn’t completely sharp on some of the details of what went down those first, formative years of my kids’ lives. (Like how many bottles we washed. Maybe.)
 
We were dirt poor, so we had to be creative when birthdays and other gift-giving events came up. Someone bought us a colored printer, so we were able to print out homemade cards or photo posters to send greetings to people. We hand delivered what we could to save on postage. (Did I mention how poor we were?) Sometimes, we just used the kids to BE the card. They didn’t always cooperate. Sometimes they couldn’t. Like poor Spencer. He couldn’t sit up for the longest time, so we had to prop him between pillows, furniture, or sturdier siblings. And by the time we’d get two or three of them back in place after rolling, crawling, or falling away, the fourth had had enough of it and went bonkers. But eventually, we’d usually get a presentable shot and we could send our well wishes onward.
 
Today’s TBT is just such a shot. I snapped the picture as Spencer was listing to port, but even so, Pierce, being the easy-going good sport he’s always been, probably wouldn’t have gone bonkers like Charles no doubt did seconds after I took this, considering the suspicious look on his face. So for the most part, we got a successful greeting “card” for their Aunt Anne.
 
Or at least that’s what I imagine this picture is about. I guess it could be that they rolled around in some early-learning reading flash cards and the cards stuck to the drool on the front of their jumpers. Remember? I don’t really have memories of what was going on back then. Either way, it looks like I could at least get my babies lined up on the couch without falling off on their faces. At least while the camera was rolling…