Albert Einstein is famously reported to have explained the Theory of Relativity this way:

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity.”

Relativity is key to making sense of the swirl that is life raising four girls under five. I’ve been keeping track of some practical applications of Einstein’s pithy saying over the past few months…

• To a toddler, three hours at Chuck E Cheese feels like five minutes. To a parent, five minutes at Chuck E Cheese feels like three hours. Also, Chuck E Cheese may be the modern gateway to the Underworld. Or at least Satan’s living room.
• Maya was “the baby” and seemed very tiny until Ella arrived. Then she seemed huge. And a lot older. And I started wondering why she wasn’t potty trained and dressing herself  and maybe getting her own apartment yet (she’s only 16 months, but still…).
• Ten years of waiting for the twins to arrive seemed like forever. The five years (this month) since we hear our first good news (“you’re pregnant!”) have gone by in a flash. One day I woke up and we were a family of six.
• Having two babies at once seemed like an insurmountable task. Now we sometimes talk about how simple things were back in the good old days, when we had only two kids to keep track of. Especially in the mall. Or at the park. Or in a restaurant. Or on a plane.
• I used to need at least eight hours of sleep to feel functional. Now if I get four or five uninterrupted, I get the sensation I’ve been Rip Van Winkled and may be waking up in a different century.

And maybe most of all, the smallest things are now the biggest victories. First smiles. First swims. First bites. First words. A lot of things that seemed mundane and ordinary are fresh and full of wonder. It’s like learning to live all over again – seeing the world with new eyes.

And that is relatively superb!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gf3FdkJTCU

I am often asked how different life is with four girls. Mostly I try for a witty comeback like “well, four is more than three.” To make amends for my snarkiness, I present these actual thoughts on the subject:

It’s not that big of a change around the house, provided we remember to keep the newborn out of the reach of Maya, the Long-Armed Toddler of Doom. She’s obsessed with the kid. Likes to crawl into the car seat with her and has added a fifth word to her vocabulary: Ella (she actually says “Erra”. I think she may be Chinese. Time will tell).

ONE
Going out is a bit more complicated. The diaper bag is burgeoning with two sizes of diapers and costume changes. There’s a lot of junk in the trunk (mostly two large all-terrain strollers – the kind they used on the Apollo moon landing I think). And Ella likes to toss her pacifier and screech like a wounded Predator about two minutes into any trip. This is like nails on a chalkboard to the twins. Something about a crying baby evokes a visceral response and overwhelming urge to nurture in the female types (“Mommy, can you help Ella to stop crying?”). Well, not Maya so much. She’s happy as a clam in the car, as long as we’re talking about the three minutes in every trip that Janae is not poking her or stealing her book. During the rest of the trip, we have two screechers. I am thankful for the Mickey Mouse portable DVD player strapped to the back of my headrest. I’m starting to really enjoy the Little Einsteins. Proof that my descent into madness has begun.

TWO
Vehicle options are narrowing rapidly. My Chevy Malibu, even fully crammed, can hold only 5/6 of the brood. The minivan is our only option for comprehensive troop transport. I’ve been looking at other possibilities, but I’m pretty much limited to a Humvee or one of those airport shuttle vans. Or a Dodge Sprinter (which is basically an airport shuttle van). This, of course, means I’m sticking with cheap American-made minivans. I have four college educations and four weddings to save up for, people.

THREE
We are noticing that the world seems to be unfairly prejudiced in favor of groups of four people. Vehicles, booths at restaurants, Family Packs of tickets to the Mariners, the list goes on. Go ahead – ask for a table for six with two high chairs at your favorite restaurant and see just how long it takes the host to work out THAT algebra. You could fly to Alaska, stalk, kill, dress, and cook your own moose in the time you’ll have on your hands in the lobby, desperately praying for the “your huge table is ready” pager to light up while attempting to keep the toddler from burning the place down. This is an ever so slight exaggeration, but this subtle discrimination (which I have dubbed “Fourism”) must be confronted and eradicated from our society. I’ll start the petition…

FOUR
Our home is teeming with life. Loud, messy, exuberant, joyful, tearful, beautiful, wonderful, precious life. We have gone from the desert of barrenness to overwhelming fruitfulness. God has transformed our home into living proof that He still hears, still answers, and still does miracles. We were very sure of this when we had only three girls. But He has left no doubt .

My gift to you for reading to the end? The first official pic of all four together. Enjoy!

For example: today I had to be reminded that some toddlers need their diapers duct-taped at nap time.

Most parents reading that sentence will chuckle. Most of us have been there. I have been there. So really I have no excuses and deserve no sympathy. I should have seen the tell-tale signs: Maya was increasingly more undressed every time we got her out of bed. Yesterday morning, she greeted me in only a diaper, holding her onesie aloft triumphantly, flashing a big cheesy grin as if to say “Mission Accomplished!” Cute, right? Maybe that’s why I didn’t hear the 50s sci-fi robot in my subconscious trying to warn me: “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” But I was to distracted by her adorableness to see the logical conclusion of this pattern of behavior. Only too late did I recall that Arnold Girls love a challenge, and  for Maya there was only one more disrobing mountain to climb.

Only the diaper was left.

You already know what happened. I will spare you the gory details. Let’s just say that she succeeded in getting the diaper off before she went to sleep. Sometime during that nap nature took it’s course. And apparently nature was angry. And Maya awoke. She is an artist at heart, it would seem, and something deep within led her to express her creativity with a display of finger-painting that has led me to nickname her “Poopcaso.”

A shower, and couple loads of laundry, a lot of disinfectant, one toy taken apart, and several rounds of Mom’s special stuffed animal cleansing method later, and we are almost back to normal. As I scrubbed and disassembled, a wave of deja vu swept over me, followed immediately by chagrin: I suddenly remembered I have done this dance before. With the twins. Both of them. We tried a lot of things to solve it. We finally had to go all “Red Green” on ‘em: they could not defeat duct tape.

So Maya now has improvised industrial strength diaper closures. If memory serves, the next step is climbing out of the crib. That should be a hoot with this one…

For now, I am thankful for small problems and a big family. And I’m taking some Ginko, cause I’ve really got to try to remember this stuff…

When Stacey was in college, one of her assignments was to go to Bellevue Square, watch children playing in the play area and write down observations. This is, of course, an assignment destined for disaster, especially if the student is a male and they happen to record some of their observations on a camera phone. “It’s for a school project” is an explanation likely to get you tackled by burly mall security guards.

But why risk the indignity of being taken down by rent-a-cops? Come on over to Arnold-ville, where you can observe four siblings in their native habitat! You can see a living example of just about every stage in your text book, all with in the space of an hour or two. For extra credit, you can take ‘em to a playground or feed them a meal and get even more learnin’ on.

Case in point: Middle Child Syndrome / New Baby Anxiety. Maya is no longer the baby. She’s coping fairly well, but yesterday she was trying out all the baby items in the house -- swing, car seat, pacifier. I got it on video (sort of -- see below), but seeing it live is oh so much more informative.

Or we could hire a film crew. If the recent documentary “Babies” is any indication, people love to sit in theaters and watch babies for two hours at eleven bucks a pop. Sure babies are cute, but they don’t really do that much. Add two preschoolers and a toddler -- now that’s entertainment! Of course, this sort of veers into the whole “Jon & Kate” / “Balloon Boy” opportunism, so maybe we should pull it back a bit, even though in the American psyche nothing says ‘I love my kids” more than a little exploitation (That was sarcasm, people. Cutting edge social commentary smothered in tasty ironic nougat).

Until the UW calls to set up their extension campus here, I will continue to document the developments for science and posterity. Think of me as your Dev. Psych. Jane Goodall, and this blog as “Toddlers in the Mist.” The mist, in this case, is the spray from the kitchen sink faucet one of them has gotten a hold of. Yipe! Gotta go!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKr8TlWew_A

Which brings me to the geometry problem. As you can see in the photo above, we have gone ahead with my ingenious plan to place the three older kids in the back seat. By so doing, we could keep one seat folded into the floor, providing ample space to crawl in and strap the nippers down as well as much needed cargo room for the weekly “half my paycheck” trips to Costco for pallets of milk, cereal, waffles, and diapers.

Today we tried it out on our first car ride as a family of six. It worked out splendiferously – the two boosters and Maya’s car seat can be crammed into that tiny bench – no room to spare, but it works. One caveat – the receiver end of the seat belts are now 4 inches into the tiny crevasse between car seats. Technically possible to reach, but you can get only one hand in there, and clicking in a seat belt is, oddly enough, difficult with one hand.

Not one to be foiled by something as simple as vehicle design, I have scoured the series of tubes we call the Internets for a solution (thank you, Mr. Gore, for your wonderful invention). I have found one, but I have mixed feelings about the depths to which I have sunk…

I now have a charge on my credit card from an online store called “More of Me To Love.”

Apparently these sorts of devices are not generally aimed at the car seat crowd. But I found exactly what I needed – an 8″ rigid seat belt extender that should put the receiver at exactly the right level – maybe high enough for the girls to buckle themselves. THAT would be a massive step forward!

I was thinking about the road Ella took into the world. It was by no means easy on Stacey (being pregnant while having three girls four and under already is no picnic). It was by no means simple -- having a baby never is. But the pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum hospital stay were, by all accounts, routine, unremarkable, and entirely normal.

This means something to us. Our first two pregnancies were far from normal. They began with medical assistance and were considered high risk the whole way through. Compared to Janae, Corinne, and Maya, Ella had:

• The longest gestation. The twins were born at 36 weeks, Maya at barely 37, Ella at 39.
• No jaundice, bili blankets, bili beds, or home photo therapy.
• Just over 48 hours in the hospital.
• No long term stay in Special Care Nursery.

Ella was conceived against all odds. No one thought it medically possible. Having her here is a one in a billion shot. Everyone who hears the story says “she is a miracle baby.” So true. Even more than you know. It is a miracle she was conceived. Her time in the womb was miraculous. Her birth and first few days have been astonishing.

All because they’ve been so ridiculously normal.

It makes me marvel and the goodness of God. The Bible always talks about “signs and wonders.” We know signs are to point to a specific truth, fact, or action item. But wonders? They are intended to leave us breathless and speechless at the beauty, power, and grace of our Father. And I am. We asked for a baby for a long time before the twins. I think God sent along this little wonder to remind us that He answered then, but is also able to do more than we could ever ask or imagine.

I am thankful for the miracle of normal.

Now a video of our “Wide-Eyed Wonder Girl.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYJmQiTbsQU

…or maybe this afternoon. Ella was up all night again, and has finally gone to sleep. Gotta work on that whole night / day routine…

Good news – we are cleared to head home today! This will be our shortest hospital stay of all the pregnancies. Special thanks to Team Barsness for taking on the other three through today and to Team Barker for taking the home stretch – not sure what we would have done without you!

Ella is a great eater, which is a mixed blessing. All good for sure, but a bit exhausting for Mom. We never really experienced the full-blown “marathon feeding” with the others – pretty crazy. She wanted to eat every 30 minutes or so. Her bilirubin levels are normal so far, which means no home phototherapy for jaundice – also a first for an Arnold Girl! Now Mom and baby are sleeping and I am packing up. Should get some final tests going and final paperwork, then home sweet home! I figured out how to get at least one good picture in low light with Stacey’s fancy-dancy camera. Here it is:

Talk to you when we get home…

I finally got the photos from yesterday posted on Flickr and here on the site. Here are a couple – and here is the link:

http://arnoldgirls.net/photo-feeds/ella/

Share on Facebook ]]> http://arnoldgirls.net/2010/06/13/family-visit-photos/feed/ 1 http://arnoldgirls.net/2010/06/13/enter-ella/ http://arnoldgirls.net/2010/06/13/enter-ella/#comments Sun, 13 Jun 2010 01:33:49 +0000 Jon http://arnoldgirls.net/?p=429 We are officially a family of six! I will be signing up for Brad and Leah Fox’s next class on “How to Survive Four Young Children.” I have been trying to post an update all day but it’s been chaotic -- it always is. Here’s the rundown:

5:30 am. Alarm goes off. I shoot alarm with .44 Magnum. In my head. In real life, I drag my sorry carcass out of bed. Ugh.

6:30 am. Stacey’s Mom arrives to take over twins and Maya duties for a few days. Thanks Grandma!

7:30 am. We arrive at the hospital and get checked in. We learn that despite my assurances to the contrary, the c-section is scheduled for 9:15, not 9am. I still think I was right. Its the rest of the world that got it wrong.

9:10 am. We head to the OR. When we arrive, we are told there is an emergent case before us and we will be delayed. We head back to our room for another hour.

10:10 am. Back to the OR. For reals this time. Stacey gets a spinal anesthetic. It doesn’t take. It has to be redone a second time.

10:47 am. Ella is born! There was much rejoicing. Yaaaaay. She is 7 lbs 8 oz (our biggest baby yet). She is 20″ long. Apgar is 8/9. She is having a bit of trouble breathing. After seeing that her sats drop into the 80s on room air, the special care nurse is recalled. She decides to take her up to the Special Care Nursery.

I must stop here to elaborate. The twins were both in SCN, which is one step below the NICU, but comes with a lot of the same restrictions. They were there four days. The SCN is way at the other end of the building from the normal patient rooms. Mom doesn’t get to see baby until she can get up and walking. And once you are in SCN, there is a long checklist to get out. We were very much praying she would be able to breathe better soon and avoid all that.

The first phase in SCN is a four hour observation period. After that, she is admitted. I kept running back and forth between Stacey’s room and Ella’s room to keep up with it (deja vu all over again). She was getting better and better. On my final trip over, I found the nurse giving her a bath and preparing to feed her -- a very good sign! She was able to eat (suck, swallow, breathe -- the first thing you learn in life) and pinked up after the bath. I should rephrase -- the bath made her angry, so she screamed and turned red all over. Just like Corinne. And Maya.

So somewhere in the 3:30 range Ella got to come over to Mom’s room. We’re all together now! Ella is starting to nurse, and Mom is stoked to have her close. All is well in babyland.

Just after we got Ella moved in Stacey’s brother and sister-in-law and their three kids came by, followed immediately by Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Rachel, and Ella’s sisters Janae, Corinne, and Maya. At one point we had 6 children running around the waiting room, and got a stern, well-deserved talking to from the nurse on duty. It was great seeing everyone, and perfect timing for everyone to come by and welcome Ella. Janae and Corinne got to hold their new baby sister and give her presents. Quotes of the day from the twins:

Janae: Mommy, why are you just laying there so much?

Corinne: Mommy, now that Ella is out of your tummy can you go to Disneyland and ride roller coasters with us?

Things are mellow now at 6:30 pm. Ella is getting some Mom time and had a great first feeding. Dad is getting some blogging time. All is right with the world . Here is the only video I’ve gotten uploaded as yet. The rest and a slew of photos coming soon. Maybe after I get a nap. Or some coffee. Decisions, decisions.

Thanks to everyone who called, stopped by, texted, and Facebooked -- your prayers and well wishes are a great support to us.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2FBSAb-Xh8

From our combined Father’s Day / Grandpa’s Birthday Celebration. Special thanks to Rachel-B, who serves as the official family photographer. Amazing shots!

Needed some content for the front page, so I thought I would re-post my own post. That should fill up the space ’til I get the swimming videos edited…

Here are some posts (with excerpts) I have done about our journey becoming a family of six:

A Consistent Ethic of Life

As I prepare to share the story of how our family came to be this Sunday at Redwood Hills, I am thinking about one of the main questions we get asked a lot: are fertility treatments consistent with Christian ethics (or more like “are Christians allowed to do that kind of thing?”)? It’s a great question, and one we have spent plenty of time wrestling with. I won’t have time to go into any detail on Sunday, so I thought I would blog it here for you three readers (yes, we are up to three now ). Let me first lay some ground rules.

This is not the Law from Heaven on fertility treatments. It’s also not my attempt to help you circumvent the process of wrestling with this question. If you are facing it, you need to. To me this is not a political issue or a morality tale, it’s simply an intensely personal choice we had to apply our faith to. We hope we got it right. We did our homework. We prayed for wisdom. We believe we were heard.

Read More…

The amniocentesis showed the lungs were not quite ready for prime time, so a few more days of waiting til we get to see her. Stay tuned…