The Power of Four

We returned to the ever-lovely and unseasonably cool MN late Monday night (still sleeping with the windows open every night! And all day too! Windows all day, that is; not sleeping all day!), with all of our daughters in tow, plus our almost 3 year old niece.

Yep, that's right, we traveled 550 miles with four little girls. Two 6 year olds and two 2 year olds.

We left around noon, and all the kids promptly fell asleep. Ahhhhh. Quiet bliss! Around 3:30 pm stopped in Oacoma, SD at the ever-popular Al's Oasis for a snack and potty break. Next stop was for dinner in Sioux Falls, SD. We also made a quick stop at Exit 402 to let the kids blow of some steam on our favorite spot- Teh Bouncing Pillow*.

(I'm quite sure passersby are not supposed to stop and use Teh Pillow. But we do anyway.)

After jumping our sillies out, we pj'd everyone and loaded up one more time- last stop: our house.

We rolled in about 11pm (our time, 10pm Black Hills time). The kids were all asleep and easily transferred into the house.

Easy-peasy. (ISH.) (As long as we forget the part between Worthington and, oh, 5 miles from HOME, where we not only hit construction, but I felt the need to hiss- in 7 second intervals- Be quiet! Go to sleep! It's getting late! Shush!!!!!!!!!!)

The most unusual part of our trip was all the comments we received along the way. "Oh, you are so blessed!" "What a beautiful family!" "Four little girls!" ETC.

The manager at McDonald's (shut up) even came to our table and gushed over the kids and gave them each a free Happy Meal toy.

The weird thing is, while we sometimes receive a compliment from a kindly stranger, we never receive nearly the attention we did by having a 4th child with us.

Today, I took the girls to the park and the comments continued. "Daycare?" "How precious- are they all yours?" ETC.

So, I ask you, was it simply the addition of a fourth child, or the ages of these particular children, or the fact that they are all girls, or WHAT? It's been fun and amusing for me to try to figure out.

Beautiful Neighbor (she occasionally comments here, but does not blog YET) pointed out that they are exceptionally good looking kids, which OBV. I mean DUH. But it still doesn't explain why the extra attention *now* and not when it's just our three kids. I mean, my niece is cute, but she's not that cute.

Well, ok, she IS that cute. But still.

Also, I'm trying to work an angle here to my advantage Re: Possible Future Fourth Child For Green Family. Any suggestions?

(Also-also, the two Littles have been playing sooo great together. HOWEVER. Trying to get them to move in the same direction- any direction! even just twelve friggin feet to the car!- is about as easy as herding cats. How- HOW- did I do this with twins??? Really, I have no idea, nor any memory, of how it all worked.)

*pictures coming tomorrow.