Octuplets

A woman in California has given birth to a surviving set of octuplets yesterday – that’s eight babies – and they are doing remarkably well. They’re comprised of six boys and two girls.

If they all live (and let’s hope they do), this will be the first set of octuplets ever to have survived. Ten years ago, a woman in Houston gave birth to eight babies and seven of them survived.

I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by multiple births ever since I did a book report in the eighth grade on the Dionne quintuplets. They were the first set of quintuplets to have ever survived (born in 1934) and the only set of identical quints to have ever been born.

You have to admit, though, that the thought of raising eight babies is pretty mind-boggling. The first time I was ever confronted with one “muddy” diaper, I was pretty mind-boggled.

Let’s say, a newborn baby gets changed eight times a day – and I think I’m being conservative here. That’s 56 messy diapers a day. 1,440 diapers a month.

Can you imagine doing this before the days of disposable diapers?

The mother of these eight babies reported that she wants to breast feed them -- all well and good.

But as I recall, the moment babies get hungry, they shriek like an angy pterodactyl.

I’d be willing to bet that anywhere from three-to-eight babies are going to be hungry and shrieking at the same time, and not just patiently waiting for the next available breast.

Can you imagine what the terrible-two’s will be like? I remember my niece absolutely losing it because she wasn’t allowed to pull a feather out of a table arrangement. It’s what they do. Now multiply that by eight.

What about when they begin playing outside? Eight-year-olds are completely incapable of entering or exiting a room without slamming a door. And they’re constantly on the move, especially boys, because by golly, there are doors to be slammed.

What about when they all begin playing video games? It’s hard enough to get one of them to put down a video game and come to the dinner table.

I was baby-sitting an eight year old one time and he refused to put down a video game to come eat. He even swiped at me when I stood in front of the TV.

I calmly went to the fuse box and shut the power off, leaving him in the dark.

I thought that was a pretty clever parenting technique, but I was dealing with one kid. I cannot imagine eight.

I hope everything turns out okay for these little ones. I really do.

As far as the breast-feeding thing goes, I think the mom might want to consider one of those automatic milking machines that you see at a dairy farm.