nature of their cries. This time it was Henry, she guessed. Either he was hungry, had a wet diaper or a tummy ache. She’d been pleased when he’d crawled into her lap earlier—and a little surprised, because he wasn’t usually a cuddler, except when he was tired or sick. She’d assumed he was just tired, but now she wondered.
“How are you doing, big guy?”
He held his arms out to her, a silent plea to be picked up. And though his big blue eyes were swimming with tears, he smiled at her. A quick glance into the other two cribs confirmed that his brother and sister were both sleeping peacefully.
“You didn’t nap for very long,” she said, speaking softly as she lifted him into her arms. She patted his bottom, checking his diaper. Though it didn’t feel wet, she changed him anyway, then lifted him into her arms again. “You shouldn’t be hungry,” she said. “Auntie Bella said you had some fruit and eggs this morning, plus a piece of blueberry muffin and a bottle.”
“Ba,” he said, which was his word for ‘bottle.’
“Are you thirsty?” She continued to chat quietly with him as she carried him out of the room and down the stairs. “Or hungry?”
She set him in his high chair and found some grapes in the refrigerator, already washed and cut up so they wouldn’t be a choking hazard. She put a few pieces on his tray. He squished them between his fingers then smeared the broken fruit over his tray.
“Okay, not hungry,” she decided, as she prepared a bottle for him.
Bella had created charts so that, at the end of the day, Jamie could clearly see each baby’s input—the amount of food and drink—and output—the number of wet and dirty diapers. There was also a column for other notes. In the past few weeks, there had been a lot of other notes—explanations for red marks and warnings of possible bruises that attested to their increased mobility.
As Henry continued to muck around with the grapes, Fallon added a tally to the diaper column. Then she wiped off his hands and lifted him out of his high chair again and carried him to the living room.
Although all of the babies could hold their own bottles now, she’d read somewhere that human contact was important for a baby’s development—and especially for preemies—and she liked to cuddle with each of them as much as possible. Since Jared and Katie were still sleeping, she took advantage of this one-on-one time with Henry, settling into the rocking chair and offering him the bottle.
He grabbed it with both hands and guided the nipple unerringly into his mouth and immediately began sucking.
“I guess you were thirsty,” she noted.
As he continued to drink, she touched her lips to his forehead. Hmm...maybe he was a little warm. And in the late morning sunlight streaming through the window, his cheeks did appear a little blotchy and red.
“Maybe you’re cutting some more teeth,” she suggested. His bottom central incisors had broken through the gums only a few days earlier—two days later than Katie had cut hers, while his brother, Jared, was still waiting for his.
Henry continued to suck on the empty bottle until she gently eased it from his grasp and set it aside.
“Do you feel better now?” she asked him.
He responded by projectile-vomiting all over her.
Fallon was having second thoughts about the tree-cutting plan before Jamie came back to the house that afternoon. She’d barely finished cleaning up Henry and herself—having to borrow a shirt from her friend’s closet in order to put her own in the wash—when Jared and Katie woke up and began demanding their lunch. Of course, Henry’s belly was empty, too, and though she was wary of what might happen with anything he ate, she couldn’t let him go hungry.
Thankfully, whatever had upset Henry’s tummy earlier seemed to be out of his system, and he dug into his pasta with enthusiasm. After they’d finished eating and she’d finished cleaning up the kitchen, she bundled them into their snowsuits and took them outside to play in the snow. It was fun to watch them crawl around in it, and as an added bonus, it tired them out quickly.
While they were outside, she scanned the property, looking for any sign of their father, but she didn’t see Jamie anywhere. She knew he’d planned to fix the fence on the north border of the property, but unless the damage was worse than he’d suggested, he should have been finished by now.
When the babies finally collapsed in the snow, exhausted, she carted them back inside, wrestled them out of their snowsuits, changed their diapers, gave them their bottles and settled them back in their cribs. She touched the back of her hand to Henry’s forehead, but whatever had ailed the little guy earlier seemed to have truly passed.
When they were finally all settled, she said a silent prayer of thanks that she was able to get them all to sleep at the same time. By that point, she was just as exhausted as they were.
But she threw another load of laundry into the washing machine, added a couple of items to Jamie’s grocery list, and tidied up the toys in the living room because she knew if she sat down, she might not get up again.
She was accustomed to taking care of children all day long. When she wasn’t helping with Jamie’s babies, she worked part-time at Country Kids Day Care. But she worked with the preschool group, children who generally listened to instruction, sat happily at a table to complete an assigned task and enjoyed story time.
As much as she loved Henry, Jared and Katie—and she did—it wasn’t easy trying to keep up with their demands. Although she couldn’t deny that they were much easier to deal with now that their schedules were somewhat synchronized. For the first few months, it seemed as if one baby would go down for a nap, then the second would want to be fed, the third would need to be changed and by the time the second one was almost asleep, the first was waking up again.
In those early months, only a few hours with the babies had exhausted her. Thankfully, during that time, there had been a lot of volunteers in the baby chain so that no one had to do more than a four-hour shift and often there were two volunteers during a given period.
Over the past couple of weeks, however, as holiday preparations put more demands on everyone’s time, the number of volunteers had started to dwindle. While Fallon understood that people had other responsibilities and obligations, she couldn’t abandon Henry, Jared and Katie. Their father was already doing everything he could to keep the ranch running and there was no way he’d be able to do that if he was also responsible for the full-time care of his babies.
The dryer buzzed, signaling the end of the cycle and prompting her return to the laundry room. She knew Jamie appreciated the extra chores she did around the house, but as she folded diapers shirts and sleepers, she found herself wishing that he would—just once—see her as more than a link in the baby chain.
* * *
It wasn’t quite three o’clock when Jamie returned to the house. After kicking off his boots at the back door, he was immediately struck by the unfamiliar sound of silence. Obviously HJK were down for their afternoon nap—but where was their babysitter?
“Fallon?” he called out.
There was no response.
