‘Welcomed chaos’: Phelps quadruplets mark first birthday
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ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Smith “Quad-Squad” – the naturally-conceived quadruplets from Phelps – just turned a year old.
With bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair, Daniel, Zachariah, Lincoln, and Ian each have their own big personality. They quickly went from crawling around to up and on their feet.
There’s no question it’s hard to keep up with these babies, especially since they’ve got two big brothers, too.
“It’s chaotic, it is,” says dad Dillon Smith. “Every day is something new and interesting. Just when you think you can plan something out, it changes in five seconds.”
The family of eight doesn’t have a van big enough to fit everyone, so when they do go somewhere, it takes two cars.
“Going to Walmart is like a two-hour process give or take, getting everybody ready, loading them up, then we have to turn around and change diapers again. By the time you’re done with the last one, the first one needs something again,” Dillon adds.
They try to get out of the house as often as they can. “On the weekends, we try to go do something all together because we want to be able to have everybody go do stuff but it’s difficult. It really depends on everyone’s mood, mainly mine,” jokes mom Karissa Vancamp-Smith.
Karissa is a stay-at-home mom.
“Ten thousand diapers I’ve changed in the last year. Isn’t that wild?”
The boys were born at 19 weeks and are thriving.
“They’re doing great. They’re developmentally right on track with being a year old. They’re busy little one- year-olds now,” Karissa says.
In the back of their minds, through all the chaos, Karissa and Dillion remember their previous pregnancy losses and continue to remain thankful for the blessing of their sweet, baby boys.
“There was a time when it was a very real possibility for us that we wouldn’t have this, because of our history and four babies is a lot of babies to carry at one time, and that’s a high risk, so, the overstimulation, the extra loads of laundry, all the dishes, it’s welcomed chaos,” Karissa says.