"Fuck!" I pulled the straps of the carrier tight for the umpteenth time, only for the stupid thing to fall apart in my hands once again. There was no time to waste, yet somehow, like a true genius, here I was, wasting time.
I tried again with the straps, tying them together with a double figure eight knot and finally, finally, my contraption stayed put. With a sigh of relief, I immediately started loading the babies onto it, starting with a sleepy Broderick, blinking Castille, and pokey Marquise. The three of them were wide awake, though silent, and they fit perfectly in the carrier.
With one baby at my front and one on each side, I grabbed Princeton last and carried him on my hip. He'd stopped crying, but the sniffles were very much still there and it was all I could do to ignore him and keep pushing when all my instincts told me to stop and console him.
