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Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey are promoting "Seven from Heaven," a book about their first year as the parents of the world's first surviving set of septuplets. (AP)

Joel is the big guy now, weighing almost 18 pounds, but Kenny started crawling first, skittering across the floor of the overflowing home in small-town Carlisle, Iowa. Nathan is sensitive, Brandon a comic. At church each Sunday, Natalie, Kelsey and Alexis bounce up and down in identical fancy dresses.

It has been a busy and eventful year for the McCaughey septuplets, who made worldwide medical history on Nov. 19, 1997, as the only known set of seven infants to survive and flourish. And their mother has been busy, too, learning to take each day as it comes.

"A lot of people have said, 'What are you going to do when they are all 16 and they all want a car?' They'll get a job! I'm not worried about how we're going to get them all potty trained," said their mother, Bobbi McCaughey, 30, during a teleconference call yesterday with a dozen reporters to promote a book on her experiences: "Seven From Heaven: The Miracle of the McCaughey Septuplets."

As they approach their first birthday, the babies are pint-sized celebrities who will make birthday appearances on "Oprah" and NBC's "Dateline." They also have a new house in their home town of 3,400 near Des Moines, built and furnished by 150 contributors and awaiting the family's move-in next week.

In the septuplets' first year, the trick to success, said their mother, has been keeping a strict schedule, even while she oversees the changing of 40 diapers a day, and the consumption of 11 jars of baby food and 32 bottles of formula, made a gallon at a time.

Bobbi was speaking from the cramped two-bedroom house that has been headquarters for the septuplets, along with their sister, Mikayla, almost 3, since the babies began leaving the hospital in January. Her husband, Kenny, 28, was at his billing-clerk job at Wright's Chevrolet. Nearby is the new house, with two stories, 5,500 square feet of space, mauve siding with dark blue trim -- and an array of childproof features.

The family became instantly famous last fall when news broke that Bobbi, a seamstress, was carrying seven fetuses -- and that residents of Carlisle and members of the Missionary Baptist Church had kept her secret for months. When the septuplets were born, a week before Thanksgiving when Bobbi was 30 1/2 weeks pregnant, reporters from around the world flocked to town and the McCaugheys were swamped with cards, gifts, and offers.

Although little Kenny has had eye surgery, Alexis has struggled with chronic lung problems and all seven came down with the flu in October, the McCaughey babies have weathered their first year in good health, developing at what is considered a normal pace for premature infants, their mother said. In addition to Kenny, Brandon and Kelsey also are crawling, and five of the youngsters are saying "Mama." Only Nathan and Alexis are not quite sitting up on their own yet.

As for their behavior, "we have seen a difference between the boys and the girls," McCaughey said. "The boys are much more into things. The girls are happy to play with the toys in front of them. The boys are never happy with the things in front of them."

A typical day for the family begins at 7 a.m., when the septuplets arise and have breakfast, followed by three naps, at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., their mother said. Meals follow each snooze, and a little before 7 p.m., it is time to take a bath, don pajamas and have a final bedtime bottle. Although the family started out with a battalion of volunteers, it has cut the number to two helpers on the daytime shift, none at night.

"A lot of credit has to go to the kids," McCaughey said. "They're not gripey kids. They don't cry a lot. When they need something is when they cry or when they don't feel well. . . . We might have a different story if we had a kid that cried for months on end."

Still, some of their feats this past year seem amazing, particularly to moms and dads who may struggle with one child who insists on ignoring schedules and other parental input. The entire McCaughey family has dined out at local restaurants several times and, astonishingly, went camping overnight on Labor Day weekend.

Although the McCaugheys stated early on that they did not want to market their children's story, hoping to avoid a circus-like spotlight, they have agreed to several exclusive arrangements to reduce media traffic and bring in some revenue. Photographs were not available yesterday, for example, because the family has contracted with a single photo agency that is charging $200 per individual portrait of the children.

"We didn't feel it would be right to say, 'Thank you very much [to people who have sent cards or gifts] but you're not going to see any pictures of the kids, you're not ever going to see them on TV,' " McCaughey said. "We have allowed limited access to the kids, because we felt it was something we should do."

In the past year, she said, she and her husband have grown closer, and their relationship with God also has deepened. In one part of the book, written with Gregg and Deborah Lewis, the McCaugheys describe driving around town in a daze shortly after the infants' birth, pulling behind a grain elevator and crying their eyes out, overwhelmed by it all.

But they rallied quickly, and already they are looking forward to the next birthday, when the septuplets probably will be walking and talking. "Then the big reality will kick in," McCaughey said. "It's so neat to watch them meet the next developmental milestone. Every day, 'Is this the day when Kenny takes a step?' It will be so neat to sit back and watch them all run to the next room or look out and see them playing on the deck or running around outside."

© Copyright The Washington Post Company

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