Adam and Danielle Busby certainly have their hands full on OutDaughtered.
In Tuesday night’s episode, the parents of six struggled to get on the same page as they dealt with the aftermath of their “tough” date night.
The couple took a cooking class together for Danielle’s 39th birthday in last week’s episode, but the evening turned sour when Adam, 41, didn’t seem to understand why she was struggling to exercise amidst her health issues. It also didn’t help that he insisted they cook bacon, which she hates.
Things were still rocky between the two of them at the start of Tuesday’s episode when Adam, unbeknownst to his wife, suggested they go on a family camping trip with oldest daughter Blayke, 12, and quintuplets Olivia, Hazel, Riley, Parker and Ava (who were 7 at the time of filming, now 8). While the girls were on board with the surprise plan, Danielle was not pleased.
“I’m a little annoyed that Adam is bringing up camping in front of the girls because he knows I don’t wanna go camping,” she shared in a confessional. “I don’t like camping, just like topic of conversation of bacon at the cooking class.”
Despite insisting, “It’s gonna take more than s’mores to make this lady go camping,” she eventually agreed to the family trip on one condition: she would be glamping.
Adam acknowledged that while things were far from perfect between him and Danielle lately, he still wanted the whole family to be able to have fun together.
“I really want Danielle to have a good time, especially since date night,” he said in a confessional. “It’s tough, I mean, you do have seasons where as, husband and wife, you can acknowledge it and say, ‘No, we need to get back to the basics.’ So I really want this just to be a fun family experience.”
Later in the episode, Danielle took Blayke for a manicure ahead of the preteen’s first school dance. However, trouble arose when they realized the dance was scheduled for the same evening they were planning on leaving for the camping trip.
Since the sixth grader didn’t want to miss the special occasion, the Busby parents worked out a compromise to “divide and conquer.” Adam would take the quints to visit his parents, Nana and Papa, on Friday while Danielle drove Blayke to her dance. Then, they would all meet up at the campsite the following day.
In the midst of this scheduling chaos, the parents also had to deal with another pressing issue: Blayke’s attitude. The preteen got “sassy” with her mom as Danielle helped her get ready for the big dance.
“Sometimes it’s like, ‘Hold on, don’t talk to me like that — it’s just ‘yes, ma’am,’” Danielle vented to producers. “I don’t know, I’m like in that phase now where I’m like, ‘Oh gosh, what’s gonna happen later? Is this gonna get worse?’”
Meanwhile at the campsite, Adam made an unnerving discovery. When he went to check Danielle’s “glamping” tent, he found it was full of bugs. Although he was able to eventually clean the tent up, it wasn’t the greatest start to the trip.
Things continued to get chaotic when Danielle and Blayke joined the rest of the family. Between a futile attempt to help the girls catch fish for dinner and everyone needing Adam to help with something, he finally lost his cool.
“I can only do one thing at a time!” he snapped. “Everybody’s like constantly asking something of me. Constantly. I can only do one thing at a time. I’m doing one thing and then somebody asks me five others!”
Danielle admitted that she was “kind of laughing” at the situation.
“I think Adam set himself up,” she said in a confessional. “Forgetting that we have six kids, sometimes you’re like, ‘Let’s go do this adventure!’ But then you’re like, ‘Wait, it’s a lot different for us.’ And so, I’m kind of laughing inside because, like, I knew this was gonna happen.”
But, she added of her husband, “I know he’s trying his best.”
OutDaughtered airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.