Spring Break
So I promised to write before the end of the week and I haven’t gotten around to it until now. It’s now 4:30 am on Friday morning, coffee in hand. Unfortunately, I only seem to find time to write when I get up extra early to help out with open spots in our volunteer schedule. So here we go.
The weather was absolutely phenomenal this week. (On a side note for you, I just broke a personal rule in that I used a word I can’t spell without spell check. Wanna guess what word it was?) Anyway…I couldn’t have picked a better time to take a week off from work. We all spent some time outside. Meredith in particular got a taste of going outside and she absolutely loves it. It seems like going outside is all she wants to do. On Thursday morning, the first thing she said when she woke up was “Go outside?” Yesterday morning, she was in the yard and saw a robin in the tree. She was yelling at the birdie to come down here. It was really funny. I guess you had to be here. I had a great time with her on Tuesday. We cleaned up some left over dead brush from last year out of the flower beds. She kept calling the sticks “trees.” Meredith “loves trees.” Meredith loves everything these days. She helped me for a couple hours by taking her “trees” to the wheel barrel. That’s right; she helped me for a few hours before she got distracted with sticks, dirt, rocks, and dog poop.
As a parent, have you ever had a moment where you stopped what you’re doing for a minute and thought to yourself, “I hope that I remember this moment for the rest of my life.”? I had one of those moments on Tuesday around midday. We were in the back yard and working with the dead brush was getting a bit old. Meredith said, “Tackle daddy?” She then ran in to me as hard as her little 30 pound body could. We rolled down the hill together as she giggled the whole way down. I really do hope that I can take that memory with me forever.
Angela got out of the house too while I’ve been home this week. Yesterday I sent her to the spa for a little pampering. She seemed to really like the few hours that she was out of the house. I wish that I could give her more time away. She doesn’t get PTO and I worry about that sometimes.
As you saw from my previous blog entry, we took the kids for a walk this week. We actually did it twice. I’m not sure yet how much they really like it. We had to carry Brook and Madeline a bit each time; actually Monica and Naomi did. They just aren’t used to riding in a stroller like most babies. Most regular parents take their kids with them to the store for groceries, out to dinner and everywhere else. We took Meredith everywhere. We just can’t do that with the quints so I’m sure that they just aren’t used to riding around just yet. They’ll get the hang of it.
The kids are doing well. They’re developing nicely. They are 9 months old today! Can you believe that? 9 months. Their gestational age is 6 ½ months. A couple of them (Brook and Alex) have really started to sit up on their own very nicely this past week. 
The others aren’t quite there. Crawling isn’t far away. Several of them are up on their knees, but just don’t get it yet that they need to move forward. Give it a month or two and we’ll have em crawling all over the place. No teeth yet, and that’s just fine. For as long as they’ve been drooling and chewing on things, you’d think they’d have a mouthful by now. We had and continue to have some concern about the vision development for Lauren and Emma. Things get very technical so I’ll spare you the details. Over the past couple weeks, we can tell that things are getting better. We’re still watching things closely and pray that they continue to improve.
I just love this time of the year and this is one of my favorite weekends of the year. The NCAA Basketball Tournament started yesterday. Angela and I are graduates of the University of Northern Iowa. UNI had a great season and are in the tourney again this year. UNI is a small school in comparison to the other big time programs in the tournament and they won their first game last night over UNLV. They haven’t won their first round game since 1980 when they upset #3 Missouri. They will likely face #1 Kansas over the weekend sometime and we’ll be cheering them on from here. Go Panthers!
In addition to the ball games this weekend, we’ll have some more family in town. My parents, my mom’s sister, and her two daughters will be here. Apparently Janet (my mom’s sister) and the girls have never been to the circus and felt the need to scratch their itch. I hope that we don’t disappoint. Meredith will get to spend some quality time with Oma and Opa. I hear that some swimming may be in her future. Maybe we’ll get away for a while too.
So with that said, I’ll try to get an update next week to follow up on the weekend and how I’m doing with my picks for the tournament.
Until then…