After Angela and I arrived home from our weekend in Cedar Falls (I’m referencing my blog post on Dec. 22) my parents asked if we could take the kids to church when we planned to be back in Rock Rapids for the Tille Family Christmas in a few weeks. Actually, their suggestion was to take the kids to the fellowship hour after the church service so people from my home church community could see the kids. The members of the First Reformed Church in Rock Rapids and others from the community really helped us out with TONS of diapers for us after the kids were born and we felt that we owed it to everyone to make the effort. After talking it over with my bride, we ultimately decided to go for the entire church service, but a major obstacle stood in our way. Church begins at 9:30 am and the kids normally take a morning nap at the same time. Things are very structured and missing something like nap time or delaying their lunch by a few minutes sets them off in to a tizzy. To make this go off without a hitch, we needed to make a change to the kids’ schedule at home in preparation for the trip. Effective the very next day, we decided to cut out morning naps.
The change has been a good one overall and I think the kids were ready. However, the change has been tough on Angela over the past couple weeks as they’ve adjusted. Now the kids continue to play throughout the morning and finally go down for an afternoon nap shortly after lunch, usually between noon and 12:30pm. Angela doesn’t get that break in the morning any longer from the kids to run a load of laundry, tend to dishes from breakfast or prep lunch, and spend time with Meredith that she desperately needs.
So as we prepared in advance for the church service, Angela spent a ton of time and effort finding outfits for the kids to wear. I think you can agree that she did a pretty nice job! We all matched, which is something that we don’t do with the kids very often at all.
When it came time for getting dressed before church we had plenty of hands to help out as the entire family made it. Frankly, we needed everyone there or we couldn’t have made it. My parents only live a half a block away so as we got them ready, we just handed kids off and away they went.
As you might expect (and this is exactly what Angela and I expected), the kids didn’t last. It wasn’t more the 15-20 minutes and eventually all six of the kids escaped out the back door. We spent the rest of service letting them run around the halls.
After the service was over, many people from the community finally got a chance to meet the kids. Similar to the kids’ birthday party, we lost track of some of them for a while, but we knew they were in good hands. After a little while longer, we took a family photo and headed for home.
We had a great time with family over the weekend, but eventually it had to end. On Monday morning, we planned to depart for Angela’s parents’ home for the second leg of our trip. The weather report for Sunday night/Monday morning called for…more snow…typical.
Until next time…
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 11:09 pm. 3 comments
This story is about our travel from River Falls to Rock Rapids for the Tille Christmas this past week.
On Wednesday night after the kids were done with their dinner and ready for bed, we loaded them up in the BAV and drove away for Rock Rapids. It was 8:10 pm and the trip normally takes about 4 hours and 15 minutes. There was a slight chance of snow in the forecast and we expected to get some along the way, but I never expected the night we had. As I recall the situation, this is my description of the weather when we left River Falls: cold and cloudy with a light breeze out of the northwest. Just like all of the other trips, we headed SW out of River Falls toward Northfield, MN where we got on Interstate 35. The roads were clear to this point. As I started southbound on I35, it started to snow ever so lightly. The road was wet, but I didn’t feel that it was slick at all. I remember being very aggressive with the gas and brake pedals just to test things out.
Shortly after getting on the interstate we approached our first accident scene. I say first because it was the first of many that we would come across during our trip. After passing the scene I hit the gas and accelerated like any other time, but I spun the tires and turned the BAV sideways a bit. It got my attention and Angela looked up at me with a look of concern on her face. Just five miles earlier, I had been cruising smoothly just shy of 80 mph and had no idea that it was slick (by the way everyone else on the road was driving, one would conclude that they had no idea either). I had to slow down. The trip over the river and through the woods to Oma’s sucked from this point forward. The kids had been asleep for the most part. Meredith was still watching “THE POLAR EXPRESS” and it was her first time watching a DVD in the car. She was a pretty happy little girl (She eventually fell asleep the second time through.).
As we continued south on I35, the snow picked up. It was slick most of the time I was on I35. We passed countless accident scenes and there were several cases where I passed other vehicles only because I felt so unsafe following them. There was a pickup pulling a trailer that I swore was gonna kill us all if I didn’t get around him and it took me more than 10 miles to get it done. Did I mention that all of the kids starting crying intermittently after we slowed down. By the time one of them would quit crying, another would start up.
If you’re familiar with the trip from the Twin Cities metro to Rock Rapids, you eventually need to head west and we did by taking Interstate 90. Of all the routes available, that would be the most likely to be in the best shape and the quickest, right? I didn’t want to take back highways at this point. As we approached our exit, the big green sign read “I90 West – Sioux Falls.” There’s a big giant arrow pointing to where the exit should be, but I couldn’t’ see the road. I couldn’t see the friggin road. Did I mention that I couldn’t see the road? I asked Angela to help me. I was starting to panic. I thought I was going to cause an accident or worse. Slamming on my breaks, even at my decreased speed would have been a horrible idea. I just let off the gas and guessed. I’m writing the crap and you’re reading it so you know how that one played out. Scared me half to death.
We’re now traveling slowly on to I90 west bound toward Sioux Falls and with the exception of a small stretch of road near Jackson, MN we’ve seen the actual road for the last time. We’ve also seen our last snow plow; absolutely none. We averaged 40-45 mph the remainder of the trip. The kids continued to cry; Brooklyn more than the others. I thought on several occasions of leaving Brooklyn in a snow bank and driving off. I’m kidding of course, but she was horrible, just horrible. My forearms were tired, my hands and fingers were sore and we were both incredibly tired and cranky when we arrived in Rock Rapids. There was only an inch or two of the white stuff when we arrived at Oma and Opa’s, but there were parts of Minnesota that got up to 6 inches. The semis were so difficult to deal with. I asked Angela to go back and deal with Brooklyn many times during the night, but three or four times I grabbed her on her way back and told her to sit back down and put on her seat belt. I could see trucks coming in the mirror and every time one passed me the snow would blow everywhere and I couldn’t see the hood of the BAV. I had a hard enough time keeping the BAV in one lane, but I had a hell of a time just keeping it on the road when one of those trucks flew by.
Ironically, much earlier in the night, I asked Angela if she had ever considered what it would be like to get stranded with the kids and have to get a hotel for the night. She never had and I think that I scared her a bit by asking the question. Shortly before arriving in Rock Rapids, I asked her if she thought about it at all and she told me that she had and she was surprised that we didn’t stop. She was prepared to bite the bullet and stop, but she never said as much during the drive. We arrived all in one piece in Rock Rapids around 1:30-1:45 on Thursday morning.
Two things to close:
1. As my heart continued to race at 190 beats a minute while I lay in bed trying to get to sleep on Friday morning, no less than 5 minutes after my head hit the pillow, I heard the beeping of a plow going through the alley behind my parents’ house. I was pissed thinking back to a few of the times a few hours earlier when I thought we were done for. Seriously though, how ‘bout the snow removal team in Rock Rapids, IA? Well done men.
2. MN DOT, please take a lesson from the men cleaning the streets of Rock Rapids, IA. They had a plow in an alley for less than 2 inches of snow before 2 am and you bastards couldn’t send one of them on a 150 miles stretch of interstate highway in either direction. If you can’t maintain a road, shut it down. That was ridiculous.
So…I’ve heard from about a hundred people lately that I haven’t written in a long time and they miss it. Since Thanksgiving, our family has had many experiences to write about, but time is always my issue in keeping up. This one took about 90 minutes to write. Over the next couple days, I’ll post a variety of topics. This first one is from a few weeks ago.
The first weekend of December is always the kickoff to my/our holiday season. As many of you know, I was in the Varsity Men’s Glee Club while I was in college at the University of Northern Iowa. I’m very proud of my association with the group and miss the good old days. The first weekend in December, the Glee Club has its annual Christmas Variety Shows. It’s my opportunity to get together with the guys, reminisce and have a good time. This year happened to be the 50th Anniversary for the Glee Club. The alumni were invited back for a banquet and an opportunity to sing with the current group in addition to our normal routine. You can read more about the UNI Glee Club by clicking here.
I’m not going to bore you of the stories of me having too many beers with my old college buddies, but I will share a couple things.
1. The singing was great. The quality of the music really was awesome, as usual. I’ll try to give you an example. One of the songs that the group sang was THE AVE MARIA. It’s always in latin. The last time that the group sang that song prior to this year’s Christmas shows was at the Vatican in Rome during their last European Tour.
2. The direction and leadership of the Glee Club has been in a state of flux since the passing of Bob Byrnes. Bob was the director of the group when I was in college but he died a couple years later of a stroke. Bob was and still is very special to many of us. I still think of Bob often and the lessons he taught us shape decisions that I and others still make today. I’ve had many reservations about the direction of the group since Bob passed (it isn’t like my opinion really matters much), but I’ve never been more satisfied about the future of the organization than I am right now. Great job Dr. John Wiles!!!
Back to what I really wanted to talk about. Angela and I got away from the kids for a full weekend. Yea us. My parents, Oma and Opa, traveled up to River Falls on Thursday night and we left first thing Friday morning for Cedar Falls. We stayed at the Isle Casino Hotel for two nights. We didn’t gamble at all, but I’ve found that they have the nicest rooms in the area and since this was Angela’s “treat away from the kids” I thought we should have a nice place. Outside of Angela spending a night in the hospital earlier in the year when she broke her leg, this was the first night away from the kids since the same weekend a year ago. Angela really needed a break away from the kids.
We arrived in Cedar Falls around lunch time and stopped for some pizza at The Other Place on The Hill. As usual, the pizza was fantastic and I had a beer or two. Angela drove from that point. I always give up the keys after my first beer. I have 8 mouths to feed and they rely 100% on my ability to drive. No good reason to push it. Off to the mall for some Christmas shopping that we desperately needed. We made few stops for this and that. Angela bought some shoes that she needed for the Glee Club Show. After a couple hours, we decided to move on. On our way out, Angela stopped at the food court to look through her purse for the keys. She has a huge purse and she loses stuff in there all the time. It’s like a magician’s purse. Anyway, as you guessed it, no keys. Wanna guess what happened next…if you guessed anything other than a complete and utter emotional meltdown by my bride then you guessed wrong. You might say that her cup had runneth over. As I tried to calm her by saying that we’d be fine and to not worry, it only riled her up further. “This is just perfect. This kind of blankedy blank blank always happens to us!!!” Someone needed to be in control of the situation and she clearly wasn’t gonna be that person. I thought to myself, “you know, once in a while Angela needs a little kick in the pants” and that usually gets things under control so I told her to shape up and act like an adult. This was the wrong time to “kick her in the pants” and it backfired, badly. You might ask, “Heath, didn’t you have a problem with car keys the last time you took a trip?” Yep. This time, the keys were mine (remember that she took my keys from me at The OP after I had my beer). I asked her where her keys were and she told me in her other coat pocket at home. Perfect…Great…Typical. Angela was in full hysterical panic. She was crying out loud with tears running down her face in the food court and her A-Hole husband didn’t find her emotional trouble amusing at all. She couldn’t get control enough to have a conversation so I told her to stay there and I would look for the keys on my own. I back tracked almost the entire mall, including the security office. No luck.
As I walked back toward the food court, I started to worry a little and started thinking of what needed to be done to get in the car, call someone to get us a key from a dealership near 5 pm on a Friday, get us and our belongings to the hotel, rental car or cab, etc. My head was starting to spin. I walked back to her with my hands empty. She continued to fall apart and I had to take control of the situation so I told her to go to this store and that store as I hadn’t been there yet and those were the stores where she tried on shoes. While she was looking at those two stores, I looked in the parking lot praying that I’d find them lying on the ground next to the car. Maybe she missed that giant purse on her shoulder after she locked the car. This was my last ditch effort and I had little hope. As I turned back to the mall in defeat, my bride approached with tears in her eyes and our keys in her hands. She found them next to where she tried on some shoes. She apologized, I apologized and we went on our way.
We continued on with some more shopping and a fantastic dinner. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Angela when shopping with her mom on Saturday and I spent my day with the guys prepping for and participating in Glee Club activities. We headed home on Sunday morning.
Angela and I are very blessed people and we try to remember it daily, but when crap like those keys goes on, we can’t help but think that Murphy’s Law should be renamed Tille’s Law.
Today was the Tille Christmas. We had some family pictures taken at church back in my hometown of Rock Rapids. I can’t believe that it worked out, but Angela told me that we were taking a family photo today, come hell or high water!
Its been made perfectly clear that I haven’t written in a while. I get it. I have several topics to talk about. I will write this week while I’m on vacation.
Yes, I finally have some new pics on the site. I’ve added them to the photos page. Click here to check out the kids on Halloween. Keep an eye on the site and that page specifically. I’ll try to back date some of the albums with more pics from later in the summer and fall as soon as I can.
Until next time…
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 4:47 pm. Add a comment
I took this video with my phone so the quality isn’t as good as I’d like it, but its something new for everyone. This was taken just before bedtime a couple weeks ago.
Until next time.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 10:35 pm. Add a comment
Here’s the first photo of many to be added soon. This is Lauren on Halloween night before we went out trick or treating. Thank you Matt Patterson for you technical help to get things working again. There will be more photos to come in the very near future. Stay tuned.
Until then…
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 3:17 pm. 2 comments
I’m in kind of a funk. I’m still having technical issues with the website and adding photos. I’d like to get it fixed, but frankly I’m over my head. Due to the issue, I’ve gotten discouraged which has led to me not writing. I just sought help one more time. Let’s cross out fingers.
Halloween came and went. Meredith had a blast and she’d like everyday to be Halloween moving forward. Our neighborhood is extremely good. Nearly every light is on and Meredith would have stayed out all night if we let her. The quints went along too, but they stayed in the strollers. They all had costumers. We didn’t’ have a theme like last year, but we got em all dressed up. Meredith was a witch and the kids were animals. Brook was a giraffe, Lauren was a doggie, Alex was a dinosaur, Emma was a monkey and Maddie was a lion. If I ever get this website fully functional again, I’ll get the pics added.
We’ve had tons of changes around here, the kids included. All of them are walking now; a few much better than others in that Alex, Brook, and Maddie can basically run. All of the kids have mouths full of teeth, but we continue to get more in one by one. Have you ever thought about how many teeth we’ll have come in? I have. Lots!
Meredith is turning 3 this weekend. She can be such a good sweet little girl, and then she can flip a switch and show us all that she truly is my daughter. I didn’t know Angela as a little girl, but there’s no way on earth that she was like Meredith when she was little. She doesn’t listen, she’s naughty in general and sometimes mean to the other kids, volunteers and even the dog. I would really like to know how to keep her in her room and sleep in her bed at night. Most of the time when she’s naughty, she bored, which is just like me.
Brooklyn is doing very well, but the others are catching up to her on the weight chart. She now ranks 4th out of the 5. You’d never guess it by looking at her, but she’s shorter than all of them. Brook’s teeth have been the slowest to come in. She is the only one without four teeth on top. She has more teeth on the bottom than on top and we’ve been saying for months that those teeth on top could come any day. Brook has the most hair; wavy on top and curly in the back. She’s had her hair cut at least once now.
Lauren is in a growing streak. She passed Brook in the weight category and she’s one of the tallest of the group. Lauren has the curliest hair and there’s tons of it. You should see it after bath time when I dry it. WOW! I think we’ve decided that she got that from me too, but you wouldn’t believe it if you saw my hair today. Lauren is quiet and she studies everything. We often find her in Meredith’s room sitting with a book as if she is reading every word.
Alex is all boy. It’s so amazing that with all of the girl influence in the house all day and night long that he is still so boyish. I really believe that you’re born with it. He likes to rough house more than the others. He likes to play with Meredith and they chase each other quite a bit. Alex has had his hair cut twice now. The first time, I cut off his curly mullet with a set of clippers in the basement. He did great. A few weeks later, Angela threatened to put the hair on top of his head in a pony tail like his sisters. Minutes later, I had him on the deck with a set of clippers and gave him a hair cut that made him look like a blonde version of his father. Alex is the first one up in the morning now around 5:30 each day and I’ll be frank, it’s getting old.
Emma continues to be the little squirt of the bunch. I don’t think that she’ll ever grow out of those size 3 diapers. She didn’t even show up on the growth chart for weight at the doctor for her 15 month well visit. She’s about 19 pounds now, 4 pounds less than Madeline, the largest. Her hair is a mess, but it’s coming in more and more lately. She looks like a little Pebbles Flintstone when Angela puts up her hair in a pony tail. She doesn’t walk as fast or as well as the others, but she’s our climber. She’s the only one who can get on the couch on her own. She’s pretty proud of herself.
Madeline is the biggest of the group. She’s the fastest and probably our best eater. She is turned in to such a happy baby after she learned to walk on her own. Maddie is the sock monster. We usually have a laundry basket out in the open during the day on the main floor of the house to collect all of the dirty stuff from the course of the day. If there’s a sock in that basket, she’ll find it and walk around the house with it in her mouth like a dog and its bone.
This past week, Maddie lost a sock to Brooklyn. The children fight over toys and books and everything else all the time now. We generally let them try to work it out. Madeline’s response to the loss of the sock war was to bite Brooklyn right in the face. It caught us off guard as it was the first time we saw anything quite like it. It was gruesome at the time, but everyone is fine. Maddie is our second biter. Alex was the first. This is gonna be a challenge to manager and break.
We’ve also made some changes to the amount of volunteer help that we’re asking for. We’ve stopped having people come in early in the morning. Angela and I are handling everything up until 10 am. We get up with them early, keep them happy until breakfast, feed em, clean em up, and get em changed for the day. By then I need to get off to work and Angela keeps them occupied until naptime at 9. We’ve also cut back on Sunday’s. Sundays are now our family day. We have no one coming on Sunday’s except for one person in the evening to help us get through dinner, clean up, baths, and bedtime. It’s a little more work, but it’s really nice to have it be just us for once.
I’ve gone through some changes at work recently which has caused some stress to say the least. It was a very long week this week and I’m glad it’s over. Come to think of it, I think its Miller Time! That’s a good place to stop.
Until next time…
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 2:54 pm. 6 comments
If you’ve been to our home any evening going back to the first week in April, there has been two constants; crying children and the Minnesota Twins. This post is about the later.
I love baseball. I love the Twins. I bet that I’ve watched a very small portion of more than 90% of their 165 games this year. When they weren’t on at night, I often wondered what we’d have on the TV in the background. Angela really doesn’t care for baseball on TV and I think that most of our volunteers probably agree with her perspective. I think that having the Twins on the TV is one those things that she lets me get away with so that I won’t be crabby about missing the game. I rarely ever sat and watched the game, at least when the kids were up. The kids always have all of us busy with dinner, clean up, bath time, jammy time, and bedtime. The game was just on in the background which gave me the feeling that I could still see every great catch, big hit, inning ending double play, or even the giant home run that Jim Thome hit off the top of the flag pole. The Twins were a big part of our (my) summer which brings me to last night.
It’s over. No more Frankie Fastballs. No more Joe Mauer singles to the opposite field (that was a shot at Joe Mauer, btw). No more Neck Tattoo Guy coming in at the end of the game. No more “Circle Me Bert.” All of this means nothing to most of you, but it meant a lot to us (me). The summer is officially over. That jerk on ABC News said as much this morning. He closed the news of the day with, “In sports, the Yankees were the first team to move past the first round of the Major League Baseball Playoffs with a win over the Minnesota Twins last night…It’s like a rite of passage to fall, the Yankees beat the Twins year after year after year.” What a Jerk. The three games that they just lost to the Yankees hurt. I hate the Yankees. I really don’t hate the Yankees; I just hate losing to them, again and again and again…I’m just envious and wonder why we can’t be winners once in a while too. I hate losing. I don’t know why we can’t beat em. Oh wait, I forgot, they have better players that play better in big spots. If I dould steal a quote from the movie Bull Durham, “THIS IS A VERY SIMPLE GAME. YOU THROW THE BALL. YOU CATCH THE BALL. YOU HIT THE BALL.” The Yankees did those three things really well and the Twins SUCKED at them. The past three weeks was just embarrassing to be a Twins fan.
I quit watching in the 5th inning last night. I intended to stay up late and watch it. I know that come backs happen. Nearly every night of the baseball season, some team would come from behind and win it in the end. Last night, though, I had no doubt in my mind that it wouldn’t happen for the Twins. I felt hopeless and defeated before it was over (or even started for that matter). Is this what it feels like to be a Gopher Football fan or a Cubs fan: helpless and defeated? It’s just depressing and I don’t know how to cope. I really thought they could get it done this year, but I guess I should be used to getting beat by the Yankees. Like the guys from ABC said, it happens year after year.
This may take some time and my emotional wounds will heal but I probably won’t watch any more of the playoffs or the World Series. BUT…in February, pitchers and catchers report to camp and spring training will begin shortly after that in March. April 4 is my birthday and the first day of the baseball season will take place right around that time. I’ll be back and so will the Twins. Angela is even trying to get the emotional mood of the home turned around. “Real fans don’t give up on their team, she said.” She dressed Alex in his Twins outfit this morning. Maybe next year, I can take Alex to his first game.
Until next time…
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 8:36 am. 6 comments
This week is just like all of the others: busy. We had doctor appointments and I had a road trip for work.
Earlier in the week, we brought the kids in to the clinic for their 15 month well visits. We planned for them to get shots, do all of the basic growth measurements, check some developmental things, etc. Taking the kids in to the doctor is still a big deal and requires a ton of planning. I usually have to take the day off so that I can help out. We break the kids in to two groups and we have to plan their appointments around their scheduled meals, snack and nap times so there’s a limited amount of time when we can fit em in. Brook was in the first group. Angela had Brook in at urgent care over the weekend due to her persistent high temps. We did some more follow up while we were there, but still found nothing. By Tuesday, she was back to normal so we’re thinking that it was some kind of virus that just need time to pass, but due to the elevated temps she didn’t get her shots and we’ll have to reschedule her shots. All of them except Brook got flu shots during Monday’s visit, but they will require a second flu shot so that will require another trip to the doctor.
We have some changes regarding the rankings of their weights. Maddie is now the heaviest around 22 pounds followed closely by Alex. That translates to around the 50TH percentile. Alex is closer to the 33rd. That means that at 50%, she is right in the middle compared to all 15 months old children. The 33rd percentile means that he is in the bottom one third of all 15 month old children. After the first year, we stopped using their adjusted age and will now go by their real birthday for measuring growth standards. Lauren has really flourished as a little girl since starting on regular solid foods and has surpassed Brooklyn in the rankings. She’s a really good eater. Brooklyn seems to be a little pickier at the table except when it comes to pasta. Emma is still our little bird. She weighed in around 18 pounds; 4 pounds less than Maddie. 4 pounds may not sound like much, but that’s 20% when you consider their total body weight. She didn’t even show up on the growth charts! She’s fine, just little. Needless to say, they quints are all doing well.
Meredith is testing us every day and we continue to face new challenges, and we’re doing the best we can to keep “the machine” moving smoothly forward. If any of you happen to have an idea on how to keep Meredith in her bed at night instead of sleeping on the floor at the top of the steps or behind her door when we shut her bedroom door, I’m open to any and all reasonable recommendations.
On a side note, I’m sorry to those who have been here in the past few days. The disappointment from the first two loses by the Twins to the Yankees have me a bit down and in a funk. I’ll try to do better, but if they lose tonight, it may take me a week to come out of it. I’m emotionally vested and I just care too much.
Until next time…
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 3:01 pm. Add a comment
