Four weeks ago, Meredith woke up in the night crying and feeling very warm. Her temp was 105 and change. That got our attention in the middle of the night, to say the least. An extra aggressive doze of Tylenol and a bath got it dropped under 102 in an hour or so. Within 36 hours the others were starting to show signs. We had the quints on what I’ve been calling a Tylenol/Motrin drip and they still got temps around 102. All six of the kids had a real bad hacky, wet cough. After two full weeks, it had finally run its course through all of the kids.

Two weeks ago, around 6:30 in the morning, Meredith woke up a bit early. She had a cup of juice and was watching cartoons on the couch and wearing her princess dress when she just threw up. No warning; she just vomited in the couch. A minute later, she did it again on the kitchen floor where it splattered everywhere. Angela got her cleaned up and took her downstairs in an effort to isolate her from the other kids. Shortly thereafter, we started bottles at 7:00 am. Within seconds of finishing their bottles, Alex and Brook threw up their entire bottles. We thought it might be isolated in that they throw up a bottle from time to time if they don’t burp well. Turns out that it wasn’t isolated. The puking just continued all day long. I think I did 12 loads of laundry that day and Angela was thrown up on at least 10 different times by Meredith alone. Totally disgusting. That Wednesday will always be known as “Puke Day.” We all had it and it took a week to cycle through the house and a hand full of our volunteers. A big “Thank You” to my manager Jim for how he handled things with me the past two weeks. He even came to the house to meet the family. He had too; I was driving. Very cool guy!!!

That brings us yesterday and our third bug in 4 weeks. Everyone but dad has a snotty, runny nose right now. Mom was in bed before nine tonight with a heavy dose of NyQuil, Kleexex stuffed in her nose, looking totally pitiful. I hope that the kids sleep tonight so that she can get some rest. She needs it so much.

We’ve had some other major changes and developments recently. We got our new table for the kids. I put it together over the past weekend and took this short video of the kids in it for the first time.

You can see all of our videos by clicking here. I fed the kids cereal for the first time this week too. They did pretty well, and I guess we’ll see how it goes. The table was great. I was talking with my brother the other night and he said that it will be one hell of a buffet table soon. He’s right, it will. They really like sitting in it and playing. Meredith has really enjoyed it too.

Now sooner than later, spring is gonna come and we can get the heck out of this house. Cabin Fever is in full effect, especially for Mama. Spring can’t come soon enough. Maybe we’ll have a cool big ass van to take a ride around town soon…

Until next time…

This post will be brief, a bit informational, hopefully a bit of humorous and will lack any sense of transition from one topic to another (Sorry Mr. McDonald).

Tonight the kids received their final RSV shots. They’ve received one (or two) shots every month for five months now. I’ve included some pictures by clicking here. They got weighed and we had some shuffling amongst the rankings: Alex is still the biggest and Emma is still the smallest.

Alex – 17 lbs., 6 oz.
Madeline – 17 lbs.
Brooklyn – 16 lbs., 12 oz.
Lauren – 15 lbs., 14 oz.
Emma – 14 lbs., 10 oz.

For the sake of full disclosure I also weighed Meredith and she topped off at 27 lbs., 14 oz.

This past weekend was Valentine’s Day and my bride and I had a very stereotypical exchange. At the very last minute, I bought her a crappy card with a poor attempt at humor, some very nice flowers and a giant balloon from the kids. She got me a very traditional sappy card and two dozen bottles of Spotted Cow. I love her so much. She knows the way to my heart. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, get your butt to Wisconsin and have yourself one of the best beers in the world. It’s so good; my dad buys it in large quantities and bootlegs it back to Rock Rapids.

We had our first fight between the kids this week. Lauren and Alex were on the floor on their tummies playing with a toy of their own. Alex scooted forward a couple inches (yes, they are very, very close to becoming mobile), head butted her and laid his shoulder in to her. They screamed their heads off for minutes until Alex finally took the toy from Lauren and we separated them. I got out the camera near the end of the one round bout and you can see the carnage here.

For all of our videos, click here. That’s it for now…Short and sweet.

Until next time…

I know.

We’ve had a few things going on around the house. I’m doing my best, but I’ll admit it (and frankly I think that I’ve earned the right), I went to bed several times over the past two weeks thinking that I could and probably should write something on the blog, but chose to just go to bed and watch The Daily Show. I love John Stewart. Very funny. For those who don’t know, try Comedy Central at 10 pm. Skip the news; it was the same at 6.

A couple posts ago, I wrote while I in a bad mood. That was a real dose of what it’s like around here. My mood has improved a bit since then and things have improved around the house. Who knows, maybe we’re just getting use to it and the thought of that scares me a bit. When the kids (all of them at once) are sick, this house is just miserable. Everything sucks, even for just a couple hours. Whatever bug they had ran its course after about two weeks.

In my last post, I let everyone know that I would be taking over the primary role of the coordinator for the volunteers. I’m sending out emails a couple times a week and Angela and I both spend time making changes to who’s coming and going during each day. Those changes aren’t hard to make, its finding replacements for them that’s difficult. Angela Kaiser has picked up a little of the slack to help me better organize the volunteer roster and give orientations for some of the new college kids. Thank you Mrs. Kaiser and Happy Anniversary!!! Joyce and Judie are also going to continue to help with taking calls as they filter in. However, we still need an Angel to come give us a hand. We are just too prideful (my pride is just a huge pill that I’m not willing to swallow) to make an outbound phone call to ask for help. I can manage the calendar, but I can’t and I will not make outbound calls. My pride just gets in the way and I don’t want someone to feel pressured to fill a spot because I’m the one calling. A third party should be the one making those calls. Now we really haven’t had too much trouble so far, but we’ve been close a few times. If you’re out there reading this and you think that you’d like to help in this role, please send me an email by clicking here.

So how are the kids? Where do I start? They’re getting so big. I haven’t been good lately at taking pictures and I know that we need to do a better job. Sorry. Alex is still the biggest, Emma is the smallest, Lauren is Captain Cool, Brook’s an emotional wreck, and Maddie eats the most (very ironic considering the huge issues we had with feeding her early on). They eat every four hours during the day but go 7-8 hours overnight w/o anything to eat; sometimes. A couple of them sleep through the night every night, a couple of them sleep through a few times a week and Alex is up five of the seven nights of the week between 4:30 and 5. He just isn’t ready yet, but, he’s gonna learn soon.

Changes continue to develop with the kids and how we manage the house each week. We are starting to plan and schedule nap time. After just a couple days, we’ve managed to get a couple scheduled naps a day where we put them all in bed at the same time, while awake, and they need to get themselves to sleep. Only took 20-30 minutes today. Yesterday, some of them didn’t get it and the day before that it didn’t really work at all. We think it’s getting better each day and we’ll continue to do it. If we don’t start this type of thing at some point, we’ll have volunteers here rocking kids at nap time until the kids leave for kindergarten. We love our adopted family, but that’s not gonna work for anybody. I need to be able to walk around in my underwear sometime. TMI, I know.

The kids are developing physically, too. They’re close to sitting up on their own. They’re rolling over with ease in both directions. I’ve seen three of the kids (Alex, Emma, and Lauren) with their butts in the air pushing off their knees and moving forward. It isn’t gonna be long and they’ll be mobile; a whole new ballgame.

To add to all that we have going on, Angela and I are trying to plan for the future. Unfortunately, our current home is not in our long-term family plans. There just isn’t enough space. In the near future we’ll be listing our home for sale. We have a few prep things that we need to work out first like cleaning Meredith’s pencil marks off the walls. Given the housing market, we just don’t know what to expect. It may take us a while to sell and we need to plan things out as best as we can. So, if anyone is looking for a relatively new, split level home in the River Falls community, please let us know. I know a guy who’s selling!!!

Until next time…

This all started last weekend when Meredith came down with a cold that turned in to a temp of 105 in the middle of the night. It spooked mom and dad a bit, but we got her under control in a few hours. We went to the clinic over the weekend where they poked and prodded her a lot for blood samples, x-rays, and everything else. At one point, she sat motionless and silent for 10 minutes in the waiting room. If you know anything about Meredith, you know that she wasn’t feeling well if she sat there quiet as a church mouse like that. We tried to isolate her from the other kids, but it just didn’t work out. Lauren has some minor symptoms, but everyone else has a very very serious cold. Alex is in really rough shape. When you have one sick kid, it really puts a stress on a family. When you have 5-6 of them that feel and look like holy hell, you’re life isn’t all that “peachy.” Basically, they’re all still sick. Mom (Angela) had a really tough time making it through the week emotionally and I had a couple “moments” myself, but we’ve managed to stay healthy (knocking on wood).

Needless to say, we really need to pass along some thank you’s. Our volunteers have been awesome this week. The schedule has been full. Thank you so much everyone. It has been the most challenging week to date in my opinion and you’ve really come through for us. Several people have brought meals for us, which has been a huge blessing in that we didn’t have to worry about meals on top of everything else that we’re dealing with. You guys are great.

We also really want to pass along another massive Thank You to a very important and wonderful person. Brenda Derks has been a huge asset to our family over the past year. We called her out of the blue one day last winter and told her only what our immediate family knew at the time in that we were expecting quintuplets. We had so many questions. Never having met us before, she agreed to meet with us and talk. I’ll never forget that day. She told us a year ago that the River Falls community would come to help us and they have. I have no idea why, but she came to us offering and wanting to help out by managing our volunteer efforts. She’s been a sounding board for us and she’s been such a blessing, but this past week Brenda called to let us know that she needs to back away from her role as the coordinator of our volunteer efforts. Brenda just stretched herself too thin and has too many other commitments (like her own 6 kids and a job) to continue in that role.

So with that said, we’re praying for a new angel to come to our aid to help manage the volunteer efforts. Ideally, this person would already be a volunteer, but that isn’t necessary. This person will need to be willing to make phone calls to fill open spots on our schedule, have basic computer skills as we manage our schedule on the computer and be able to monitor and respond to email over the course of the day. We’re uncertain of the time commitment at this time, but think that it may average an hour or so a day. We do have 3 other people that will support this person by assisting with phone calls as needed. If you think that you have some interest, please send us an email by clicking here or giving us a call. Our number at the house is 715-426-0334.

Please keep an eye out for further communication from us on the status of this opportunity. If you’d like to take a peek at the schedule, click here. If you see a spot where you’d like to help out and fill in, click here to send us an email or call the number above to catch one of us at the house.

Until next time…

If you come to the house and you want to see the pics and didn’t or can’t set up an account with snapfish, let me know and I’ll show you here.

The origional message is listed below.

Our family was very fortunate over the holiday period to have Lorah Haskins , the daughter of one of our volunteers, come to our home and take some photos. After seeing what she did for us, we’ve decided that she can come back to our home any time she wants (yes, even though she’s a Badger…they’ve got a good marching band).

For all of Lorah’s 352 pictures of the Tille kids, click here. You’ll be redirected to a new website. You can view them one at a time or click on the “play slideshow” botton. There’s a color and a black and white of each photo. I’m sorry that I had to forward you to another website to view them, but there were just too many for me to manage on our site.

If you’d like to learn more about Lorah’s work, click here for a link to her website or you could send her an email at lorahhaskins@gmail.com.

If its an issue, please post a comment so that I know about it. Unless someone tells me that there’s an issue, the issue doesn’t exist.

Until next time…

Our family was very fortunate over the holiday period to have Lorah Haskins , the daughter of one of our volunteers, come to our home and take some photos. After seeing what she did for us, we’ve decided that she can come back to our home any time she wants (yes, even though she’s a Badger…they’ve got a good marching band).

For all of Lorah’s 352 pictures of the Tille kids, click here. You’ll be redirected to a new website. You can view them one at a time or click on the “play slideshow” botton. There’s a color and a black and white of each photo. I’m sorry that I had to forward you to another website to view them, but there were just too many for me to manage on our site.

If you’d like to learn more about Lorah’s work, click here for a link to her website or you could send her an email at lorahhaskins@gmail.com.

Until next time…

So my daughter forced me to drink tonight (Sunday). Brooklyn just cried and cried and cried tonight; just screamed her damn head off. Her cry sounds unnatural when she’s like this. If you’ve heard her when she’s like this, you know what I’m talking about. She had been like this a week ago for several nights in a row, but it had gone away and we thought it was in the past. Brooklyn typically won’t calm down until she works herself up to the point of throwing up. Angela tried to comfort her for a while, but had enough with her. She handed her off to me and asked me to go away with her. There was a scary look in her eye when she told me to “just go.” I took Brook downstairs where I tried for a long time and eventually began to get upset myself. I put her down, and went to the other room for a beer. She cried for a long time, about an hour. Angela eventually came back, took over for me, and got her to sleep after screaming like a child possessed. I’ve only gone to the fridge like that one other time and it scares me a bit that it happened again.

Anyway, Brook and Angela are sleeping now and I felt the need to write. I’m not sure how this post is gonna go, but I have a few things that I want to write about. Angela and I have a difficult time sharing and dealing with our frustrations that we face on a daily basis. We handle our challenges in different ways. Writing is one of the ways that I deal with it. .

Angela and I have been pretty stressed with the kids in recent weeks so I called my parents, Oma and Opa, last week asking for help. We never want to overuse our volunteers so we rarely ask for extra help. Angela and I have been at each other a bit and the kids are really wearing on us. My dad took a few days off work and they made the way up on Thursday. Angela and I left the house on Friday night to run some errands. We also grabbed a quick bite to eat and went over how things are going at home. Saturday was a big day for us. We arranged to meet a new couple in town in Hudson at the GiggleFactory. This is a great place for kids like Meredith to run off some steam. Meredith met some new friends, Emma and Ella, and we’re hoping that they spend a little time together moving forward. They live down the street from us. On Saturday, Angela and I had our first date night in nearly a year. We had dinner at the West Wind, my favorite place in River Falls and we saw Avatar in 3D. Avatar is the best movie I’ve seen in years.

Sunday came around and we knew that my parents would be leaving. This is the time when Angela starts to look at the schedule and stresses out. She stresses about blanks on the schedule as much as, if not more than anything else in our lives. If you’ve ever been at our house and seen her in front of the computer, she’s looking at the schedule and panicking on the inside about how she’s gonna make it through the day. If you’re a reader of this blog and you’re a volunteer that comes to our home, I would like to make a request. If you know that you can and will volunteer for a spot, please let someone know as soon as possible, even if it’s two weeks in advance. We’re starting to see a trend in that sports don’t get filled in until the last minute. A variety of things happen when spots don’t fill in until the last minute. Angela freaks out on the inside all the time and Brenda has to start making phone calls. When both of those things happen, it starts to affect me and I have to start adjusting my work schedule. I did it just today. I booked an appointment later in the day instead of for a preferred 9 am knowing that we might not have anyone at the house to help Angela out. This is my plea for help…if you know someone who has any interest in helping; we want to meet them; even if it’s just for one shift. If you’re on our list of volunteers, but haven’t been here recently or at all, we’d love to have you back. It is worth its weight in gold to not have my wife worry about how she’s gonna make it through the day. If you’re a student and you read this, tell your friends and class mates. My only request is that new people talk with Brenda or one of us beforehand. We’ll still ask for the background check, and if someone isn’t willing to fill out one out for us, then we’ll deal with the volunteer shortage. I think everyone can and should understand where we’re coming from on that. Long story short is that we’re concerned about the schedule. Let me be clear as I finish this portion of the blog, this is not a request for those of you who help 4-8 times a week to do more. We can’t afford to burn you out! You know who you are…

Meredith is entering in to a new stage in her life. She’s throwing, hitting, talking back and just behaving poorly when she doesn’t get her way. She even bit Angela yesterday to get her attention (also another reason that we need to have enough so that Angela can focus on Meredith). Her behavior normally wouldn’t be that destructive if there weren’t 5 other very precious little ones lying around. I don’t subscribe that she isn’t getting enough attention and isn’t dealing with sharing attention with the other five. She’s attached to Angela’s hip every waking moment. She has “mommy-itis.” Tonight Meredith took a soft toy and wound up and swung it at Lauren, who was lying next to her on the floor. She really hit her hard, but Lauren didn’t cry. I saw it happening. It was one of those moments where you see it happen and you feel like it’s happening in slow motion, but you can’t do anything about it. I had Alex in my arms and I almost dropped him reacting to Meredith’s poor choice. Angela got to Meredith first and it was good for Meredith that she did. It wouldn’t have been pretty if I had gotten there first. I’m glad that Angela beat me to her. I don’t know that anything Angela said or did anything that will change or affect her behavior in the future, but I’m still glad she got there first.

Tonight (Monday) was another round of RSV shots for the kids. The kids all got weighed. They’re getting huge. Alex is still the largest at 16-14, followed by Brook at 16-2, Madeline at 16-1, Lauren at 15-4, and Emma at 13-15. They handled the shots pretty well.

Lastly, I want to take a moment to thank my parents for making the trip up to help us out and get us out of the house for a while this past weekend. We needed it. I also want to thank Laura Haskins. Laura took some wonderful pics of our kids over the Thanksgiving break and I’ll get them on the site somehow in the near future. There’s a couple hundred of them and every single one of them is awesome. Please keep your eyes open for future blogs.

I’m sorry for the reality check and downer of this blog post. We expected things to get like this. This blog has always been a vehicle for me to share how I’m feeling and deal with things instead of bottling them up and blowing up some day. I’m not asking for a bunch of “you’re doing great job and keep your chin up.” I’m just a bit frustrated and letting it out a bit.

In the grand scheme of things, we’re doing well. The kids are 7 months old this week. They’re all flourishing and we have a lot of really wonderful people that help us out. Thank you all so much for helping. We’d be in so much trouble with out all of you.

Until next time (and hopefully in a better mood)…

Its been a terribly long week and I’ll write again soon. Long and short is that I took last week off, Angela had surgery, she’s still on the mend, but better now and the kids are showing their independence. Change is in the wind.

Until next time…