I think about writing all the time, but never have the time, as you can tell from the last time since I’ve posted. I’ve actually thought for months now that my next post would be my final post, but as I sit here trying to ignore the yelling and screaming in the back of the van I’m still not sure if this will be my final post. So much has happened in with our family since my last post:

I won an award at work as the top sales rep for our last fiscal year so my employer, Coloplast, sent the two of us to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands for a week. All expenses paid.

We had Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with our families.

Meredith had surgery. She got something stuck in her nose…seriously…and it required a trip to the operating room with full general anaesthesia.

Angela and I recently decided that we need a bigger house and now was the time to list it for sale. We put the house on the market a few weeks ago and sold it the first day it was listed on the market to the first person that looked at it. We’re moving…next week.

Most recently, my grandmother passed away (my mom’s mom). The message at her funeral is what finally pushed me over the edge to write again. I lost count of the number of times that I spoke with people follow our family through this website and that’s it’s been a long time since I’ve written. On a different, but similar note, Angela ran in to someone in the grocery store in Tama this weekend that told her the same thing. Here’s my most recent update on the kids.

All the kids are doing very well and growing up fast. I converted Meredith to a booster seat in the van just this weekend and she’s turning in to quite the little girl. She’s growing up so quick and Angela and I both feel like we’re missing out opportunities to have some of those first experiences with her. We talk about it often. Out of guilt, Angela recently took Meredith out for lunch and errand running on a Saturday when she normally would have left her at home with me. They went to Applebee’s for lunch at Meredith’s request and she asked for the “Twenty Dollar Chicken.” Apparently the TV advertising Applebee’s is running is working because my four year old asked for the product by name. Angela just about lost it when that’s what Meredith ordered. Angela ordered her the chicken strips, but what she doesn’t know won’t kill her. The other day, she came up to me and said, “Dad, when you have a second, I’d like to have a word with you.” I don’t know where she gets it.

The quints are all doing well. Sometimes we call them babies out of habit, but they are far from babies. They’ll be three in June and totally acting their age. Maddie is the most physically developed of the girls. She’s momma’s little shadow and little helper, but so emotionally fragile. Angela would describe her as “tender hearted.” It’s hard to imagine her being so sensitive when you see her as a brute, but she can come to tears quicker than any of them. Today she threw a fit today at Grandma’s out in yard. I had told her that we couldn’t ride the lawn mower any more. The fit was complete with screaming, kicking and flailing her arms. I laughed at her, told her that she’s ridiculous. I walked away as she was screaming in the dirt on the sidewalk. Call me a mean and insensitive father, but she was playing with her sisters in less than a minute. Alex is all boy. He’s a load compared to the others. Alex likes to roughhouse more than the girls are comfortable with but he’s still very sensitive. He’s got one of the best pouty faces that you’ve ever seen…complete with quivering bottom lip and puppy dog eyes. Lauren’s curls are still her defining characteristic, but her voice is very unique. It’s high pitched and squeaky. I think she sounds like a cartoon character but she has quite a bit of sass to her. We hope it improves with age. Brooklyn is the easiest going and probably plays the best. She’s now the shortest of the group but has an infectious giggle, especially when tickled. Emma is just a little squirt. She’s such a runt but she makes up for it with her cognitive ability. Her verbal skills are far better than all the others and she’ll surprise us ever couple days with something that spews out of her mouth. It’s a little scary sometimes to hear how well she can express verbally her thoughts and feelings.

Six children 4 and under would be enough to keep any set of parents more than busy, but as you read earlier, we have so much other stuff going on in our lives. We’re moving next weekend to a new home temporarily until our new home is built. That’s right, we’re building. But with that said, I am going to make a new commitment to update the bog more often. I think my grandmother would want me to keep writing and Angela has challenged me when I’ve talked about shutting this down. I’ll try to give some updates in the near future about some of the major things that have taken place over the past six months but also how things are going over the summer with the new house. I’ll also spend some time getting new and updated photos on the site.

We just passed the exit to New Hampton meaning we’ve been in the van for more than 90 minutes now. I can’t help but thinking back the beginning this particular road trip and how I ended up over here in the passenger seat. What in the hell I’m going to do for the next two and half hours? Guess I’m going to have to pay attention to the kids and talk to my wife…

Until next time…

This year we took a trip and got away from everything. My parents took a day or two off to help and stayed at our house with the kids so that we could leave for a few days. We left on Thursday morning and returned on Sunday. We rented a lake home on the shores of Lake Superior that overlooked the Apostle Islands in northwestern Wisconsin.

The Apostle Islands are a beautiful place to visit. If you like the outdoors at all, you should really visit sometime. Just Google Apostle Islands sometime and take a look at the photos or just click this link.
Angela and I were talking during our dinner and mentioned that trips like these are very import to us so that we can recharge our batteries. Thanks mom and dad for letting us get away for the weekend.

Now that I think of it as I’m writing and it feels like the years are starting to fly by. I guess we need to make sure that we stop from time to time and smell the roses.

Until next time…

Hope you’re having an enjoyable fall.

Until next time…

“Hi Honey, how’s it going at home?”

She went on to tell me that it was horrible.

I told her, “I’m sorry honey that I can’t be there to help out. This conference is really important and I’m sorry. You know I’ll be home soon as I can.”

She replied with, “Since you don’t seem to care what’s so horrible, I’m gonna tell you anyway.” (I didn’t ask for specifics early in the conversation about the details of how bad it was because I knew that I’d get them anyway if they were really that bad.) “There’s poop everywhere. Naptime went horrible. The kids took their diapers off again and all of them are covered in it. They used it as finger paints. It’s in Alex’s hair! It was just horrible.”

I tried, I really did, but it slipped and I actually laughed out loud a little. I’m giggling a little as I write this and think back to it. I know, I’m an ass, but my time would come.

I got home late on Saturday, spent most of the day on Sunday with the kids on my own and then took a PTO day on Monday so that I could get away from work for a little while and get to know my family again, if just for that one day.

Let’s fast forward to naptime on Monday afternoon. At naptime, we just send the quints to their room and tell them to lie down. Whatever happens happens. Most of the time, they all eventually sleep a little. After a couple hours, they had spent enough time in their room and they were letting us know. I went in and found my son, sitting naked on a mattress, with his penis in his hand. He was covered in poop. All 4 of the girls were sitting next to him on the mattresses and were also covered from head to toe in poo. Lauren had it spread across her face and she resembled a professional athlete wearing eye black under her eyes. Brooklyn was crewing on her fingers that were covered in it. I did everything in my body to not beat them all senseless. When I walked in a saw what had happened, I have to imagine that I resembled my father from 30 years ago with a blood vessel sticking out of his forehead and neck after I had done something incredible stupid. Sometimes, I really need to stop and laugh. It would be healthier. It was smeared all over the walls like earlier in the week when I was gone, but this time it was different. Poop was smeared all over the carpet. It looked as if Alex wiped his ass on the carpet, almost like a dog would drag its butt across the carpet. It was really smeared in there. Thank goodness Angela was home. She gave them all a very quick and aggressive dunk in the bath. Bath time is normally a fun and enjoyable time for kids, but there was nothing fun about that bath.

I got out our large carpet shampooing cleaner/vacuum and got to work. We penned the kids in Meredith’s room. No one was happy. Angela was really mad to be dealing with this for the second time in three days. I was pissed because I took a day off from work to enjoy my kids and I really didn’t like my kids at the time. A few hours later of scrubbing on our hands and knees, countless Clorox wipes, a bottle of carpet shampoo and only God knows how much elbow grease; we put the kids to bed for the night in Meredith’s room on the floor. I happily went back to work on Tuesday and God bless my wife for dealing with our little monsters (that is a term of endearment at our house) on a daily basis. No one can do what she does every day.

That was just another day in paradise at the Tille house. Hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time…

It’s bitter sweet. Angela and I talked just a little bit about it last night. She quickly got emotional and cried a little. She reflected about how she cried the night before all this started a couple years ago. At the time, we were having a tough time coming to accept the help that we needed. People were gonna be in our house…all the time. Almost everyone was a stranger to us. The unknown of everyone’s different personalities and how’d we’d handle everyone was tough to accept. The most challenging thing was just accepting the help that we so desperately needed. We’re very prideful and asking for help was hard. I’ve said this before: my pride is a huge pill to swallow; a really big pill.

There are so many memories from over the past two years that I could reflect back on. Nearly every one of them involves a volunteer. Those strangers have come to be our best friends in this wonderful community, which is what really struck a chord with Angela last night. Now we have another adjustment to make; living our lives without our extended “family” in our living room with us. The complete opposite of what drew her to tears two years ago. Meredith has come to ask us nearly every morning “who’s coming today.” I told her today for the first time, “No one Honey. You’re gonna have to play with your mommy and me and your brother and sisters.” She had a confused look on her face and asked, “Why?” She doesn’t remember life before the quints. I wonder how its going to affect her in the short and long term.

Angela and I will be taking a trip this month to celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary. Every year, we have dinner to celebrate. During our dinner we talk about our “year in review.” We look back over the past year and talk about what happened. What was good and bad? What happened with the kids? Work? Personal lives? What’s planned for the next year, and so on and so on. During this year’s dinner, I imagine that one of the things that we’ll discuss is the changes that we just made. We’ll likely reflect on what we learned. I’ve learned so much, but the single greatest thing that I took away from the past two years is power of charity. I’m looking forward to our dinner.

Now with that said, this is a new chapter in our lives. I no longer have an email to send out every Sunday night, but I know that many people still want to hear what’s going on in our lives. I’m going to do a much better job of writing. I’ll do it while watching Sunday night football, just like tonight. In the coming weeks, I’ll be getting some new photos of the kids up on the site and some stories from the course of the summer. There are some things that I want to write about, but haven’t found the time with all that goes on during the summer.

And by the way…we made it through “day one” without too much trouble. I wasn’t too concerned, but thought I’d give a quick recap. The morning was pretty rough, but that’s just because the kids were so crabby; a lot of crying and whining. After lunch all of the kids went down for their naps, including Meredith, AND Angela. I watched the Chicago Bears beat up on Atlanta. GO BEARS!!! The kids woke up near the end of the game and all of them were in a good mood. Angela gave them a snack as I went out to mow the yard. I got done just in time to help with dinner. Angela handled baths as I handled the cleanup of the evening meal. Tonight was bath night. All six of the kids got a bath, ears cleaned, nails clipped and teeth brushed. By that time, it was bed time. I made dinner for the two of us (it was awesome) while she grabbed a shower. Meredith was shortly off to bed and now here I am writing. We’re gonna have our trouble and our bad days, but we’re also gonna have great moments and happy, wonderful days.

If you’ve ever helped us out and you’re reading this post, please know that Angela and I thank you so much. You have all shaped us in to the people that we are. Thank you for being part of our lives.

Until next time…

If you’re new to following our site, one of the things that helped us through the first two years was our table for the kids. The Derks family had one and Brenda recommended it so we bought one through a company that provides supplies to preschools and day care facilities. Brenda Derks has never given us a recommendation about raising quints that hasn’t been great. It was SOOO worth it. The table can handle kids up to 55 pounds, so we could include Meredith in our meal plans for the quints. The side benefit to the table was that when the quints went down for their nap, Angela and Meredith could do activities like drawing, coloring, painting, crafts, and all that jazz.

However, after the Christmas holidays, we started to introduce plates and plastic forks and spoons to the quints. Managing Meredith at meal time along with the quints became a challenge as she really didn’t have enough space. They quints would continuously grab at her plate and food and really caused a lot of havoc. Several of our volunteers that helped during meal time could vouch for her (and the quints) behavior on some evenings. Also during the Christmas holidays, as we traveled from one set of grandparents to the other, we really had a good chance to evaluate how the kids did in booster chairs that can strap down to any chair as opposed to their normal table.

So as a result, one of the changes that’s taken place at our home this spring is the transition to a normal kitchen table. Angela and I are trying to take our house back this spring and summer and it’s coming along nicely. This was one of the first steps. Early this spring, we got rid of the old quint table and replaced it with a normal kitchen/dining room table. Back in the day, Angela and I used to sit this very table (as opposed to the couch, living room chair, or floor) and have a nice meal once in a while. It’s so nice to have it back. She and I were just talking about it tonight at our little dinner for two which spurred the idea for this post.

The table is just sitting in our garage and we’re looking to get rid of it. I’d like to keep it for crafting projects with the kids in the years to come, but space is at a premium these days and we’re gonna make do with the kitchen table. If anyone is interested in the table, please let me know. You can contact me by clicking here.

As you can see from the photo below, the kids are transitioning nicely. They’re doing great. During a recent lunch Angela thought that they deserved some pudding. You can see each of them by clicking here. They sure do like chocolate.

Until next time…

Father’s Day this year happened to fall on the quints birthday this year. I know. Its special and I do everything that I can to not under value it. It will be a trend as long as I live. Last year, all six of our children were baptized on Father’s Day, just one day after their first birthday. It was very special day for us as a family. I will remember it forever. This year was great. Not just because it was the quints birthday, but because my wonderful (I really mean top of the line!!!) bride is so thoughtful and creative. She’s so fantastic and I can’t underscore that enough.

The quints woke up around 7. Angela was the first out of bed and when I arrived upstairs, she was already changing the kids in to fresh diapers. All of them seemed happy and she had very meticulously wrapped gifts the night prior and they were waiting for me on the table. Coffee was already brewing. She also had egg bake in the oven. She stayed up late the night before cutting up vegetables, and wrapping gifts.

Have you ever met a person who gets every greeting card right, almost as if the card was written specifically for the person receiving it? That person is my wife. I received two cards on Father’s Day. The one she picked out from the kids was funny. I have the one that I received from her on my desk and I’ll never take it down. Perfect. I only wish that I could return the favor. I try, I really do, but I just don’t have the gift that she has for picking out great greeting cards. Must be genetic (sorry mom and dad). Needless to say, she did so awesome that I actually felt bad.

Anyway, breakfast was awesome and afterwards, the kids helped me open my gifts: a new fishing tackle box, a gift card to Gander Mountain plus a special gift from Meredith (representing the whole crew). I’m not a big fisherman. Frankly, I rarely go, but I do enjoy it. However, Meredith has been watching all these animated DreamWorks films recently and at the beginning of the movies, there’s a little boy fishing while sitting on the edge of a crescent moon. She has been bugging the holy heck out of Angela and me to go fishing like that little boy so that she can catch a BIG fish. She’s even seen fishing on TV and been screaming to go.

After I got cleaned up, I packed Meredith in the car and she and I made a road trip to Gander Mountain (that’s a local outdoor sports store). She and I picked out a new Dora The Explorer Fishing Pole. There’s a lot to pick from these days; I seem to recall that my pole as a little boy was Snoopy. After the trip to stock daddy’s new tackle box with fishing gear, we stopped at Burger King. It was her choice. I think that she likes the food at McDonalds better, but she knows that BK has the play land. She’s not dumb.

After lunch, we went home. The quints were napping so Meredith and I showed Angela our spoils. After nap time, Angela and I took all of the kids out for a walk around the neighborhood. Following the walk, we spent and hour or so in the back yard and then enjoyed a DQ Ice Cream Cake for snack time (thank you Hilary for the gift).

We had dinner as a family followed by bath time. Everyone went to bed without a fuss. Key note from the day: I never raised my voice. I almost always have to raise my voice at least once, but I never did on Father’s Day. I leave you with this picture from earlier in the morning right after opening my “special gift” from Meredith and the crew, my new hat. She made it with mom during her activity time earlier in the week. I wore it almost the entire day and its setting on my desk right next to the card from my bride.

I am truly blessed.

Until next time…

Going back over the previous months, Alex has felt the need to be a little more “free” when he sleeps. We’ve found him progressively less and less dressed as we get the kids up from their naps and in the morning, but over the past couple weeks we’ve found him sleeping completely naked on the floor. No blanket, no socks, no diaper; just naked.

This morning, Angela and I woke to the sound of a thud on the floor to their room above us. Crying quickly ensued as they woke each other up. 6 am. We let the crying go a for a while hoping that they would eventually calm down and play for a while, but the crying got more intense and started to sound like someone was hurt so we came upstairs. Angela beat me out of bed and when I made it to the top of the steps; I found her in the kitchen wiping off Alex’s hands with a washcloth. He was completely naked and crying which isn’t uncommon any more. Madeline was screaming for some reason and was a bit out of control which also isn’t uncommon right after getting up. Lauren and Emma (already wiped down) were quietly playing on the floor. Brooklyn was giggling and eventually ran from around the island in the kitchen, but was naked from waist down. That was a complete surprise. I asked Angela what the hell was going on. She told me that someone had an accident, but this time it was a little more serious.

I feared the worst, but we got lucky this morning. Angela told me that when she opened the door to the kids’ room, Emma (not one of the diaperless kids) met her at the door with a turd in each hand. Wrong day to draw the short straw Emma…

If anyone has any ideas on how to get kids to keep their clothes/diapers ON, I am open to any and all reasonable suggestions. My fear is that one day we’ll walk in and poop will be smeared on the walls, kids will be covered in it on their hands and faces. Anyone with an idea, please help!

My next post will be about my Father’s Day; hopefully very soon.

Until then…

Shortly following the day where Alex destroyed the wall next to his crib, he decided that he had had enough of being penned up in his crib at nap time. He climbed out of his crib and ran around the room and handed out toys to each of the girls in their cribs. Angela heard the chaos and went to investigate. She chuckled a little, put him back in bed, took the toys away and told them all to go to sleep. Minutes later, she heard a thud followed by more giggling and laughing. Alex was out again.

Angela put him back in his bed seven different times that day during nap time before she finally gave up. This new development opens a huge can of worms. We knew this day was coming, but we were unprepared to actually make a decision on how to handle it? Do we put him in the only bed that converts to a day bed and let him run? Safety is obviously a concern. Do we put one of those netting covers over his crib and if we do that, how long do we expect all of them to stay in cribs and do we want to go through with that expense? Do we just pull his crib and put his mattress on the floor and leave the girls alone? Do we move him in with Meredith and leave the girls? Do we pull all the cribs, just throw the mattresses on the floor and let chaos ensue? What do we do?

He didn’t get out that night so we decided to let it go and we would deal with it the following day. As you might imagine, he got out again, but it was different this time. He managed to get his arm stuck. He had a pretty good welt on his arm and that was the end of the cribs. We couldn’t take the chance of someone getting seriously hurt and it was only a matter of time before the others got out so we decided to get rid of the cribs all together. By the time that I got around to disassembling them, I only had a couple hours before they went to bed so I really needed to get moving. I called up Dan Swenson, promised him beer, and got to work. He brought his daughter Savana along to help Angela out with the kids.

Naptime and bedtime are a bit of a challenge now. We don’t have any video of them with the door shut, but they seem to have one hell of a good time. Laughter and giggling last most of the afternoon when they’re in their room. All of them seem to sleep for a short period of time, but I don’t think that they’re ever all asleep at the same time. They just sleep where they land. We’ve checked in on them a couple times. Sometimes they’re on the floor, sometimes they’re on the mattresses and sometimes they’re half on the floor and half on the mattresses.

Below is a video from 15 minutes prior to bedtime the first night without cribs. You can guess how bedtime went. I hope you’re happy Alex!

Until next time…

I was traveling for work in Sioux Falls, SD. I got a call from Angela mid afternoon. I was a little surprised to hear from her at this time of the day. We had just talked the night before and again earlier that morning about my return home and my eta for later that day. When I answered, I asked how things were going. I was hoping for a shopping list upon my way home or something trivial like that, but these were the words that came from my wife’s mouth: “When you get home, you need to have a talk with your son.”

The first thought that came to my mind was, “He’s not even two, what and the hell could he have done.” I expected to get this call when he’s 12 because “he stole his mother’s keys and accidentally drove the van through the garage door” or “I got a call from the school today…your son has been kissing girls and this is his last warning before they suspend him”…or just something to that nature.

What in the hell could he have done at such an early age to justify this phone call? So I took the hook my bride was dangling in front of me…”OK Honey, what did he do now?”

“Your son had a temper tantrum at nap time. He clearly didn’t think he was ready to lie down. He started beating on the wall next to his crib with his hands or fists so much that he knocked the “A” off the wall and in to his bed. (All of the kids have painted wooden letters spelling their names on the wall above their beds.) “He took the letter and started beating the wall like he was beating a red headed step child and now there are holes and dents in the sheetrock next to his bed. He is SOOO your son. I just want to prepare you now so that you don’t lose your mind when you get home.”

I was hoping that Angela just blew things a little out of proportion and was just overreacting a little. I was busy with work the rest of the day and really didn’t think anymore about it and I forgot all about it during my return drive home of four and a half hours.

Sure enough, I got home and Meredith told me all about it. That little S— really did beat the hell out of the wall. I couldn’t get mad, but I’m sure I’ll be grumpy when I get around to fixing it. I’m sure it won’t be the last time a hole shows up in the wall.

My next story will be about Alex in (and out of) his crib at nap time later that week.

Until then…