Tille Family

The New and Improved TilleFamily.com

I’m finally done with updates. I got up early this morning and went to the YMCA for a run. (It’s still cold here in Wisconsin. I heard on the weather this morning that they’re talking significant snow this week. This winter may never end and I’m having very bad thoughts about what I’d do to Old Man Winter, if I ever got the chance to meet him.)

After getting home from the Y and grabbing a cup of coffee, I felt pretty good and mildly motivated. Madeline’s page is now updated and I’m basically done with the overhaul of our website. Everyone should have their own page, bio and photos. I’ve wanted to make this update for months now. Thanks again Jill for your tremendous help! Blogs to come. Enjoy.

More New Photos

I’m almost done with updates. I added and updated photos of Angela and myself on our Photos and Videos page. I have updated photos of Meredith on her page too. I updated Emma’s page tonight and hope to have Maddie’s page finalized tomorrow. I hope everyone is enjoying the updated site and photos of the kids.

More blogs to come in the near future!

New Photos

Here’s a picture of Meredith from a couple weeks ago. She had a chance to spend time at Grandma and Grandpa’s house while we were in Vegas. I’ll write another post about our trip to Vegas shortly. She was pretty happy to see the cows and calfies and she even got to ride in a tractor!

I’m slowly but surely going to get photos updated on the site. I added and rearranged photos of Meredith tonight and I hope to have more pictures of the kids updated on each of their pages by the end of the weekend.
Click here for her page.

Two Special moments on a bad day.

Its 10 pm on Sunday and I’m exhausted. It’s been a very long weekend. A stomach flu has passed through the house going back to last weekend, but it really hit home this weekend. Angela has been ill for days now. Brooklyn and Madeline have been in really rough shape this weekend, but after the evening meal tonight, I’m hoping they’re on the mend. Everyone was crabby, including mom and dad. I almost broke tonight and Angela did. With that said, there were a couple moments today that made me smile. I’m hoping that sharing will help me cope with the day that I just endured.

The first special moment of the day was when Alex and Meredith played together on the teeter-totter. I don’t know where or when this thing showed up, but I found it in our attic this weekend while looking for Angela’s homemade jewelry. Meredith was very excited when I brought it in, but the quints took some time to warm up to it. Alex was the first to give it a shot and he figured it out today on his own. It wasn’t long and he and Meredith were having one hell of a time. As you might imagine, he smashed his grape on the living room floor a few times, but he had a blast. Here’s the photo, but I also have a video. You can see that and other videos by clicking here.

The other special moment was tonight after Angela broke down. With Angela and the kids not feeling well, there was a lot of crying today. A lot! Angela is a magnet for crying kids. When she walks in the room, they all flock to her to let her know how horrible their life is. Apparently they’re letting the good cop how much they don’t like the bad cop. I don’t care, I like being the bad cop. Anyway, I called bedtime early tonight for the quints after Alex lost it and wouldn’t calm down. Brook and Maddie were already sleeping on Angela’s lap. Meredith was on a very short leash given her behavior from earlier in the day. After putting them in bed, I made the two of us dinner. In traditional manner, Angela spilled her spaghetti all over herself. That was the initial crack in the damn. What broke the damn wide open was when Meredith got off the couch to find out why mommy was crying and kicked over Angela’s water glass all over the living room carpet. Sobbing and tears ensued. Soon after Angela went downstairs to bed, Meredith asked if she could go downstairs before bed and give mommy a Kleenex. Meredith and I made the trip downstairs and where she gave mommy the Kleenex. Without me prompting Meredith at all; she told her mom that she was sorry, gave her a hug and mooch, told her that she loved her very much and that it would be ok. Not too shabby for little shit 3 year old.

Until next time…

Jill’s GIANT brain

I don’t have a ton of updates or any really good stories to tell, but I’ve got a couple sweet little morsels for you. We made a trip to the Mall of America with everyone last weekend and Meredith had projectile vomit while watching cartoons tonight. I know, that sounds like two really good stories, but my gift for the gab isn’t spewing out of me tonight, pardon the pun.

The trip to the Mall of America was typical. The kids were scared out of their minds, there were way too many people and Angela and I eventually got pissed at our situation in life so we went home. There’s more to the story, but it doesn’t deserve my attention. I’ll just get grumpy.

The projectile vomit from earlier tonight was one hell of a curveball considering that Angela had three of the kids in the tub and the other two were still eating their pizza at the table. Needless to say, all of the kids are in bed and sleeping now. The scariest thing about tonight is that our ability to deal with these types of situations is starting to become mundane.

Angela worked hard at cleaning up Meredith’s mess tonight while I worked at getting the rest of the house in order for tomorrow. I happen to be leaving for two days on a trip to Des Moines in the morning. Great timing, huh!

The other thing that’s had me busy lately is that I’m really trying to give the website a new and improved look that will update our story a bit, give each of the kids their own space, and include more photos. It’s starting to take shape as you can clearly see by the pics of the kids. However, there are some pages on the site that aren’t user friendly just yet. I also know that I’m missing some pages of a few of the kids. Those pages of the kids are all there, I just have them hidden from sight until they’re ready.

I really need to give a ton of credit to Jill Lubich. Jill is one of our volunteers and comes on the weekends. She’s been here from the very beginning. She’s also been a big helper with our weekend trips with the kids. She went along for our trip to the zoo this summer and she was with us for the trip to the mall last weekend. Jill was also the one who helped me come up with the idea to fix our gate at the top of the steps last year. Let’s be clear; Jill has a GIANT brain. It’s much bigger than mine and we’re so grateful that she likes to let us use it from time to time. Jill stayed at our house late on Saturday night this weekend to work on the website. She really deserves all of the credit for the recent changes that are taking shape.

Thanks so much Jill!!!

Until next time…

Meredith’s New Talent

Meredith recently drew her first picture of our family. I thought that I’d share with everyone. Now if we could just get her to keep the pencil on the paper instead of the walls, we’d be in really good shape.

Website and Blog Updates

I am going through a bit of a transition with the blog and the website. I’d like to update the appearance of the site so that it reflects the family today and moving forward. Please be patient with me. I’m not a wiz at this stuff.

You can clearly see the appearance has changed and it will continue to improve with pictures of our family versus pictures of nature and strangers.

As for the blog; it’s coming back too, but I just want the appearance to look good first. The look has literally been on my mind for at least 9 months. I’ve just always been too chicken to make the change not knowing what I’m really doing.

Everyone is doing fine. The kids are great and growing. They’re running around and raising hell. Meredith is doing a great job with the kids. They really play very well together, all things considered. Angela remains extremely busy around the house and we continue to get help. Work is keeping me busier than normal and I guess that’s a good thing for sales, but challenging at home. Some things have to take a back seat and the blog has been the victim of my time management in the past 6-8 weeks.

Be patient with me. I have some new photos and videos to add and it’s all coming soon. The first of many can be seen here.

Until then…

And finally…the trip home.

It’s been several weeks since I’ve written and we’ve had a bunch of activity at our house. But first, I must finish our holiday travel story.

When I left you last time, we had just finished dealing with all of the kids throwing up in their beds at night and the clean up that ensued. Our departure from Grandma and Grandpa Pansegrau’s was planned for December 23. We wanted to get home and make sure that we could have Christmas at home as a family. Unfortunately, old Mother Nature didn’t agree with our plans. She decided to screw with us a second time on this trip. She dumped another snow storm on us in Central and NE Iowa on the 23rd. We weren’t comfortable traveling so we decided to stay and extra night. Angela’s sister Katie was coming home on 23rd and Angela hadn’t seen her sister in a long time so that helped ice the deal. As we woke o the 24th, the snow was still coming down and it looked bad, but Angela’s dad had been out on the roads early that morning and said things were fine. We loaded everyone up and left immediately after lunch.

Dave clearly had not been on Hwy 63, because he wouldn’t have sent his daughter and only 6 grandchildren out on that road. It took us an hour to travel the first 30 miles. The road was covered and visibility was horrible. We got stuck behind someone and I was concerned that he was traveling so slow it might get us stuck. The BAV doesn’t have 4 wheel drive so it’s always a concern for me in bad conditions. I told Angela that we’d press on, but if things didn’t improve by the time we got north of Waterloo (another 30 miles) we were turning around and we may have Christmas at her parent’s house.

Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal to turn around and just travel on Christmas Day. We’ve done it before, but the problem was that we had yet to wrap a single present. The problem is that Angela acquired her mother’s holiday shopping gene and she over did it with the presents. As you read on, you’ll realize that I didn’t know the extent of how much she had and how that got me in the doghouse.

Low and behold, the roads got better once we got to Waterloo and north of there. The bad weather put our schedule off and that meant trouble in the van. Snack time would be off and so would supper. These kids (and mom and dad for that matter) are so structured that going off the schedule can really be a major issue. Needless to say, I had some time to make up on the roads. I was doing and awesome job. Any NASCAR driver would have been proud of how I handled the BAV for the next 4 hours.

I was flying through Rochester, MN and things were running smooth until we heard some gagging and coughing from the back of the van. Madeline threw up. No!!!!!!!! You have to kidding me. Again…really…she just threw up everything know to man a day ago and all she had was crackers and water in the past 24 hours. Angela raced to the back of the van to help her out to make sure she didn’t choke. I slowed down and quickly cut across 3 lanes of traffic to pull off at the next exit. It was clear to Angela that we couldn’t do much from our position and sitting still was only going to make the overall situation worse so she told me to drive on.

Dear Lord, the smell circulated through the van and it reached all the way to the front. Gross. A minute later, more gagging and coughing from the back. This time it was Alex. He apparently can’t handle the smell either. Angela raced back again, but this time I kept my foot down and pushed on. We were about 75 minutes from home.

The pressure from the entire trip was starting to mount. My knuckles were white and we had both had enough. Voiced were raised and the tension was thick. We needed to be home now, now, now!!!! I made that 75 minutes in close to 50. We called from the road (on Christmas Eve) and had some friends help us out. Thank you Angela and Monica!!! By the way, both Maddie and Alex got sick a second time on that last stretch. Angela ran inside and got a bath running. I unloaded the kids, dry heaved in the process of pulling out the sick ones. Angela Kaiser helped us with the kids until things were in order. The other 4 kids were fed and changed and off to bed for the night.

Oh, that’s right it was Christmas Eve…the presents. The wrapping started around 8:15pm or so and at 12:30am, I had had enough. This was getting ridiculous. I deliberately picked a fight with Angela. As predicted, she sent me to bed, which was exactly what I wanted. I have no idea when she came to bed. Seconds later I opened my eyes and it was Christmas morning. Damn it, I hate it when I feel like I blink and its morning. We were so exhausted.

Christmas Day went fine with no major issues, but the coming two weeks topped it all off like a giant cherry. Remember, the kids all acquired the cold/virus that Angela had prior to us leaving Grandma’s house. A couple days after returning, all of them acquired pink eye on top of the cold. Now we had snot coming from our noses and eyes. All of them started teething a couple days later. They started cutting their molars and what front teeth they had left. Now we had fevers and some “inconsistent” diapers. A week or so later, they all had their 18 month “well visit” check up at the doctor. They all got 3 shots(the last shots until kindergarten). 3 of the 5 had ear infections. They were getting regular Tylenol and Motrin for the teething and the fevers, eye drops three times a day for the pink eye, antibiotics for the ear infections and were just generally crabby for two weeks.

We just finished a very very long 4 week stretch. Mom and Dad were spent.

Needless to say, we’re all doing really well now and we have a variety of updates that I need to get out. Looks like there won’t be anything going on this Sunday so I’ll likely have plenty of free time to write then…I hate the Packers. I don’t know if I can emotionally handle it if they win. The abuse that I’ll take may send me over the edge. Can both teams lose?

Until next time…

The Griswold Family has nothing on you guys…

This particular story is near the end of our VERY long holiday journey over the river and through the woods.

After arriving at Angela’s parents’ home a few days before Christmas, things seemed to going pretty well. It took the kids a little while to settle in, but we ended up doing pretty well. The only early setback, was that Angela and Meredith started to come down with a cold.

Angela’s parents have a large house that’s a little spread out. Normally when we visit, we take up residence in the basement. Anglea, Meredith and I take one of the bedrooms and the quints take the other. Much like my parents house, we arrange for each of the quints to have their own pack and play to sleep in.

Quick funny story. The first night we’re at Dave and Becky’s, Meredith was complaining as we got ready for bed that she didn’t like Grandma’s hot pool. Dave and Becky have a very nice whirlpool, but Meredith clearly wasn’t impressed. As we got to our bedroom and we prepared a space for her on the floor next to the bed, she asked if this bedroom had a TV. I immediately became upset. I recall thinking, “You little shit, who the hell do you think you are. No, there is no TV.” What I said to her was, “This is not a Holiday Inn. Be quiet and lay down.” She is clearly Angela’s daughter.

On the morning of the 22nd I woke to one of the kids crying. Angela had already been upstairs from the night before due to Meredith’s incredibly poor sleeping habits and the newly acquired cold. She wasn’t feeling well. As I approached the quints bedroom, I met Angela’s mom as she heard one crying as well. As we approached the door we could tell that something wasn’t right. There was a very foul smell in the air. Becky thought it might be the cat litter box that needed a bit of attention. I was worried that our dog, Maggie, had gotten sick or left a load on the basement floor much like the one she left in Ames. We took a quick look around, but couldn’t find anything. As I opened the door, an odor that originated from one of Dante’s levels of hell hit us square in the face. Brooklyn was the only one crying and she had gotten sick. As the others slept, I quickly scooped her up and made my way upstairs. She was gonna need a bath, pronto! Strange thing was that the vomit had dried to her pajamas and it confused us a little. How long had she slept in that mess? Angela started the bath water and I handed her off as I heard another baby start to cry. After making my way back to the basement, I quickly opened the door and identified Alex as the next one that was up. Alex’s crib was in the back of the room and I had to snake my way between the other pack and plays to get to him. In an effort to not disturb the other three sleeping kids, I quickly grabbed him under the arms and started to quickly scoot out of the room. However, I noticed that he was very smelly and his pajamas were a bit crusty on my arms. He had gotten sick too.

I quickly thought to myself, “How many of the kids got sick?” I looked down and Emma had something chunky stuck to her forehead as she slept. Madeline did too. As I peered down at Lauren on my way out the door, she looked like that shaggy dog that’s been lying under the porch for the last year. She had this huge matted mess of curly hair and vomit stuck to the side of her face, but the three of them kept sleeping as I quickly made my way out of the room with a crying Alex in tow.

I brought Alex upstairs to the bathroom and dropped him off for Angela and her mom whom had the bath tub running. I told her that Alex got sick and all three of the others had been sick too. I asked Angela what I should do with the other three. They were peacefully sleeping in their own vomit. I said to them, “Do I wake them? It seems somewhat neglectful to let them sleep in their own vomit, doesn’t it?” Becky laughed at me. “I don’t know what to do. There isn’t a handbook for this crap.” Brooklyn and Alex sobbed and looked absolutely miserable in the tub as we discussed our plan of attack.

Eventually all of them awoke and they all got their bath. Angela scrubbed and scrubbed, but they all had a horrible smell to them after their bath and it remained that way for a few more days.

What makes this whole situation worse was what they threw up: lasagna and garlic toast and mac and cheese and hot dogs (the previous day’s dinner and lunch, respectfully). You know that nice greasy orange tomato sauce that stains your Tupperware, yeah it was everywhere and the smell was absolutely toxic. Clean up took more 4 hours.

Angela and her mom chose to use a shop vac to help with the clean up, but the one they used was an older model that the Pansegrau family had used for a very long time. When they turned it on, sheetrock dust shot out the exhaust. I’m chuckling about as I write this. It wasn’t funny then, but I can laugh now. Here’s a little background that adds salt to this wound. Three years ago Angela and I bought her dad a brand new shop vac for Christmas. He’s so hard to shop for. When we pulled the BAV in the garage after arriving the day prior, we saw that brand new shop vac on the shelf in the garage, still sitting there unopened.

As the clean up continued, Becky had started some water in the utility sink in the laundry room so that the pajamas that they got sick in could soak for a while. As you might imagine, Becky and Angela got busy and they forgot to turn the water off. Here’s the kicker, the floor drain plugged up and they had a inch of water in the basement laundry room. I was upstairs with the kids as all of this was going on. I could hear yelling downstairs and someone quickly coming up the basement steps. Angela was calling for me and she had some purpose in her tone. I met her at the top of the steps and she told me to “go out to that F-ing garage and go get that F-ing shop vac that her dad hadn’t opened up yet.” She told me that the basement was flooding and they needed it NOW.

I ran out, grabbed it, ran back in with the box, made it down the steps and started unpacking it. Those two knuckleheads had bath towels strew about the laundry room floor trying to soak up the water. I quickly got the vac running and went straight to the floor drain. It felt like a dozen golf balls got sucked up through that tube in a second or two. I quickly turned it off and all of the remaining water in the room flowed to and down the drain.

They kept cleaning up the water and vomit mess for a couple hours longer. An incredibly foul smell of bleach and vomit lingered in the basement, but it was so much better than what was.

Angela told me later that her mom at one point stopped what she was doing in the laundry room while standing there in the water and said that the Griswold Family has nothing on us. Dear God, I’m not really turning in to Clark am I? The more I reflect on it, it’s kind of scary how similar we are.

Coming up next, the Tille family’s (opps, I mean Griswold family’s), trip home. Oy Vey.

Until next time…