A New Chapter
Today is a very important day for our family. Nearly every Sunday, I send out an email to our list of volunteers. Two weeks ago, I sent out our last. At that time, I told everyone that yesterday would be our final day with regular scheduled volunteer help. It’s been a little over two years now where we’ve had help almost every day. At one point we had as many as 24 different people in our home in any particular day. Now it’s been quite a while since we’ve had that many people here. Most recently, we normally had 2-3 people daily for a couple hours each. However, today is the first day since the kids came home from the hospital that we will no longer have regular volunteers.
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…