Long Time Listner, First Time Caller?

Hi -

It's me. Haven't blogged in a coons-age. Good to be back. Felt like cybercizing a bit today...

Quads are great. Dane is shaving. Cam has a beer gut. Much to her mothers dismay, Summer is wearing makeup. Oh, and Brock ran away.

Other than that, oh, totally forgot, Aiden now drives the van and Cale rides on a snowboard behind it.

Sounds crazy eh?

Bingo! Come on over and witness it for yourself?

Life remains grand, crazy, a bit trying at times, but grand nonetheless. Our marriage is stronger, has to be. In darwin-esque fashion, we have evolved, in mere months, to be fully functional on a daily basis with 4 hours of sleep.

Hard to believe The Quads hit 6 months on January 31! Time, oh where does it go?

Really though, Dane and Cam and I think Summer can roll from back to belly. Brock seems to prefer lying on his back. Summer was recently described as "stiff" by the "developmental" people. I'll give them stiff...

Sitting is first and foremost on the to-perfect list. While sitting, Brock seems to lean forward to a point where he cannot do really anything. Summer sits with very good posture, reminiscent of her mother. Dane sits rather well and Cam is right there with him.

Summer and Cam appear to have eye color of the hazel variety while Brock and Dane appear to have blue eyes. Mailman? No, there's definitely some polish in these kids...

People seem to like to voice their opinion on who looks like who. Recently, an acquaintance indicated Summer looks very much like yours truly. I liked that Hurley. Brock seems to have a striking resemblance to a long line of polocks from my dads side of the family. Cam is Cam - unique - his own man. Dane, funny guy, over took Brockie as the funny guy. If you recall, when they were in the NICU, we would comment on how Dane would give us a "gummy smile". Kid has a huge smile - and it is very contagious - and very beautiful.

Summer is by far the cutest baby girl I have ever seen. China doll. She has come a long way since she first came home. Gone is the serious, scowl look. In is the cutest little cooing with simply put, a distinguished, confident smile, that melts her parents hearts. She could start growing some hair sometime in the near future.

Speaking of hair, Cam has this sweet little patch down the middle of his head. Considering his age, it is quite thick and probably best described as a pro-like divot/army sort of flat top.

Back to cooing, all The Quads have become rather vocal, in their own ways. Summer and Dane seem to have taken the lead over Brockie with regard to holding a conversation with themselves. Cam doesn't talk as much - he seems to prefer to grunt...

Feeding...Come on over and help feed The Quads cereal. You want crying? Come on over and help feed The Quads cereal. You want cereal all over everything (thanks to mom, not dad)? Come on over and help feed The Quads cereal. You want mass chaos that makes dad sweat with the thought of babies crying very loudly? Come on over and help feed The Quads.

Pooping...Come on over and help change The Quads diapers. You want poop? We got poop. You want buckets full of poopy and pee diapers? Come on over and stick your head in a bucket. You want an industrial size bucket of Butt Paste? Come on over and change some diapers.

Diapers...You want cloth diapers stacked to the ceiling? Come on over and I'll put one on you!

We think teething has started, or is very near. You want sleep? Don't come over at night...

So it has been pretty neat observing Aiden and Caleb interacting with The Quads. Both have impressed mom and dad in ways we could only have hoped for leading up to this circus. Watching them put on "Rock Outs" for the babies is extremely entertaining. "Rock Outs" is their way of playing guitars with whatever toy-of-the-day they have and, well, yelling goofy lyrics to The Quads. The amazing part is that it is actually rather annoying, yet The Quads will be lined up on the couch just laughing away.

When I say annoying, imagine Aiden, probably for the past 3 months saying something like this:

Banananana, banananana, it's a rock out, it's rockin, banananana, banananan, it's a rock out, it's rockin. And so on and so forth for what seems like hours on end. Get the point? The point is, The Quads love it and we love our kids.

Cale's signature move is playing his guitar for like 2 seconds and jumping as high in the air as he can landing on his butt. Funny!

So, Tonya goes under the knife soon to get the world's worst umbilical hernia patched up. I don't think I can talk about some of the details, but I will anyway. She has seen I think 3 different doctors, third of which is a....plastic surgeon. Insert evil chuckle here. This dude will go in through her C-section scar. Cool. Great. That's what she wanted to hear and that's what she wants done. She won't have a scar extending up her entire torso. I am supportive of whatever she wants to do. I'm really starting to get fat. If she has a scar up her belly, I don't care, I have a beer belly. But, yes, plastic surgeon...he just can't go in there and not do something that he specializes in, can he? No, apparently he cannot. Now we just need to figure out how to get a tummy tuck, belly button reassignment or whatever, boob job, just a titch of lipo around the hips, and butt implants taken care of for a $10 copay...

Tonya and I went to a seminar last night. Topic was "The Strong Willed Child". Presentor was John Rosembaugh? I think that's his name. If any parents ever have a chance to hear this dude talk - GO! Tremendous. Fabulous. Entertaining. I can't even start to tell you how basic it is to stop your child from owning you, you as in you parents. Now, let me get this straight, our kids are perfect. We only went for the entertainment aspect. Right. Our situation is such right now that it is very difficult on all of us. As you can imagine, most of our time is spent dealing with The Quads. Please don't take "dealing with" as a mean way, or sarcastic way of what amounts to dedicating the majority of our time to The Quads. You've all raised a baby. They need your time. So with us, yeah, that's a lot of time. Needless to say, Aiden and Cale being cooped up in the cottage kind of makes mom and dad want to rip our hair out and jump through the window and run like dang Forest Gumpp - Run Lew Run...

So, I will now start beating Aiden and Cale when they act up. No really, John told us to walk in the house last night, look at Aiden and Cale, and shout "It's over"! We will now have "a presence" in our house. We will now be view by Aiden and Cale as "Leaders". We will now command respect from Aiden and Cale. We will not have to give a 5 minute justification on why they have to eat all their dinner, or whatever.

Actually, I felt as though I was sort of on par with a lot of John's thoughts and theories. I believe in the old school. Cause I'm an old fool. Love that song. Anyway, John is a shrink by trade and openly criticized his colleagues for "making stuff up". It's true - think about it. Did your mom and dad or grandma and grandpa have kids in school that were depressed? No. Did they have ADD, AHD, ADHD and all those other acronyms to throw around? No. Did you know the average size of first grade classrooms back in the day was like 3 times the size of an average first grade class today? Yes, it's true. Why? Because back in the day, sure, a first grader came to school and didn't know their ABCs, but, they had respect for their teacher. They learned. And they left the first grade at a higher reading level than what kids today do. Look it up. If a teacher called home back in the day and talked to mom and said little johnny did "this" at class today. Mom said "okay" and that was that. Little Johnny never did "that" again at school. How does that same conversation today go. Yeah, mom vehemently denies that Little Johnny would do "that". Vehemently defends what Little Johnny did. Talks to Little Johnny and gets his interpretation of what he did and calls the teacher back and tells her what Little Johnny told her. It's crap. If you know a first grade teacher, ask them. Parents today, though they try hard and think they are helping, we are not. We need to get our shit together. All of you parents out there need to go listen to this guy. Just phenomenal.

Sorry, could have gone on and on there.

Would like to take the time here to thank Heidi Schramski for assembling a phenomenal group of people who take time out of their busy lives to bring us dinner 3 times a week. For those that come over and see dinner time, yeah, we have like about a 15 minute window to get it done. A million thanks to all of you.

When The Quads are crying and Aiden an Cale are acting like Spiderman clinging to the ceiling, I just drink a beer and smile and think "This is our life, and we love it". At this point, I couldn't imagine life without The Quads. I mean that. It has tried Tonya and me, tried us hard, and we are doing it.

Roger that, over and out.

Couldn't sign off without a shout out to the one person that, in the past 6 months or so, I have gained more respect for than anyone on the planet - Tonya. Can't wait for that boob job...

Yours truly