4 Hour Shiftaroo

July 16th, 2007

Sorry for my delay in blogging, but we are trying out the 4 hour schedule with the boys, meaning we have bumped up their feeds and their “waketime” so it’s 4 hours between each feeding . It’s always a challenge when you switch something in quadworld, but so far it’s a go. The boys are eating between 7-8 oz a feeding now! That’s almost 2 cans of formula a day! I think Brad and I calculated the other day that it cost about 7 dollars each time we feed the little birds (over 30 buckaroos a day). Isn’t that incredible? There’s no way we could do it without all the help we’ve received and we are soooooooooo thankful daily for our stockpile of diapers, along with many other blessings. We can’t thank you all enough, so we will continue to thank you on this blog!

We are still thrilled that we aren’t taking care of a post-surgery Brooks right now. We all celebrated Friday with a walk along the canal, downtown Indy. Perfect weather – low 80’s with a breeze, not your typical July Indiana weather. We discovered that the canal is a great place to take the boys, because people are on the move. Let me explain myself…….when you have quads, like it or not, you are on constant display and interview mode. It’s like we wear a t-shirt saying, “Ask us anything that comes to your head, don’t worry nothing is off limits”. While we love sharing the boys with everyone, and love sharing the story that the Lord has given, it definately makes you chuckle at some of the reactions and questions we get. You want examples? Oh alright….

• Are those triplets? Sextuplets? Whatever they’re called
• You’ve got 2 sets of twins?
• Are they all yours?
• I hope you’re done (having kids)
• That’ll teach you what to pray for
• (In an Indiana hillbilly tone) D’jew take dem shots?
• And our personal favorite that we hear AT LEAST 10 times an outing: YOU’VE GOT YOUR HANDS FULL!

A girl even ran into a sign one day because she was walking and trying to look back at our babies at the same time. Anyway, it’s a hoot, but it does get difficult at times to get from point A to point B. Needless to say, the canal was a very enjoyable walk, because we only got stopped a handful of times, since people are on paddleboats, bikes, even segways. By the time they counted all the babies in the strollers, they had already passed us!

We’ve been blessed this summer with visits with friends. A great suprise visit was from our friends, the Mathisons who have been in East Asia for the past few years. Amy was my Bible study leader/accountability partner during college.They are dear friends to us. It was wonderful to see their growing family and squeeze them in person.

Some other extra special guests include another set of quad parents, the Benners. We first met them at our first appointment with our high risk doctor during the pregancy. I believe I was about 10 weeks pregnant, and both Brad and I were tremendously anxious about not only having quads, but the mono-mono situation for Clark and Brooks. (If you are new to this “mono” language, Brad posted a great explanation in December on our pregancy blog.) Denise and her quad squad were getting their pictures taken for a brochure for our doctor’s office, since she had such an amazing pregnancy. I tease her that she’s the “postermom for quads”. Just to see 4 healthy babies crawling up on her lap was a realization to us that this was truly possible. God has really used them in our lives as an encouragment and a tremendous resource to bounce questions off of sometimes weekly. It was great to have them love on our babies.

Speaking of quads, please continue to pray for Suzanne. She is hours away from 28 weeks! Remarkable! She is hangin’ tough and enduring her hospital stay. Let me tell you from experience hospital bedrest is extremely difficult. Hands down the hardest thing I’ve had to endure. Please pray for her little ones Ben, Andrew, Savannah, and Ethan to develop and enter this world safely – specifically that their little lungs would start developing, that Suzanne could have the strength and sanity to keep pressing on, for God to give her husband Joe courage, wisdom, and strength for today and days ahead, and that their story would bring glory to God.

Friends and family are so valuable to us these days. It’s been a challenge to stay “connected”, but please know that we love you all!

Hope you enjoy the pictures – does that bring back any memories from the ole viewmaster days? Personally, I loved The Incredible Hulk reel. What was your favorite?