BY SUE MacDONALD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It was an event as profound as it was ordinary.
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PHOTO GALLERY
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More than 15 images from their first day at school. |
At 8:07 a.m. Thursday, Northwest Local School District bus No. 99 rumbled to a stop on Seiler Road in Monfort Heights and opened its doors.
Erin Essell stood on the sidewalk like a mother hawk watching her 5-year-old quadruplets -- Emily, Ryan, Kyle and Tyler -- as their eight little legs, wearing four new pairs of Nikes, climbed the tall steps and maneuvered their backpacks into four separate seats. She stuck her head in the bus door to make sure all four got settled on their first bus ride, to their first day of kindergarten.
"Hey, Erin, you can't go with them!" said her husband, Rob, videotaping as the doors closed and the bus pulled away.
The couple watched as four excited faces grinned and tiny hands waved from the windows.
"Oh, my babies . . . " Erin said, waving back, tears filling her eyes as she watched the bus turn the corner.
Hers was the reaction -- multiplied by four -- of every mother experiencing the emotions of a child leaving the nest for the first official day of school.
Then, when the bus was out of sight, she and Rob high-fived the day's milestone:
The first time in eight years they would enjoy a no-kids-at-home morning. They hugged, crossed the street, held hands and walked back to their house.
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ABOUT THE SERIES |
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Thursday the Essell quadruplets of Monfort Heights attended their first official day of kindergarten. The Enquirer first wrote about them when they were born in 1993, again when they turned 1 and when they turned 3.
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A quiet, peaceful house.
"This is weird," said Erin, 36, still wiping tears a few minutes later as she leaned against the kitchen counter.
"It's so quiet. When they're little, you don't think this day will ever come. I just can't believe they're 5 already.
"I'm glad to see them get older, and I've looked forward to this day, but it's sad, too."
It was five years, five months and eight days ago today that Erin gave birth to the quadruplets, all weighing more than 4 pounds and among the largest ever born in Cincinnati. They made their newsworthy arrival at University Hospital.
Their brother, Bradley, 3 at the time, waited at home. Erin quit her job at a downtown stock brokerage firm to stay home with the babies. Ever since that day, it has been busy at the Essells' house.
Erin and Rob managed the infant years around firm schedules of naps, diapering and feeding -- and plenty of fatigue on their part. They endured the burping, creeping, crawling, toddler years -- and an estimated 22,000 diapers in the first three years of the quads' lives.
Then came Bradley's first day of kindergarten, preschool for the quads, four bikes without training wheels and teaching kids to swim.
And Thursday marked another phase: Making gingerbread cookies on the first day of morning kindergarten at Weigel Elementary School in Colerain Township: Emily and Ryan in Carole Worth's room, Tyler in Anne Demmel's room and Kyle in Claudia Farmer's room.
"It has gone by quickly," said Rob, 39, an electrician and contractor. "But they need to be in school. They need to be broken up because they realize there's strength in numbers."
Tyler's the leader, rough-houser and instigator. "He's been the first one to walk, the first one to ride a bike and the first to show them how to extract teeth (not his own -- Ryan's)," Rob said. Ryan is the tallest. Earlier this summer, he was the first to get stitches, when his Big Wheels and forehead collided with Bradley's bike.
"I knew the first set of stitches was coming," Erin said, "but I didn't know when or who."
Kyle, once the mellowest of the quads, is now emotional and demanding. "You don't want to get Kyle mad," Erin said.
Emily is definitely all girl in this bounty of boys. She wanted pink Nikes to the boys' blues and a "girl backpack" when sorting through the back-to-school choices at Wal-Mart earlier this month. (The boys and Erin call her "Miss Prissy"; Rob calls her "Princess.") Bradley, 8, a third-grader at St. James White Oak, is a helpful and protective big brother -- but he offered to go to summer school this year when the noise level at home got out of hand.
"I'm happy to see them getting older," said Erin after she returned home and sat down -- alone! -- to watch Judge Judy on TV.
"But I'll miss 'em a lot. I think I'm ready for my tea bag now." The tea bag came in a care packet from Emily and Ryan's teacher a few days earlier: a Baggie containing a tissue, a tea bag, a cotton ball and this note:
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Dear Parents,
Thank you for for entrusting your child to me. I promise to do my best every day to be your child's companion in learning. After you have wiped your tears, make yourself a nice cup of warm tea. Put up your feet and relax. Then hold the cotton ball in your hand. The softness will help you recall the gentle spirit of your child. I will work along side you this year to help your child grow.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Worth
Erin cried the first time she read the note.
"I thought this day would never come," said Rob, just before he left the house to go to work. "The teachers will definitely earn their money this year."
