If I didn't have asthma I'd probably smoke!!!

If I didn't have asthma, I'd probably get up first thing in the morning and have a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette. I'd smoke something cheap like Basic Cigarettes. I'd flood the air in my house with as much smoke as I could, and I wouldn't care if everything in my house smelled like smoke.

I wouldn't care what it smelled like because I wouldn't be able to smell it anyway. Cigarette smoke, as you know, makes you blind of those things. I wouldn't be able to smell very well. I wouldn't' smell it unless I quit smoking. I think this is a defense mechanism.

I love the ambiance that cigarette smoke creates. I love the smell of cigarette smoke. I love it.

I loved going to grandma and grandpa's house when I was a kid and smell that good old sweet smell of grandpa smoking. I don't know why I did, yet I did. I suppose it's the same male part of me that enjoys the smell of gasoline. I love revving up my snow blower and getting a huge whiff of the smell of gasoline. I just love it.

Now you guys probably think I'm nuts considering I have asthma, yet just because I have asthma doesn't mean I can't like the smell of what irritates it. In an ideal world I'd work at a car dealership, drink beer during my breaks, and chain smoke cigarettes while fixing car engines. and I wouldn't apologize for doing it either like Obama does. I wouldn't' quit if my kids told me to quit because it's no longer socially acceptable.

I'd be more like John Boehner and say something like, "Now, why did you bring that up. I know I have a bad habit, and I'm not going to quit and I'm not going to apologize for it. I smoke and I enjoy smoking."

My dad owned a car dealership, and the only reason I never got a job working for him, and the reason he sold the shop to a stranger instead of keeping it in the family, is partly because his son Rick has bad asthma. Rick wasn't able to spend quality time in the shop.

Now there were days when I was in my early 20s where I would take the day off college and drive cars with my dad to an auction. At the auction we drank beer, and cheap beer like Natural Lite too. We'd drink cheep beer because we wouldn't' care about what's cool or what's in. We drank cheep beer because then we could drink more and get drunker.

And the rest of the guys would smoke cigarettes. It was a blast.

I wouldn't quit drinking due to public pressure either, like both George Bush's did.

We drank beer right out in the public too. And the owners of the auction encouraged it, because they were men too. They had common sense to know that men are men, and men like to smoke and drink beer. If doing those things increased the attendance at the auction, then they were privy to it. There was no political correctness.

Yet those days came to an end. Those days were also far and few between even when I was able to do them, because my asthma didn't always cooperate. They beer dried out my lungs, and the cigarette smoke irritated my lungs too. So having fun in this was was kind of like a double edged sword. Yet I still did it whenever I could.

Yet I didn't ruin their fun by calling my congressman and encouraging him to make a law banning public smoking and drinking. I chose to hang out somewhere else. It was someone else who ruined their fun.

Yet just because I have asthma doesn't mean I still don't have the same likes of trucks, gas, smoke, good food, and dirt as other guys do. We guys like big trucks and big engines, and we like to talk tough and do tough things. We like to drive big trucks with engines that ROOOOAAAAAAR!!!!

Men don't care if food is left out all night. Men don't care if food fell on the floor. Men aren't afraid of a little germs. Men don't care that there is a little brown in the cracks of the tile on the counter. Men don't care about that stupid germy crap. And if you believe in the Hygiene Hypothesis or the Norma Flora Hypothesis, men are right not to be afraid.

We like to eat bacon and eggs and large steaks and hamburgers with onion rings and french fries soaked in high fat Greece, not the cheap stuff they now use at Burger King and Wendy's. Real men don't eat salads. Real men don't diet. Real men are happy no matter what they weigh. I remember the neighbor lady saying to dad once, "You wouldn't be you if you were skinny."

Yet I diet. I watch my weight. I'm sitting here with a bowl of cottage cheese and a banana only because when I don't eat healthy I gain weight and my asthma sucks worse. I will at some point go into my basement and run on the treadmill and lift weights, while the other men in my family will work in a factory (eight hours of stress per day), and then sit and drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and watch old movies of Clint Eastwood.

Then they'll go blow snow because they tire of listening to their wives gossip on the phone. Or perhaps they tire because their wives keep interrupting Clint Eastwood to tell about Uncle Joe who just had an affair with Aunt Sarah's uncle Bill's brother Sam's sister's cousins dads, ..... blah blah blah...

Which is why men love watching when Homer Simpson's mind wanders off to some distant land when Marge is blah blah-ing to him about something blah blah blah...

And that's probably the reason I love going outside blowing snow with my snow blower at 7 a.m. in the morning when it's five degrees above zero, with the engine roaring at a decibel loud enough for everyone in the neighborhood to enjoy. I love that it puts fumes in the air that I can smell. I love that it uses a ton of gas. I love polluting the air.

It's just awesome to be able to do it. I wish I could do more of it. And this, I suppose, is a perfect reason why it is probably good that I have asthma. As you guys know asthma is linked to anxiety, and perhaps I have a little anxiety. I have some little habits, some finicky little habits, that make me think that if I could, I'd sit around chain smoking all day.

It's for this reason I don't want lawmakers making laws banning smoking. I don't want to see other guys have their fun taken away. If someone wants to smoke, if someone wants to pollute his air, he should have every right to do that. However, common sense applies. While ignorance is legal, while it's legal to be stupid, I don't think it should be legal to do something that hurts other people -- so long as you don't get caught.

I don't think it's okay to sit and smoke in front of little kids. I don't' think it's okay to sit and smoke in front of your wife who doesn't smoke. I don't think it's okay to sit in a baseball stadium and blow smoke in the air that little kids breathe.

In this sense, I'm all for some regulations. Yet none that say that you or you or you cannot smoke. So long as the regulations are made by the local people and not some stupid person sitting in a suit on some leather chair that costs $10,000 in an office some 10,000 miles away.

I'm going to hate the day when gas engines are a thing of the past. I personally hope that day never comes. I'd rather hear engines putt putt and ROAR than hear... nothing. I'd rather zoooooooom down the road than putt putt in a little golf cart. I'd rather pay $40 at the pump than $7,000 on an electric battery.

Yet that's just me. I like Homer Simpson. I like Homer Simpson because he is one of the few characters on TV who is realistic. He is one of the few men on TV who says what he really thinks, what a man really would say, instead of what the women watching TV would want him to say.

Did you know that a majority, say 90%, of TV sitcoms are aimed at women. Men don't sit and watch that crap. They don't because men don't like political correctness. So on almost all of those shows, the men do what women would want. The men say what the writers think women would want. Two and a Half Men might be the only exception.

Most of those TV shows do not represent the real world. In the real world you have Homer Simpson's, and you have Al Bundy. Ah, Married With Children was on for eleven years and I don't' think it ever even showed up on the top ten in the ratings. The same may be said of The Simpson's.

These shows did not last as long as they did because they were politically correct. They lasted as long as they did because they catered to men. They were of the few TV shows in prime time that cater to a male audience. And that is why they lasted so long. They lasted because they gave advertisers a way to advertise to men.

Home Improvement started out this way. Yet by the end of that program Tim the Tool man Taylor was saying and acting how the writers thought a women would want him to act instead of how a man would really act. Tim the Tool Man caved.

I don't watch a TV show and hear men saying what I would say to my wife. I'm not saying I'm rude to my wife, yet I'd be more likely to make fun of her for gossipping on the phone all day as opposed to encouraging it. You won't see me stand up every time I talk to my wife. I'd be more likely to sit in my chair and sip a beer like Archie Bunker.

I'd be more likely to sit and say nothing than to get into an argument over goofy things that don't matter. I'd be more likely to go into the basement and work on a project than to sit around talking about if Aunt Millie has sex with women. Men just don't gossip like that.

Men are more likely, in real life, to talk about guns and rifles and baseball than anything else. Men are more likely to sit and watch Football and grunt when something good happens than talk. Men don't even say if they're happy, it's just assumed. Men don't say they're mad, it's just assumed. Real men don't get mad, they just take it in stride.

Most men are kind, compassionate, patient and considerate, yet not push overs. Most real men have an aura of equanimity.

Men are more likely to talk about the news and politics that they know you aren't supposed to talk about. Men are likely to discuss politics as opposed to religion, yet that they believe is just assumed. They like to talk about things that are offensive to others, things they can't discuss in front of children and wives.

In fact, men are more likely to be modest and be quiet around their women than say anything at all. We are more likely to keep quiet unless someone is offending and treating our women poorly. We are more likely to do whatever we have to do to keep the peace. We keep our homes safe. We have dry humor.

And we end the day with a beer and a cigar after revving up some engine out in the garage (it used to be feeding the horses. It used to be shoveling up horse shit. Yet now we have gas engines). And surely the gas engines and the cigarettes and the gas has had its impact on us asthmatics. Yet it's not our fault.

Yet we have asthma. Yet I have asthma. So instead of puffing on a cigarette 12 hours during the day, I sit here typing on this silly blog. I have all these ideas rolling around in my head like balls on a billiards table, and instead of keeping them in my humble and modest head, I choose to share them with you.

So you benefit from all the stuff I can't do that other real men get to do. YOU are the main beneficiary. And, in a strange way, I suppose I'm a beneficiary too, because writing in its own way is a form of therapy. While I'm typing away I'm sorting my many brilliant thoughts, and I'm sipping away at my cup of coffee.

Sure a normal person might have just one cup of coffee, yet I'm on my second. And maybe later this morning I'll have a third. There's this thing I read recently that those who have more than 2 cups of coffee take up to seven years off their lives. Remember when they used to say that about smoking cigarettes? They used to say every one took seven years off your life.

Yet who cares about that. I'm going to say the same thing my grandpa used to say when I'd try to get him to quit smoking (even though I love the smell of the smoke he created). He'd say, "I'd rather die young that to live to be 100 and have not had a fun life."

So now that the people searching for some euphoric world have taken away the ability of men to smoke in public, and are tackling public drinking, and eating salt, and high fat food, they'll probably set out an all out assault on coffee at some point to. It's like a bar of wet soap that slips from your wet hands in the morning shower; it's a slippery slope.

I'm the same way. I want to enjoy every molecule of air that goes into my body. I want to enjoy every minute. And if the smell of gas and a cup of coffee allows for me to ease my mind, then I'm all in for it. It's a go.

Thankfully we have a U.S. Constitution that prevents our lawmakers from making any law that takes away the freedoms that each us us were born with, and the rest of the people around the world yearn for. If we men choose to be stupid, it's our God given right to do so. If we choose to smoke and kill our lungs, then by golly do it.

The only way we will no longer have the right to do these stupid things is if our Congressmen choose to ignore the Constitution, or if they sign on to to something like the New World Order and bypass the Constitution altogether.

So men have a right to do what men do. Yet we do it with common sense. If I didn't' have asthma I'd smoke like my dad. I wouldn't' let my kids ever see me, to the point they didn't even know I smoked (I was 18 before I realized my dad smoked all my life). I'd smoke outside at night, and while working during my breaks. Yet I'd have common sense.

I'd have a sip of beer on my break, and I'd finish the can after work like my grandpa did. Yet you'd never see me drunk. I'd play cards after work with the guys, and then I'd come home and roll on the ground with my kids. Then I'd snuggle with my wife. Those are the things that wouldn't change whether I had asthma or not.

Yet occasionally I'd to to the cabin and smoke in front of the guys and force them to inhale my smoke, and I'd get drunk with them while drinking whiskey and coke or Natural Lite. I wouldn't drink wine, because wine is a drink for wussy men and for women.

Asthma can change what we do, yet it does not change who we are. We might focus on doing different things with our hands, yet we are still the same. I'm an asthmatic, yet I'm still a man. I may be an asthmatic, yet I still love what men like. I'm an asthmatic, yet I'm still me.

And if you let some THING control who you are, I feel sorry for you. Because if you let things control you, you are not you. That's something I learned way back when I was ten years old. Way back then I had bad asthma, yet I still yearned to wrestle with my brothers in the dusty basement. I ended up in the hospital sometimes, yet I still did it.

I never missed a day of school when I just stayed home in bed. If I missed a day of school it was because I was in the hospital. I never failed to go out to recess even when my teacher tried to convince me not to go out in zero degree whether. I didn't want to stay in because I didn't want to be seen as different. I didn't want to be seen as the asthmatic.

No! That wouldn't be me. That wouldn't be the man thing to do. Common sense applies, and perhaps when I was a kid I didn't' always use common sense, yet my asthma did not change me. I do not smoke, I do not work in a factory like my brothers.

Yet when it comes right down to it. I'm still the same old Rick Frea. And I'm still writing stupid crap like this. And later this morning I'm going to put more gas fumes into the air as I run my snow blower in five degree weather. And yes I'll probably wheeze while I freeze.

If I didn't' have asthma I'd probably smoke, and you wouldn't be able to stop me. Since lawmakers like to punish those who have fun, and since cigarettes are $5 a pack, I'd probably order cheap ones from some country in Africa illegally, or I'd roll mly own.

That's just me; that's just who I am -- asthma or no asthma.

Just a thought

Writing on this blog would be easier if my asthma wasn't so controlled. If my asthma was uncontrolled I'd have plenty tio write about. In that regard, it would have been nice to have this technology years ago when my asthma more aptly applied to the header on this blog.

However, be it as it may, most of what I write is in the post Hardluck Asthma era. A more appropriate Header for the blog might be Gallant Asthmatic, however "gallant" implies perfection, and Lord knows I'm far from perfect.

In fact, a wise person once told me that she wasn't perfect because perfection in itself is a flaw. And since she was flawless she therefore couldn't be perfect.

So gallant I'm not.

Why do we exercise?

Sometimes I wonder why I work out. Why do I exercise? Why do I keep torturing myself for 20-60 minutes every day (or nearly every day).

My wife exercises. I exercise. I think we urge each other on. I think I can fairly say, and my wife will agree, that she exercises more because I do than the other way around. She does have two brother's who work out (and six packs, yet that's a story for another day), yet not one other person I know of on my side who works out regularly.

So it's just me. I was the first person in my family to get a degree from college (I have three so my record probably won't be broken any time soon) and I'm also the first to exercise on a regular basis.

Now, I'm not saying people in my family don't ride a bike, walk or do something on a treadmill. I think there are a lot of people who at least think about doing that. Yet I am the first and probably only person on my side of the family who "really" works out.

My older brother Bobby used to work out when we were teens in the 1980s. He'd often try to get me to work out with him. Yet I wasn't interested. Later I picked up the hobby of weight lifting and never quit. He did quit. He might lift a weight on occasion, yet I do it nearly every day.

Of course this is nothing new. I remember going with him to Ben Franklin's in 1978 when I was 8 and he was 9, to get candy. Yet he found some baseball cards and spent all of his candy money on baseball cards at 10 cents a pack. I bought none. I wondered why he would waste his money.

He kept trying to get me to collect cards with him, saying they'll be worth money some day. I told him no one would want to buy a stupid card with a stupid baseball player on it. Funny thing was, two years later he quit collecting and I started. Today I'm still going on this hobby (now with my son), and he has never touched a card since.

So here I am lifting weights at least once a week for ten years, and he doesn't. Sometimes I wonder why this is, yet I know the answer. When he quit working out nothing bad ever happened. Working out for him was merely cosmetic. Yet for me, when I quit, I get winded. My asthma gets worse. So for me, it's more than just a hobby. It's necessary. It's a need.

Sometimes I hate working out. Most of the time I enjoy it. I enjoy torching myself. I enjoy the misery I go through for the 20 minutes I'm on the treadmill. Why? Because I like how I feel the rest of the day due to the torture. When I was a kid I didn't like the torture. Of course when
I was a kid I also had hardluck asthma.

Yet the real reason we do what we do is because of choice. I choose to work out. I choose to not feel bad. I choose to have control over my asthma. As a kid we don't get to choose sometimes, because our parents decide for us. As an adult, however, it's all on us. It's our choice.

Exercise and asthma

One thing I've been able to do as an adult that I NEVER could do when I was younger is exercise. I think this is one of the main reasons I write so much about the importance of good asthma control and exercise.

I was always a skinny little kid to begin with, so there was no urgency that I work out. While I do remember my doctor discussing the importance of exercise, it was this same doctor who wrote the excuse slip that got my out of Gym class.

My dad loved sports, and I remember watching him lay basketball and baseball. Of course wanting me to follow in his tracks, he encouraged me to play sports. Yet basketball and asthma don't mix. Likewise, baseball spewed up a lot of dust.

So dad had me do push ups and sit-ups. He had me start at 10, and every week he had me add two. By the time I was 16 I could 100 of each with ease. I couldn't run, but I could do push-ups and sit-ups better than anyone. Oh, and I could stand on my head.

My older brother Bobby tried to get me to lift weights with him when I was a teen, yet the weights were in the basement. Since playing under forts built in the basement living-room area, and roller skating down their when I was a kid, triggered many life threatening asthma attacks when I was little, I had no interest lifting weights in the basement.

When I was in college my friends tried to get me to lift weights, yet I wasn't interested. "It's boring," I remember saying to them. "What a dumb and dis interesting hobby."

Also in college I was known to buy a large pizza and eat the entire thing. I was skinny, so weight gain was not a concern. However, once college ended when I was 23, I continued to eat like I always did. The problem now is I was no longer growing up, so I started growing out. I think this is a problem with most adults.

So now I was 24 and my friends were making fun of my gut. Of course you should add in beer to my diet. I'm proud to say I never touched a drop of alcohol in high school (although I did have the opportunity), but when I was in college I became an avid beer drinker. I never abused alcohol, I just like it's relaxing effects, especially after a long week of studying (and later working).

When my older brother Bobby got married in 1991 I was still in good shape when I stood up in his wedding. The same was true when my younger brother David got married in 1992. Yet when my younger brother Dan got married in 1994, I was fat. I remember feeling so sluggish I was embarrased. I decided right there something needed to be done.

Of course it didn't help that my asthma was dong poorly again by this time too. Hmmm, I wonder if obesity had something to do with it? I was fat. I was 220 pounds on a 5'8" frame. I was also the shortest person in my family, perhaps a little growth stunt due to asthma and steroid usage.

This was also when I started respiratory school. The entire time I was in RT school I was fat, winded, stressed, and I ate and drank every chance I got. I had fun. I enjoyed life to the fullest. Perhaps I had so much fun because I knew for the first time what I wanted to do with my life. Yet the struggle to get through the very intense RT program was mighty.

There were a few days I had to miss school because of my asthma, yet I refused to ever go to the hospital for my asthma attacks. I hired a pulonologist, yet I ended up firing him because he was an asshole. Excuse the term, yet that' show I viewed him. He was a control freak, and I was a laid back person who wanted a little control.

In retrospect, I was probably the jerk. I needed someone to be firm with me, and to tell me I needed to start being compliant with my asthma medicines (I wasn't a gallant asthmatic back then). I was, however, a gallant asthmatic from the time I was discharged from the asthma hospital in July of 1995 until I completed my Bachelor's Degree in 1993 from Ferris State University.

Yet that degree was in Journalism and Advertising. Obviously those degrees didn't jibe well with me, so I decided to start over in RT school. It was a good choice. Yet by the time I completed RT school, after I was hired at Shoreline Medical Center where I still work, I had a bad asthma attack and ended in the hospital for 10 days.

One of my coworker, Sahara, RTs came in to visit me. She also took care of me when I was a hardluck asthmatic when I was a kid. I figured she'd come in and sit and visit with me. Well, she did. Yet it didn't go as I planned. Instead she lectured me.

She said something like, "Every time I see you you're eating Big Macs and Whoppers. You don't exercise. You're really overweight. You probably aren't taking your asthma meds either. If you keep up on this track you're going to be dead in 10 years."

Then she got up and walked out. I was so ticked at her I never spoke to her another five years unless I had to. However, it was at this point I started on some of the newer asthma medicines. Instead of taking Azmacort 4 puffs 4 times a day I switched to Flovent which only needed to be taken twice a day. This improved my asthma compliance.

This was also when a co-worker came to me and asked if I wanted to join a group that was going to the health club every day to work out. I said, "Hell no. I'm not wasting my time with that." However, she proceeded to convince me to "just come one time."

Well, needless to say, I went that "one time." That was in 1998. I was 220 pounds when I worked out that day. A year later I was one of only two of that group of 10 that was still working out at the health club. I dropped all the way down to a very smooth 180 pounds.

The neat thing about that experience was the first time I hopped onto a stationary bike. I was actually scared that I wouldn't be able to do it because of my asthma. There was a similar uneasiness the first time I jogged on the treadmill. Yet since I was now compliant and on much better asthma meds than ever before, I did NOT have an asthma attack.

The problem was, as with most people who have to live their lives, the weight came back.

The eating dilemma

I have a rule when it comes to eating. It's quite simple actually. I am allowed to eat only food that fits into the BFL program with my own twists of course. However, I am also allowed to eat any food that is offered to me.

The only exception I make is in the first two weeks of the program. I'm a believer, and have proven to myself, that the first two weeks are the most critical. If you can get through the first two weeks of any program, you're in the good. You will continue on regardless of any slip ups.

If you eat food that is not appropriate for your particular diet during the first two weeks, you have a high likelihood of failing and having to start over. However, if you eat naughty food later in the program, you'll be more likely to get back on the horse and keep going.

I think the problem with most failings is that people eat a bad meal, they have the craving for a cookie, and they eat it. Then they feel guilty, say skrew it, and then decide to eat whatever they want the rest of the day. This is fine later in the diet, yet it is not fine the first two weeks.

During the first two weeks you're more likely to say "skrew it" for that day, and then have trouble getting back on track the next day too.

I find that if I eat good and exercise, even on my free day I don't want to eat too bad. I don't want to skrew up a good thing. Eating right becomes a habit.

The dilemma comes in when someone brings food to you. My wife's aunt -- on the fourth day of the program nonetheless -- brought us a homemade meal of chicken, green beans mixed with bacon and butter, and mashed potatoes made with butter I'm sure, and two desserts and home made bisquits with home made honey.

Ahhhhh, my taste buds were salivating. And I ate all of it. Well, except for the dessert that is. It was easy to avoid the dessert because it was chocolate cake and I don't particularly care for chocolate to begin with. So I saved myself there.

Still, even when you are dietiing you still need to live your life. It's okay to eat a meal someone prepares for you. If you go to someone's house and they offer you a meal, take it. You only look rediculous when you turn down good food.

I wouldn't turn down a beer someone offered either. I'd even have two or three. Heck, I'd even get drunk if the opportunity presented itself. However, you must never forget the goals you set for yourself. It's okay to have a fun day now and again, yet you must get back on the horse the next day.

It's ideal to save your bad diet days for a free day. Yet life is life.

Donating organs

If you check out my Respiratory Therapy Cave blog today you will see that I wrote about my family's experience with the Gift of Life and organ donation. Writing that reminded me that as far back as when I was a little kid I figured no one would want my lungs except scientists.

So I've never been keen on the idea is gross or otherwise not a good idea, when the time comes to making the decision "hopefully" more reasonable heads prevail.

I remember my Aunt T. telling me a story when her brother Ted died in a car accident in 1989. She said she went with her brother to a funeral when they were still both kids and at the cemetery music was played. She said everyone broke out into tears. She said she looked at Ted and Ted looked at her, and they both decided they would never want music at their funeral.

Yet at that time they didn't expect what was to happen. You see, Tad loved people. He loved to make people happy. So he got a group together and formed a band. So the band marched in parades and in parks and made many people happy. Then Ted died and everyone was sad.

So now the family had to decide what to do at Ted's funeral. It only made sense that his band should play. I couldn't help thinking of this story as, after the burial procession at the cemetery, Tad's own band played Tad's favorite tune.

I could hear many sobs, and as I looked around saw many tears. Yes, even I had to work hard to hold them in. Yet the irony here is that what we say in passing, the humor we create to get through life, doesn't mean much when it comes down to the final moments of our lives. When the time comes, we are all humbled.

Reasonable heads prevail. The decision "should" be made to give to the Gift of Life whether even if, in passing, the young person frowned on the idea. Sometimes, such comments must be trumped. Ted would have been happy to make seven or eight people happy.

And, even though she frowned on the idea in life, my mother in law too must be smiling in Heaven as she looks down on the lives she made happy because of what she donated.

So if I died tomorrow, no one would want my asthmatic lungs.

However, I think a scientist might want to study them. They didn't function good in my life, yet if studying them might bring about new wisdom to the quest to conquer this disease, then take my lungs.

They certainly won't be much use to me in Heaven.

The elephant on my chest

I woke up this morning with a big weight on my chest; something heavy like an elephant. Each expiration was heavy and prolonged. I opened my eyes thinking I was going to need to use my rescue inhaler, and that was when I remembered #4 was sleeping on my chest.

When he woke up at 4 a.m. he decided he no longer wanted the bottle of breast milk. He no longer was soothed just lying next to his daddy. What he wanted, I presumed, was his mommy. Yet she wouldn't be home another four hours at the least.

The warmth of my chest must have reminded him of his mother's warmth, and he fell asleep in a heartbeat. I rolled him to where he was lying beside me, and he stayed asleep. In a way this brought about a good feeling. It was a good feeling because daddy should be able to get some good sleep -- an hour at least.

So now it's 7 a.m. and the entire team is up except for the oldest. With his own hideout in the basement, he rarely has a need to come upstairs except for when he's hungry or has to use the restroom.

Number four is rolling around the floor with a bright smile upon his face. For some reason he decided he didn't want to sleep any more. I set him back upon my chest before I brought him out here, yet instead of closing his eyes he decided to play with my nose. So I knew it was time to get up.

Number two popped up as soon as she saw the light and took over the job of entertaining #1. In this way she is a big help, allowing dad to take a break and write this frivolous post. Number three decided she wanted to join the fun, and from behind the closed door I heard a muffled, "Daddy, I'm up!"

When I entered her room I found all the blankets and her pillow on the floor. That's her new entertainment, her first job of late of the day.

So our first experience with the wife working night shift went rather well with #4. When #3 was a baby she didn't tolerate it so well. Daddy tired of attempts to put her in bed, or even his bed, usually opted to sleep in the recliner all night with #3 by his side.

Yet #4 wasn't that way at all. Yes there was the need for a bottle or a snuggling every couple hours, yet only once did daddy have to get up to rock the boy. I'll never know why he's so mellow. Is it genetics, that he's a boy, or because he's #4 and has his siblings to push him around and mellow him out.

Or perhaps this humble RT is getting good at being a parent. Well, I'll hold off personal judgement. I've learned it's best not to jump to conclusions. These little animals, all four of them (well, 2 not so little any more), keep your humble RT busy, and for some reason have this uncanny ability to suck his energy dry.

Yet through heavy eyes he takes his break, with a background of soft chatting of the middle two, and the happy beat of children's songs every time #4 bounces in his little Fisher Price bouncy seat -- a smile cheek to cheek, and a happy giggle.

So it is only 7:30 now on a chilly Saturday morning in January, the years will move by quickly and the #1 through #4 will grow up. So the humble RT and dad has to quit writing now so he can spend quality time with them all while they are still under the roof of the humble RT.