Quadruplets graduate

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Thankfully a couple of them have scholarships. Could you imagine the tuition?

http://www.callertimes.com/ccct/local_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_811_4732268,00.html

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In case it won't open for ya...


City's first quadruplets will fan out after their Carroll graduation today

By Mike Baird Caller Times
May 27, 2006

A feisty foursome - a diver, runner, swimmer and musician - have done most things together for 19 years, and tonight they graduate from Carroll High School and go different directions.

Corpus Christi's first recorded quadruplets were born 11 weeks premature on tax day 1987 by Caesarian section. Now the three-boy, one-girl Mendoza quartet's caps and gowns weigh half of their combined birth weight of nine pounds, four ounces.

The boys are above-average students, but the girl got the real brains.

Kathryn "Katie" Leigh is the tenderhearted quad who won't let anyone mess with her stuff and keeps her brothers in line. The biggest at birth, Jared Paul, chews his fingernails but converted his fidgety energy into marathon steam, running 13-mile events at age 9. The smallest baby was Trey Phillip. He had the most health problems but emerged as the eclectic fashion plate quad - known for wearing sport jackets over untucked shirts and chunky boots. Kevin Thomas, the first born, is the adventurous quarter of the crew. He tested toddler and teenage limits, his family says, and now walks tallest at 5-foot 6-inches with an armload of awards.

"Kevin catches it for everything," Trey said, glancing at his siblings. "That's because everyone thinks we're Kevin."

Media coverage of the four continued until the quadruplets were 4. Their father asked that his babies be allowed to grow up privately, without birthdays or medical developments becoming news events.

"I thought it was too much for them, to always be on TV," said Omar Mendoza, 52, a city computer specialist. "I wanted them to grow up normally, out of the limelight, as much as possible."

In the beginning . . .

Omar and Belinda Mendoza had twin 5-year-old boys Byron and Myron in kindergarten and a 3-year-old son Daniel in preschool when the quads were born.

Their 1,400-square-foot Southside garden home swiftly shifted into Early Baby. Wind-up baby swings, a line of cribs with musical mobiles, bassinets and unending piles of baby clothes materialized. Counter space became filled with baby wipes, disposable diapers, cans of formula and baby bottles. The Mendoza couple and their parents pulled 24-hour shifts to ease caring for such fragile infants, they said.

There were problems.

Two of the quads had detached retinas, one had a bad kidney and all had breathing problems. They each still have faint X-shaped scars on the right side of their chests from medical tubes.

Local television and newspaper coverage brought a lot of attention, but it was the family's Methodist church community that provided long-term help, with 18 retired women pulling daily shifts the next few years, the Mendozas said.

"I couldn't have handled things without all the wonderful ladies at our church," said Belinda Mendoza, 47, an administrative banking assistant. The children came to know the church women as "grandma" with different last names tagged on, she said.

Help faded as the children started school, but one couple connected with the youngsters has remained a part of their lives.

"They've both been such positive role models for the kids," Belinda Mendoza said, her voice choking up. "Dick and Deanne are just part of our family."

The babies "wiggled into our hearts," said Deanne Leonard, 57, a former Del Mar College professor and First United Methodist Church organist. She's been "instrumental" in the boys' musical interest, the Mendozas said. Leonard's husband, Dick, spurred Jared and Katie's athletic interests by teaming with them the past three years in the Corpus Christi Wet 'n' Wild Triathlon relay. Leonard rides the bike leg, Katie swims, and Jared runs.

About a year ago, the Leonards moved to Spring but still visit for meets and competitions. They will be at the graduation ceremony today.

"I think we'll be chasing after them in our wheelchairs," said Dick Leonard, 62, a retired federal probation officer. "They've bumped my pulse rate a little."

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So who are the quads?

The quads are four unique people, their parents and friends said.

Kevin is leader of the pack. He tested everything in the house, but gracefully - balancing on 3-inch-wide jungle gym walls and executing cartwheels down the staircase, his mother said. He's now the four-time Region VIII-5A one-meter diving champion and the only regional diver to qualify for state competition all four years of high school.

"Kevin's one of the most talented divers I've ever coached," said Charles Joseph (Trey) Collins, 60, the Corpus Christi Independent School District diving coach. "He's got the potential to compete with the big boys. He's been a pain, a delight, and has given me gray hairs."

Kevin's planning to study criminal justice at University of Cincinnati while on a diving scholarship. He wants to work for the FBI or CIA, like Dick Leonard, he said.

It was Katie who took off like a fish at age 10 in swimming lessons despite her asthma. Her three brothers initially toed the water and backed away, Belinda Mendoza said. Katie made the city's Parks and Recreation Department's swim team her first year swimming, and she's been a leading freestyle and butterfly swimmer at Carroll the past three years. She plans to compete in swimming for the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio while she studies fashion merchandising. She's the only quad who will wear a gold cord at graduation, for the 3.5 grade-point average that earned her a partial academic scholarship.

Katie is the mother hen, still bossing the boys if they spill things on the kitchen floor. It goes back to preschool days when she would wrangle them around her play table and force them to have tea parties and play with dolls. The boys balked, their mother said, but Katie would shake her finger at them and tell the boys, "You're having tea with me." And they did.

Despite her influence the quads work in tandem as a team.

On one of the rare occasions when none of the church ladies could help, their mom heard her four 3-year-olds giggling through the bathroom door. She wasn't too concerned, until she came out and saw Katie perched on the fireplace mantel, next to Jared who was holding Kevin while he hoisted Trey up there too.

Bruiser of the bunch, Jared, born at a whopping 2 pounds 9 ounces, is the family health nut. He's gone the distance running track and cross-country each year while at Carroll. Jared liked to sort things, his parents said. He was very organized, placing items of similar color into piles and sorting blocks by shapes. He was quiet in the early years but now his parents said they "can't shut him up." He's enrolled at Del Mar College to study kinesiology, the mechanics of human movement, and elementary education. Jared wants to be a sports trainer.

Trey is the family's quiet observer, his parents said. He had a slow start, being hospitalized nearly four months. But he gravitated toward music early. He and Katie both were born with detached retinas that had to be sealed, and it was advised they avoid contact sports as they got older. Trey developed more slowly than the others, spending a lot of time in a walker or swing, his mother said. "He was beautifully content banging on a toy xylophone or tapping on toy drums."

"He's really blossomed," said Deanne Leonard, who encouraged Trey in middle school to sing in the church choir. It led him to singing in the Carroll choir, Trey said. He is self-taught on drums and is now studying guitar. He's interested in sound recording technology.

Their connection

The quads slept together for the first few years, after they outgrew baby beds. Their parents would find them entwined "like puppies" in the corner of one large mattress. After the family moved to a larger home, Katie got her own room. But one morning her mother found her bed empty, and when she went to the boys' room there the four were all wrapped around one another again.

They remained connected as they started school, and one episode required their mother coming to school.

The quadruplets were separated at Jones Elementary in kindergarten - two in one class and a pair in another. Jared got in trouble for talking and started crying. Katie, in the same room, joined in with the tears and sobbing after seeing her brother upset. Both Kevin and Trey also started crying uncontrollably down the hallway in their classroom where the door had been closed.

"I thought that was freaky," Belinda Mendoza said. "They couldn't have heard each other with the door closed, but there was definitely some connection."

The connection between the four is still strong, although the quads are somewhat paired.

They admit that Katie and Kevin are particularly close. Both have worked at the natatorium the past three summers: she teaches swimming, he is a lifeguard. Both are finicky about their curly hair - she won't let anyone touch hers and he hides his under caps. Katie gets scared during electrical storms and runs to Kevin's room at the clap of thunder.

"I just lay there and listen," she said, "but it helps to be close to him."

Jared and Trey seem to gravitate to similar interests: Both have been very active at their church youth group, they both play instruments and both are going to Del Mar College to stay closer to home. They both also are helping teach kindergarten at Kostoryz Elementary School. The two of them are identical, according to genetic testing.

"I guess it's good we're splitting up," said Jared. "It's how we'll grow to appreciate each other more."

The siblings agree Katie will be the most impacted.

"I'm really sad," she said, pulling her eyeglasses down and wiping a finger across teary eyes. "We've never been apart, and Kevin's always been there for me," she said. "And now he will be the farthest away."

Kevin gently pushed his fist toward her, touching her midriff, to settle her upset.

Katie's boyfriend, Matthew Jarke, 18, stepped forward. He and Katie met during a high school bomb threat three years ago. He's willing to try filling Kevin's shoes, he said.

He looked down at the boots Kevin wore, then glanced at his own toe-exposed sandals and said, "Maybe not boots."

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http://mas.scripps.com/CCCT/2006/05/27/P-5quadgrads0526_e.jpg