Cedar Creek quadruplets: Parenting four boys at same time has been a great experience for Tom, Trish Librizzi

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher The last 18 years have been a wild ride for Tom and Trish Librizzi. Both Atlantic City High School graduates, Tom and Trish were first-time parents when Trish gave birth to FOUR boys at the same time. Thus started the journey of the Librizzi quadruplets, Anthony, Billy, Curtis and Danny. Today they are seniors at Cedar Creek High School, and recently helped the swim team capture its first Cape-Atlantic League conference championship when the Pirates took down Middle Township. “They were club swimmers at the Brigantine Aquatic Club, and that was a nice segue into high school because they had that experience going into their first year (at Cedar Creek). It was great, we’re really proud of them,” Tom said of the conference title. “We kind of got caught up in it because they were so excited about it.” “That’s why the win they got was so huge, because a few years ago you had some kids on the team who never even swam before, and there they were winning a title. We were thrilled,” said Trish. Looking back now, Tom and Trish, Galloway residents, say they are still in awe of how they managed to raise four children at the same time. “It wasn’t typical because they were so premature, so they were in the hospital for a couple of months and came home one at a time. Of course, we were swarmed upon by our family. We had family who lived nearby and they would pop in all the time and help us. You just kind of fumble through it. I don’t know that we did it great, but we did it,” Trish said. “We had great family and friends who would scour the sales at local stores for clothes. It became kind of a community thing. At the time we lived in Absecon, and everyone was so supportive. It was before this explosion of multiples, so it was new to everybody.” Trish and Tom Librizzi, parents of quadruplet boys who are on the Cedar Creek swim team, said they had plenty of help from friends and family when raising their sons. (Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’Sullivan) “It was great. We weren’t worried about how we were going to do it, but we were first-time parents so maybe we didn’t know any better,” Tom said. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it turned out to be really good. The first year and a half is probably the hardest because you are doing everything for the kids, but it’s been great. Sometimes you think back to the good ol’ days, but these are the good ol’ days. Life just keeps getting better.” Trish said the key to having four rambunctious toddlers running around was to create one child-proof room in which they could all jump around and play. Keep the chaos contained, was how she explained it. “We lived in a ranch and we had a child-proof room that we gated off. We’d look from the kitchen and they would be crawling all over each other. They really couldn’t get hurt aside from maybe a tumble off the couch at like 12 or 13 months, but who hasn’t done that? We look back on videos and we think to ourselves, ‘how did we do that?’ They’re pulling bottles from each other, pushing each other down. But that was how we did it, there was one baby-proof room where they hung out,” Trish said. “One of the questions we got back then was, ‘what do you do when they are all crying at once?’ I said that I pop in a Barney video, and they would just drop to their butts and watch the floor model television. That was sort of our crowd control.” Growing up, the boys showed athletic ability, but never really took to traditional sports such as baseball, basketball or football. Trish said she and Tom got the boys into swimming when they were about 5 years old, mostly because it made things easy because they could cart the boys to one location every time there was a practice or meet. “We wanted to get them into a sport, but we really couldn’t be taking them in four different directions. Swimming seemed to be the sport where they could all be together,” Trish said. “They weren’t the traditional athletes. They grew up playing basketball, but they didn’t really like that, and they didn’t like football,” Tom said. “We got them into the swim program when they were about 5 years old. We never intended it to turn out to where they would be on the high school swim team years later.” The boys, who also are a part of the cross country program in the fall, played an integral role in the Pirates capturing their first conference swimming crown, and they also have become model students and citizens at Cedar Creek High School. They are all in the National Honor Society and all plan to further their education at the college level. Trish said her boys — ALMOST always — are well behaved, and that they have set a good example for their teammates. “We’re born-again Christians, that’s our background, so they came into high school with a good moral foundation and that has kept them centered. They are popular with their group of friends who are similar to them, and of course sports gives them a nice, wide circle of friends. We have kids at the house all the time here. It’s loud and busy,” Trish said. “They are good kids. That’s another big thing about sports, it keeps them busy and focused and disciplined. With their high school preparation and experience, I’m so confident with them going to college because they have juggled so much. They’ve had to juggle a lot of courses and sports, and they’ve managed to have a nice social life and church life, so I think they are kind of ready to jump out of the nest.” “Academically, they have gone above and beyond what I thought they would do, National Honor Society and all that,” said Tom. One thing most high school boys pay a lot of attention to are high school girls, but mom said she has tried her best to keep her boys focused on sports and academics rather than teenage romances. “Yeah, they come around,” mom said of high school girls. “But we try to keep them focused. I, personally, don’t feel like high school is the right time for them to be having relationships because kids are immature and there’s a lot of heartbreak. You have friends who end up not being friends because of a little romance. I hate to say it, but I discourage it. But I think there is a lot we don’t know about, let me put it that way. But the girls who do come around are always very nice.” Soon, the boys will be leaving home and heading off to college. Trish said she and Tom are trying to savor all the moments of their senior year. “You just have to enjoy every stage because it does go by so quickly. This high school experience has been great, and now we are getting excited about them going off to college. We’re proud of them for all wanting to go to college and picking majors that are going to marketable. It’s exciting,” Trish said. “The camaraderie they share is a special thing. It doesn’t happen to many people. We’re looking forward to where they are going. “I think they are turning out to be nice people that I like hanging out with. You get to the point where your kids turn out to be your friends and companions, and we’re getting to that point. They are pretty nice kids.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]