According to this article on CNN, there is an increase in the number of big families. More an more people are no longer stopping at two. So that proves it. I’m cool.

Like the parents in this article, we deal with many of these same issues. Any time I tell people I have five kids they kind of gasp and some make rude comments [although most don't realize they are being kind of rude.] Sometimes I feel like I need to wear a sign on my back that says, “Yes, we know what causes this. No, we aren’t catholic. Yes, we know what birth control is. No, we’re not crazy [well sometimes...] Yes, they all have the same father [although one has a different mother]. And, no, it really isn’t any of your business.”

Lee and I never really discussed having a large family. It just sort of happened that way. When I was a little girl I wanted to have three kids. I never really thought about the genders, but I did want to have girl/girl twins.

Both Lee and I were pretty much raised as only children. Lee has siblings [two sisters on his mother's side and a brother and sister on his father's side], but Lee was raised by his grandmother and didn’t meet any of his siblings until he was an adult. I have a brother and a a sister, but I was in junior high when my brother was born and in high school when my sister was born. So I don’t know if subconsciously we decided that we wanted playmates for our kids since we didn’t have any or what.

In any event after we had Skyler & Spencer I felt like my family still wasn’t complete. I still had a longing in my heart for one more child. Then we had Caleb and now I feel coplete.

We definitely face a lot of challenges with our bigger family. Obviously, Caleb, at four-years-old, is not in to the same things that Justis, at 14-years-old, is in to. Planning family vacations is a little difficult. When we went to Great America last month we broke in to two groups for much of the day because Keaton and Justis wanted to ride the roller coasters and the little kids either didn’t want to or were to small to get on. Occassionally there are kids’ fairs in town or events going on at the zoo. Many of these things are geared towards the younger kids, but I like us all to go as a family. Keaton and Justis have a lot of activites they enjoy doing that aren’t really appropriate for the younger kids; like going to gaming place for hours on end. But we make it work.

And school is more of a challenge. Just having Skyler & Spencer in different classes is trying…for me. I can only be in one place at a time, which is often disappointing the kid whose class I’m not in. Last week I went to America Reads day and read to Spencer’s class and then watched Skyler’s class play soccer for gym class. While I was doing that Lee went on Caleb’s field trip with him.

School conferences are coming up. I’m going to have to try and finagle five conferences that work with the teacher’s schedule, our schedule and don’t involve us driving to school every day of the week.

Plus there are extracirricular activites. There are times during the year that we are at the school every day of the week dropping somebody off or picking somebody up or watching a game or whatever. During baseball last year, Keaton played on Mondays and Wednesdays and Justis played on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So every day we were at school from 5:30 to 8pm. It’s crazy, but, again, we make it work.

And don’t even get me started on laundry. I ALWAYS have laundry to do. In just one day we have seven outfits dirty. That’s a load right there. I am constantly doing laundry. It never ends. And when I’m sick [like last week] the pile gets so high I wonder if I’ll ever see the laundry room floor again. Ugh. At least now Keaton and Justis are old enough they can hang up and fold their own clothes. Honestly, they could wash their own clothes too. And when they have a game coming up and their uniform is dirty they do. But otherwise, I do it all because they’ll be in my way when I’m trying to laundry.

But even with all of that, I love our big family. We are always busy. A little crazy. And very much loved. The kids have playmates and co-conspirators. And, although there is some fighting, there is also a lot of fun. We don’t have to wait for friends to come over to play games. We already have a built in team. Sure, EVERYTHING is more expensive for us. We can’t go to a movie without dropping $50 just for tickets, not to mention popcorn and sodas. But this just makes us get more creative and find cheaper things to do together. I wouldn’t change a thing. [Although don't ask me how I feel about big families in a couple of years when the kids start going off to college. ;)]

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 26th, 2006 at 12:28 pm and is filed under A day in our life. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.