You want to hear a joke?! I used to want eight kids! Ha!! I don't know if it was for the love of kids, or just so I could use up some of the awesome names I used to write on my Awesome Names List. I mean, Venus? Lavinia? Cordelia?! Come on, those aren't really fish names. You have to have some personality for those babies.
(I should preface all of this with the fact that I LOVE my nieces and love watching them, so don't stop asking, Pam!!)
Back to the Crazy. I have not two, not three, but FOUR little girls in my house for three days. Two age seven (J & E), one age four (E#2) and one almost two (K). All of that equals a house of crazy. I also just realized that those initials spell EEK!! Well, JEEK, but that doesn't really make sense, so we'll pretend that the J is silent...
I don't know how ya'll (yeah, you read that right - ya'll) with more than, say, two kiddos do it! I know it's different when they're your own, but still! How do you even have time to make more babies?! I took a shower this morning at the speed of light, I may even still be a little soapy, and still it seemed all h.e.-double hockey sticks had broken loose in the 2.5 seconds that took me.
Deep breath, June Cleaver time. I was gonna make homemade pancakes. Wait, did you catch that?! Homemade!! For reals! Like, I didn't microwave a thing!
Dream World: I pictured us all sitting around the breakfast table (well... the only table, just designated breakfast for now...) eating stacks of homemade pancakes, drizzled with syrup, chatting and laughing about silly dreams we'd had last night. I'd be wearing a cute apron, hair done and not still be a tiny bit slippery with soap.
Reality: Frantic. Grease splattered. Slippery. And, as each silver dollar-sized melt-in-your-mouth cake came out of that pan, it went straight into a hungry child's mouth. Every.Last.One. They were like ravenous wolves. They were lined up at the oven, mouths snapping at each morsel. I ate coffee for breakfast.
Hello, my name is Amy and I'm an introvert.
I wonder if introverts are less likely to have big families than extroverts. If you don't know the difference between the two, in a nutshell, introverts refuel with alone time, quiet time; extroverts refuel by being around others. Which makes absolutely NO sense to me. At all. By 8pm last night I had the kiddos in front of the tv (an educational show, don't judge!) with popsicles in hand (non-homemade and full of food coloring, I'm sure. Judge away...) while I was doing deep breathing, with my eyes closed by myself on the porch swing. As I was in my happy place, I started thinking about people who thrive in big families. Are they introverts? Doubt it. I can picture extroverts who love, or at least refuel with noise, chaos, and people everywhere wanting big families. If they're not extroverts, they MUST have some serious alone time on a porch swing, in the dark, every night. So... FYI. If you're someone who wants/loves/has a big family and you happened to marry an introvert, allow for sacred, refueling alone time so they don't spontaneously combust. True story.
And, now don't get all huffy here, this is just a thought. I wonder if one of the reasons (maybe secretly, subconsciously) that moms with big families homeschool is that it takes a FREAKIN' LONG TIME to get ready to go anywhere or do anything!! I can't imagine the systems that have to be in place to orchestrate five or more lives in order to get out the door for school by 8am. I'm weary just thinking about it. Love you homeschooling moms!! YOU are rockstars!
So. To recap. Kids: good! Lots of kids: good! Lots of kids for me: bad. God has blessed us with two great little girls and, while I'm very happy to occasionally add to our brood for small periods of time, I completely recognize that there aren't enough porch swings in the world to help me cope with more than that. And I'm ok with that.
P.S. No children were hurt before, during or after the writing of this post.
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