Looking back on life with lots of kids in the house, all sentimental about those squishy baby cheeks and bedtime stories, and going on adventures with oodles of kids all excited about the littlest things...it's easy to forget how challenging it really was. Sleep was a precious commodity, and going to the bathroom alone was a rarity...well, I could sometimes manage to get in there and shut the door, but small children like to bang on bathroom doors and put their hands under them, and ask if you're almost done. I've been known to choose either the one year old or the newborn to bring in with me, for safety reasons...I remember having to decide, on a case case basis, whether it was wiser to bolt down the hall quickly and just go while they were busy and maybe they wouldn't notice I was gone and decide it was a good time to dump the sugar bowl, or to announce it and warn them to be good.
I had a Couch Monster of clean clothes to put away, things got put away, more came out of the dryer, and it was never 100% gone. There was a Laundry Mountain in the doorway of the laundry room too. I tried to get to the bottom of it, I did try.
Dinner time was a three ring circus. We used to drink milk with dinner, a gallon a meal. I'm not sure there was ever a meal without at least one spill. We used two high chairs and two booster seats, so the smaller children were contained, and the older ones had to ask to be excused, the younger kids wore bibs and got washed up before getting down. Sometimes when Paul wasn't home for dinner, working late or traveling, I would give them a snack or dessert so I could quickly clean up while they were still at the table. The floor HAD to be swept after dinner, I assigned it to different kids, and if they didn't do it properly, they had to come back in and do it again. I tried to be nice about it, but they had to learn to sweep a floor. I hated crumbs and sticky, still do. I'm not the best big family mom candidate. :)
The homework and folders and papers and school clothes and projects...then appointments (braces! dentist appointments! well check-ups!)...and every single night, dinner, again! I remember running a frozen block of chicken under hot tap water, trying to break it apart so I could put it in the oven, good planner I was.
The shoes and sandals or boots, over by the door were astounding, when 18 of us still lived here. The coats and jackets and sweaters and snowpants and 9 or ten backpacks at any given time...
The kids could only eat at the table, except when they came home from school, they could sometimes have a snack at the coffee table and watch an afternoon tv show. It was hard enough to keep the house clean without having yucky sticky hands on the furniture and crumbs everywhere!
Showers and baths...the little ones had recreational baths with toys and bubbles, but shower nights, especially after a day at the beach or the park or somewhere they got really dirty, they lined up in the hallway and had their turns. I liked clean kids, and the babies and little ones got baths every day.
Somehow, my sister and I managed to talk on the phone every day. :). We also managed to go out and about quite frequently: shopping, whole day excursions to the mall (she had seven girls). We went to visit our mom, and brought her out and about too. We went to the zoo, and berry picking, and on picnics, and sometimes she just brought her girls over here and they ran wild in the woods with my kids.
My favorite thing was rocking a baby to sleep, but I do remember sitting there thinking of all I would accomplish when I laid that sleeping baby down in their little bed...oh, I would go to the bathroom! I'd wipe down the counters, throw in a load of laundry, maybe change the toddler's diaper, get something out for dinner, make a stack of sandwiches for lunch...then I'd stealthily head down the hallway with that sleeping baby, and a fight would break out, the baby would wake up, and all my dreams of what I would do would slip away.
We didn't have cell phones, and the home phone was it's own version of hell when you have a baby to rock to sleep, or if you're outside with your kids. I have a confession: one time I was in the back yard with a bunch of small children, pushing them on the swings and watching them climb the steps and go down the slide, when the phone started ringing in the kitchen...it rang and rang, and I wondered if one of the older kids was sick at school, or something bad had happened to my parents...so I ran up those deck steps and into the house, and it was a spam call...I don't know how they knew I had a baby, but it was a marketing call asking how the new baby was, and I was so mad, I said, "The baby died..." The poor person sputtered and apologized, and I felt horrible. I hung up the phone, and prayed to God for forgiveness.
Okay, enough reminiscing for today. I had a wonderful day...first the pool, then out to lunch with Becky and her two younger children, and Susan, and Grace. We had a nice time and I missed my sister, but I told Becky she's just like her mama, and that's a compliment.
Home...I had to vacuum and straighten up a bit, then pick Miss Cam up from work. We had bacon and eggs for dinner. It's a beautiful evening, with the windows open and the birds singing, I love spring and summer SO much!
Emily and Mariel love to hike, they so nicely took Charlotte Claire to Utah with them!
Ah well...time to clean up dinner...you have a good evening!
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