summer 2011

summer 2011

Paul and I, all 16 kids and Ashley, Benjamin's wife...Christmas 2012

Paul and I, all 16 kids and Ashley, Benjamin's wife...Christmas 2012
family

Friday, November 7, 2008

friday night, and all is well

Emily is sitting at the diningroom/kitchen table with Margaret, 11, and Kathryn 10. They are starting a 1000 piece puzzle. Oh dear. I cannot resist puzzles. I become addicted. There must be a chemical reaction in my brain when two, three pieces fit.....

The younger ones are in bed, and some of the older ones are still out. Abigail, our second oldest, she's 21, has taken some of the youth girls over to visit a friend, Missy, who can't always make it to activity club. Missy is 19, and she has Cerebal Palsy. She cannot speak, but she sure can communicate. She has alot of spirit, and she loves when the girls come over to watch movies with her. I often dream of her in heaven, where she can talk....

Anyway, Enola: if you are reading this: my kids are pop-tart kids. Your comment about taking both kids somewhere, and how it was probably easy for me: wrong. Today, when I went shopping with my three little ones, with Molly, 14, helping: I said to my sister-in-law, "If I ever get the bright idea that we can go somewhere without any older ones to help, please set me straight and remind me how crazy it gets...." I said that today. Because it is crazy with little ones sometimes. With one, and with two, and with three....they poop, they protest, they take out their cute little ponytails. They take off their shoes between errands, and they spit up on their cute little clothes. They fuss for things they cannot have, and we appease them with what we can afford. They insist they can buckle themselves, then cry for help after we get all buckled in ourselves. They put their own shoes on the wrong feet, and want to wear ugly sweaters. They drop things that I cannot possibly retrieve as we drive down the highway. But they rejoice at the firetrucks, the river, the phone company trucks, and fast food french fries.

I have learned a few things along the way, but mostly I think that the more kids I have, the less I know. I do know this: they are cute and funny and innocent, and I am honored to be their mother. I need to work hard sometimes to be patient and kind, sometimes to tears. It is not natural for me. I am frustrated and bored and selfish by nature. Anyway, I just wanted to reassure Enola that she is a wonderful mom, and tell her: don't compare yourself to how you think others are, those moms of your daughter's peers....we are all relatively the same, just floundering here, some can put on a better show than others...

Daughters....I have alot of them, eleven. They need to know they are beautiful. They need to know they deserve respect. I read once on someone's blog that the dad treated the daughters as princesses, so they had some standards of how they expected to be treated by any possible future husbands....I thought that was great. The world is such a harsh place.....

Well, I am so tired tonight I feel like I've had a few, which I haven't.....so goodnight...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

im gonna comment on both the last two posts of yours right here.

First the car seats with the shields have been proven to not be safe anymore. I would get her a new car seat. Connor also pushes the buckle all the way down, which is unsafe, so I put those shoulder pad thingies for car seats under the buckle instead of on top. That worked at first till he saw he could push it down, then i glued in some plastic into the shoulder pad thingies and put it under the buckle and now he can't push it down.

As for britax it is sooo worth it. Seriously. You know i don't have that much money to spare but i spent the money on connor a britax boulevard and i love it. It was 279. But one place i have found that has awesome sales on them is http://www.albeebaby.com/

They have free shipping on anything over 100 dollars.

I have bought other car seats that claim to be as good as britax and they aren't. I will email you the full reason I feel this way later tomorrow.

My little one is wanting to nurse more and more and take a bottle less and less and I am fine with that but it makes typing harder.

:)

Grace said...

Awww .... you are doing a wonderful job.

FLmom7 said...

I am always impressed by how humble you are...I'm only on baby #7 (due in a few wks!) and I have to agree, the more kids you have, the less you know. In some ways you obviously have more wisdom than you did when you had your first or second child, but in other ways, each child is so different and they each have their own challenges. So I definitely understand what you mean;-)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts so openly, I really enjoy reading your blog.

Robin said...

Your comments are so true! Thanks for your insight. I love your blog!

Angie said...

You nailed the difficulty of rolling with just babies. I guess I would have to have 10 more to be that succinct. Keep on keeping on.

maureen said...

Oh I just love reading your blog. You are so humble...I am so unworthy. I have 5 children and dream of having. I want to be more available to them. I need to have a chair like you have...something I can sit down in at the end of the night and let my children come to me and snuggle. It seems I am always running around trying to pick up toys, do dishes or get baths done. I wish the kids could stay up later and have more time with me, but we have to be up so early to get to school...will there ever be enough time?

Thank you for all of your wonderful thoughts.

Maureen