Big Families

Life is slowly settling into a new normal. People ask how it feels to have 5 kids and my response is usually, "There are just so many of us. It's a lot of bodies." Kids are everywhere.

If you're not nursing one, you're being climbed on by another or moving a few more over to grab a spot on the couch. Lots of needs for attention and conversation and snuggles and policing. And shoes. I think Will and Annie both had toes sticking out of the holes in their shoes for weeks before I could get out and buy new ones recently. Putting them all to bed takes hours. I don't even know if they've used soap in the bath or toothpaste on the toothbrush - it's a victory if they are all under the sheets by 9pm these days. Not to mention the food. These guys are LITTLE and we're still going through 5 gallons of milk, 2 trays of eggs, and crates of produce a week. I can't actually fit the whole week of groceries in the Costco cart along with the two babies. (I must have been a spectacle: simultaneously nursing the 3wk old, fetching the toddler's hotdog from the floor, and eating my lunch next to an overflowing cart of groceries precariously balanced atop the carseat in the cart.) It's a zoo. A crazy zoo - but we love it.

They are so affectionate and helpful and funny and sweet. They need us so much still. And I know we need to soak it up because that won't last. Someday soon they're going to start thinking we're not that cool and want to hang out with their friends all the time and roll their eyes when we try to hug them. After 9 months of having to be gentle with Mommy, Will just about died of joy when I agreed to a wrestling match last night. The bruises this morning are so worth that exhausted, sweaty, super satisfied smile that was pasted on his face. And those amazingly tender moments of sibling love that take your breath away: Will changing a diaper or snoring in bed with Des asleep on his chest, or Kenna piggy backs Summer around the house in a fit of giggles then puts her to bed without help, or Summer sings to Des face to face and nurses her babydolls next to us, or Annie gives baby a bath or reads to Sums. Summer will often go to a sibling rather than me for comfort after an owie. When they want to share beds or dress alike or make each other breakfast...we even woke up the other day to Kenna singing Alleluia and Country Roads downstairs, accompanied by Will on the guitar.

they spent hours constructing a "store" in our living room

It's times like that when your heart bursts a little and you think "how can we not have 100 more??" Being the youngest of 6 kids myself (and Darren smack in the middle of 7) we dig the chaos. (Although, not the perpetual pig-sty - how is it that this is how the floor looks less than 24 hrs after vacuuming??)

We always joke that it doesn't feel like family until it's a circus show. Well, I think we've arrived. Seeing as Summer typically shows up at church without shoes and it looks like our kids don't know what a hairbrush is, I think those around us would agree. It's kind of awesome.