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As I previously mentioned, after paging through all my recent photos, I noticed that an awful lot of my pictures are of someone in the family spending special time with Baby. My mind immediately went to a common thought that I have heard voiced time and time again by those who are not from big families and don't have big families. The concern has been this: There is no way that you can give adequate attention to all of your children when you have so many. First, I always find it interesting and slightly amusing that those who are of that frame of mind are those that have absolutely no experience whatsoever in this area of life. Gotta love those who are automatically superior in the knowledge of The Right Number of Children to Have just by the mere fact that they were of a teensie-weensie family and were showered with The Right Amount of Attention, therefore their knowledge base on the subject is much broader than One Who Is From or Has a Larger Family. I am from a family of eleven kids. I have memories of growing up that are rich, rich with love. I am still very close to my entire family. I think that it is so precious to have SO many people you are just so close to.
Alright, stepping down from my soapbox....In conclusion: I just so love how each child actually gets more and more attention. A comment from one of my Babes today sums it up nicely. We were sitting together on the couch, kind of amused by the three-year-old's spunking about someone having to accompany her to the potty each and every one of the at least 100 times/day she goes potty. My lovely eight-year-old said, "Well Mom, at least we've learned one very important thing from all of this! We need to remember never to spoil the baby of the family ever again! (she must have decided that we spoiled the three-year-old while she was the baby)"..and she chuckled and snuggled in to my shoulder, not at all too perturbed by the spunking going on.
One funny story I love to tell pertaining to big families: We on occasion get some really peculiar comments from people when they hear we are from large families. One of them was directed to my husband one time at work. The guys were sitting around at break one day when the attention turned to my dear hubby and he began to get a little grief about the fact he hopes to have a big family someday and that he also comes from a big family (he's from a family of ten kids). One genius snorted and chuckled a little bit, feeling mighty wise and exclaimed, "Har, har! Can you imagine how many times your parents had to do "it" to have that many kids?" Without missing a beat, my husband simply answered, "Yeah, ten times!"
5 comments:
I love all the new pic's, Darla! And your comments, too - of course I share your sentiments on 'big' family! The guy from E's work place - good grief, what kind of marriage does he have if ... as a guy, especially ... he makes it sound like 'it' is a chore! So many times you have to do 'it' to create 10 kids, ha ha ha!!!
I rarely have had any comments on our 7 born in 7 years - but one time when someone commented that 'you must be crazy', I was able to simply answer that 'No, I'm not crazy, and that's not a very nice thing to say to someone.' You know how it is - it'd probably be a toss-up between wanting to thunk them on the head (especially if one of the kids hears this comment) and laughing and asking if they realize how ignorant they are portraying themselves as being, to do a snap judgement on someone who has 7 kids. On the other hand I've had some sooo nice comments - the most recent being from a nurse in e.r. where I was with our baby a couple weeks ago. When I was leaving she said, 'It might sound dumb for me to say this, but I hope you're not done having babies yet!' Isn't that sweet?!
Thank you! I really do need also to credit those who have had very nice comments. Yesterday, for example, we were in a HUGE fabric outlet store. It was the first time the kids had been in a place like that and they were absolutely ecstatic! After we had been there a very long time and had figured out what we were getting, I was cutting my fabric when a little bit older guy came walking by. I had 2 or 3 of the girls by me, the others were over by the register. The guy said, "Would you look at all those girls! So beautiful! You out shopping with Mom?" I smiled and said, "Yup, we've got the whole crew out today!" (I had noticed him nearly the whole time we were there so I assumed he had seen us and noticed I had quite a few). He kind of looked at them and asked, "How many do you have?" I said, "Six..the others are just right there (pointing)." He came walking slowly back and said, "Whoa! Let me start again here...you have SIX GIRLS and no boys? WOW! You are so lucky! Look at that. Six girls and they are all just so pretty! Can you imagine all the weddings? What does your husband think of all these girls?" I said, "Oh, he just LOVES it! And the weddings? He's not worried in the least. He says, 'My girls are never getting married!They've all told me...they don't like boys!:)' And if boys come looking for them, he'll scare em off, he's sure!" The man said, "Oh, he says they'll never get married 'cause he wants them always to stay at home? Well, I would say the same. I would love to keep my girls forever if they were like yours! They are SO well-behaved too!" I felt like they had been on edge for quite a while so thankfully no one else was noticing! Then right after our big shopping afternoon, I went to the chiropractor and she told me about some kids that were just in that she was very happy to see go. She said that she didn't mind our girls in there anytime. She said, "In other words, I'm complimenting you! Your kids are well-behaved!" So nice to hear when sometimes you feel like you probably are doing nothing right!
That is just so sweet, the comment from the e.r. nurse! Didn't it make you feel so much better cause I know that that weekend wasn't the easiest time in the world for you considering what all was going on with your babe!!!
I so agree with you on all aspects of the big family thing! I came from a family of 8 kids and the looks people give when they hear that or see that we have 6! 6 is hardly anything compared to 10, 12 17! Occasionally I look around and think someone's not there, but all the kids are in the room..... I wouldn't trade my big family for anyone's small one!
The last story made me laugh! :)
I came from a large family, and think my family of 5 kids is somewhat small! I agree, you just have so many more people to love!
That is exactly what it ends up being, more people to love. And more that love you! Nothing beats that love of a child. My 3-yr-old melts my heart every time she says, "You are SO CUTE Mom! I love you!" Kinda stokes the ego a little! ;) And the rest of them show or tell their love so often too!
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