Big Family Problems

I was at the park last week with my three youngest children.  Frequently I am accompanied places by just these 3 now, as the older kids who are still at home have a lot more going on than these three do and cannot always attend things like park days and mid week movies.   When I was a young mother, people were always telling me that three children was the hardest parenting ever got.  Well, we never really had just three children, as #s 3 and 4 were twins, so I felt like we never experienced the whole three kid thing (unless you count those ten minutes between Kegan and Rhys).  But now we get glimpses of it.   And I know my perspective is all backwards now and also that my three kids are ages 8-13, not infant to 4 or 5, but honestly, three kids is a breeze!  Relaxing at the park, easily keeping track of just three, who, after all, could only possibly take off in a total of three different directions at once, got me reflecting on those years with lots and what that was like:

Successfully getting everyone to the library, with shoes on, relatively clean faces AND all the books that needed to be turned in was exhaustive.  A family vacation was equivalent to a major military operation.

There was never enough hot water.  The only solution was that as soon as the nice man who installed the water heater turned his back, I immediately turned the dial waaay past that 'safe for children' temperature that he responsibly set it at all the way to 'scald the skin off your bones' hot and left it there. We taught the kids to always turn on the cold water first and all was good.

The noise noise noise noise!

The stuff was (still is...their stuff doesn't go away as fast as they do) overwhelming.  People come with things. Even if you are lucky enough to have one or two who are scrupulous purgers but the truth is, most of my children are hoarders in the extreme.  I cleaned one daughter's bedroom once to find a collection of empty tic tac containers.  Tupperware full of rocks and boxes of pine cones are not an uncommon find either.  But even the legitimate stuff-the clothes, the shoes, the socks (oh my word the socks!) is enough to make a sane person completely lose their grip.

And yet....we were always running out of things.  Peanut butter, toothpaste, toilet paper, soap.  My policy became if I was at the store and wondering if we needed it.... we probably did. And I should  get some.  I should get lots.

Your vehicle choices once you get beyond 5 or 6 kids are extremely limited.  I drove this for 7 years:

Before that it was it was 8 years in a 15 passenger van.

And counting children before we left anywhere, was really important, preferably after they were all securely in the car with closed doors so no one could escape. It is amazingly easy to lose track of one in a crowd, plus my brain was always occupied with whether I had brought all the library books or had remembered to pack the swimming towels while still diligently trying to listen and respond intelligently to the 3 different children who were all addressing me with different concerns.  Always count the kids.

Even things that are inexpensive with one or two kids can suddenly represent a huge investment with 6 or 8 or 10.  Five dollars to take one child roller skating seems reasonable.... but ten at $5 each, who wants to do that? Taking our family to see a movie together could be over $100!  A few years ago though, Santa came up with the brilliant plan of giving everybody movie gift cards, so when we go to the movies, their tickets are pre-paid.  Santa is clever that way.

One thing that is definitely in favor of the large family... family memberships (that don't limit the family size, some do).  Many memberships cost barely more, or even no more than it would cost to get in once with everyone, so if we might come back.... we always bought the membership and came back for free next time.

Grocery shopping always required at least one assistant shopper, because someone needed to push the second cart. And I got used to the friendly questions from the cashier about what unusual cooking event might be going on at my house this week that would necessitate the purchase of 10 dozen eggs or 8 gallons of milk or 10 pounds of apples, even while I was looking at it all and just praying that it would actually last at least most of the week.

So, yes, life is simpler, and quieter in many ways right now.  But I miss the chaos of the crowd sometimes... and I still have not quite managed to adjust either my shopping or my cooking to the reduced numbers in the house and some days I don't know what to do when there aren't at least 5 kids needing help with a math problem at once.  And whenever we get in the car...I still count kids...only it goes more like this "five in the car, one at work, one in Chile, one in Argentina, one in Texas, one in Idaho---ten!"

Banshees and Baseball Bats

I answered my front door to two police officers at about 1:30 this morning, the final result of a comedy of errors and a security system that malfunctions on a regular basis.... and a bit of procrastination on my part.

We have had this security system for five years or more.  Seemed like a reasonable idea when we had it installed.  But almost from the beginning, a few of the windows have consistently given off false alerts. Mostly these consist of the non-emergency, merely annoying, sort of beep.beep.beep. alerts, but increasingly they have involved the full blown banshee scream emergency alarm variety.  Usually between the hours of 1 and 3 am.  Last time we got to this point with one of the windows regularly setting off the alarm for no apparent reason, we went through 3 different repair guys each repairing something different and swearing that those other guys were idiots who didn't know what they were doing, before the problem seemed to be solved. Scheduling a repair from this company means agreeing to either be home all morning or all afternoon anxiously awaiting their arrival.  They can't even narrow it down to a two hour window, they need at least 4.  So I thought I was being pretty clever to just 'bypass' the trouble windows every night when I set the alarm and avoid the whole repair thing.  Never mind that I was essentially saying "hey, if you want to break into my house---use one of these two windows and you'll be good."  But my plan back fired when one night the alarm went off even though we hadn't even set it yet!

So last night at 1 am we were awakened (again) by the alarm screaming in the kitchen.  Great.  We keep a remote upstairs to turn it off, but I can't even see the stupid thing without glasses and it was 1 am!  Kris managed to come to full consciousness a little ahead of me and get to that remote... but he made the mistake of thinking that the red button must be off...right?  Of course.  No...that would be panic.  A mistake I have learned myself through bitter experience.  He did find the right button on the second try, but the damage was done.  Except, typically if you turn off the alarm in however many seconds you are allowed, then you get an automated call that says "we noticed your alarm went off but you seem to have beat the clock and shut it off so we aren't calling 911 for you, hopefully that is what you want."  In the case of hitting the panic button (yeah I have done it before) you get a live person on the phone instead, they verify that you are the person who should be answering the phone and ask if you meant to hit that panic button in which case they should send help, or did you, like everyone else, just identify the red color of the button with meaning off, in which case you would rather go back to bed and be left alone?

Except last night we didn't get either call.  At least not on the phone we expected it. They called Kris's cell phone...which is on vibrate (always) making it hard to hear over a screaming alarm you are desperately trying to shut down, and also probably number 3 on their list of contact numbers.  After examining 3 cellphones to see which had been vibrating, and listening to a partial message from the security people, Kris just called the security company. They put him on hold.  He told them he was calling because an alarm had gone off-- and they put him on hold.  I am feeling more secure all the time. When he did get to talk to a person, he was informed that police were on their way because we hadn't answered our phone when they called (the wrong number). About the time they were offering to try to recall the police, I could hear the doorbell ringing.  So I stumbled down the stairs to assure the nice policemen who were shining flashlights through my front windows that we were fine.  Kris followed, with the phone.... he was on hold again.

 I even remembered to turn off the alarm before opening the door.

This afternoon (between the hours of 1 and 5) a repairman came.  Because, unlike me, my husband is not a procrastinator of any sort and he just went ahead and called them at 2 am to set up an appointment, I mean, why not?  He was up.  The repairman assured me that I am wrong, my alarm DOES NOT go off when I haven't even set it, and then replaced a bunch of sensors.  Hopefully he will not be first in a series of repairmen.  Though, given last night, I am beginning to wonder if I really need anything more than that trusty baseball bat I have always relied on as a security system...at least it has never woken me up at 1 am.  Never.

Field Trips and Worksheets

Erin is home for the week.  It is weird when big kids come home... because I forget they are usually not here, or that they are leaving again soon, and it is just normal to have her here.  In fact, I nearly made the mistake of insisting that the rest of the kids keep up with school each day before I came to my senses and realized that their big sister is only here for one week!  And they should be sure to catch up on all the movie watching and game playing and trampoline jumping with her that they have missed out on in the past few months and which they will be unable to do for another several months once she heads out of here again this weekend. Besides...she sleeps till noon, they can get a bit of school in then.

We did take Erin with us on our scheduled 'field trip' this week.  My kids think 'field trip' is a funny word that I use for no clear reason by the way.  I mean, to them, going to a museum or a zoo or the library or a swimming pool or the mountains in the middle of the day in the middle of what the rest of the world considers a 'school year,' is not at all weird and is, in fact, preferable to going to said places when everyone else is out of school and free to do so also.  But I still can't get past that word that really meant "woo-hoo, we aren't really having school at all today!"  There is one major difference between our field trips and the ones I occasionally (ok, rarely, like once a year if I was lucky) went on as a school kid.... worksheets.  You know how the teacher would try to console themselves that this zoo trip was actually educational by making sure you had a highly thought provoking, fill-in-the-blank, worksheet with you as you trotted through the zoo? Making what should have been wicked fun (and probably way more educational, let's face it) into a chore on which you would actually be graded?!  Yeah.  No worksheets here.  I am pretty proud of the fact that I have never once asked my kids to fill in a worksheet at the zoo.  They do bring sketch books.  At the museum in Denver they bring clues to where all the gnomes are hidden in the displays.  But no worksheets. None.

Anyway, we have made a point of visiting various local museums over the past few months.  Mostly of the free variety.  We have seen the Colorado Springs Fine Arts center and the Pioneer Museum and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (ok...not free....and the art one was on a free DAY, not always free either) and this last one was the Fire Museum.  Which was little and cute (and free) and best of all had old fire trucks in it...including one we could climb on!  How cool is that.  And, unlike our other recent museum trips... I actually brought a camera and so this happened (oh....and we weren't alone, we had homeschooling friends along with us, so if kids who you don't recognize as mine pop up in the occasional picture...yeah, not mine):

After, we drove over to see the Fallen Firefighters memorial which led to all the memorials to pretty much everything in the park which led to discussions of 9-11, POWs in Vietnam, and the Timber Wolves in World War II (never heard of them before, but there was a memorial there).  See, who needs worksheets?

"The only things that really need to be accomplished....."

Sometimes family life can be overwhelming.  Laundry and dishes are a constant and in fact all things "housework" just never go away, even if you did them today they are back tomorrow!  And then there is school and there are outside jobs and there are Eagle projects to get done and church meetings and activities to attend and dentist appointments and occasional emergency room visits...there is always, always so, so sooooo much to do!  Given all that, these words of Linda Reeves's at General Conference this past weekend came as a bit of a relief, didn't they?:  "The only things that really need to be accomplished in the home are daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening.”  So, how are we doing then?

Daily Scripture Study:  Daily family "study" I have to admit is frequently sort of like this: I am tired, Dad is super tired (he tends to get up a 5 am, something the rest of us do not), we have just finished either reading a chapter book together that probably involves teenagers battling one another in some sort of life and death struggle that may or may not involve wands or Greek gods or dystopian societies, or else we have been watching something uplifting like The Clone Wars or Doctor Who and we settle down to read the Book of Mormon together.  On a good night, we pass out the books and everyone reads a few verses, sometimes we even manage to sing a hymn or two first (in about 4 different keys with a few of us getting the words mostly right).  On a not so good night or a "these kids have to go to bed NOW" night, I do all the reading, and it can admittedly be super short sometimes. Our scripture reading can generate some fascinating discussion though (mostly about things like why is it so important that we know that "Lehi dwelt in a tent"? Or even occasional play acting (who can resist acting out that final battle between Shiz and Coriantumr?)  But most importantly, we do it.  Every single night.  

Daily Family Prayer:  This is harder than you would think.  We have been consistent with bedtime family prayers for many years, after scriptures and before the youngest kids are sent to bed, we have a prayer, easy peasy.  But we have struggled with consistent morning prayers for almost as long.  For a long time, and still sometimes, morning prayer was a rush at the door as we were kissing Daddy goodbye on his way to wherever after he was already late leaving.  And goodbyes at our house can be involved...we used to seriously make the kids line up and then file past Dad for a hug and a kiss before he left (now we pretty much all just gang up on him and push and shove for our hugs... some discipline has definitely been lost as the parents have aged).  Usually we are better now with our morning prayers and manage to gather everyone in Mom and Dad's room before seminary for a quick prayer.  Admittedly, Fionn frequently cannot remember later that we said a prayer at all because she was at best semi conscious at the time.  Still, this is something we have been working on for awhile, when everyone was home....well it really seldom happened that we had everyone there.  Kegan wouldn't wake up, Rhys would wake up and then fall asleep on the floor in my room not to be roused again for hours, someone would have the 5:15am shift at the Y and already be long gone before the rest of us were ready... but we haven't given up, despite the narcoleptic tendencies of teenagers and the erratic nature of our mornings.

Weekly Family Home Evening:  This is how family home evening goes down at our house now.  First off, it is on a Sunday night because we can never all be there on  a Monday.  In fact Monday has never ever been a serious option for us.  Did you know that almost all school board meetings are held on Mondays?  Well they are.  And our Daddy has been attending school board meetings for as long as most of his children can remember.  Sometimes we can't always be there on Sunday either, if one person is missing, we try to still do it, if half the family has a fireside, well sometimes we skip, or try to make alternative plans... but, MOST Sunday evenings we make an effort.  A good family home evening consists of two of the children teaming up like missionaries to give a lesson from Preach my Gospel.  Last week it was the Plan of Salvation by Amik and Liam.  Amik asked lots of questions, had us read lots of scriptures and generally got some decent discussion going.  My favorite part "Why can't we remember the pre-existence?"  And Fionnula's immediate (and logical, after all we had just been talking about bodies being part of earth life) response "Because we had no brains yet!" While Amik was leading the discussion, Liam was illustrating the Plan on the white board:

The depiction here of judgement day and all those spirits leaving the obviously dead bodies  (their eyes are xed out) might be a personal favorite. 

The lesson probably took 15 minutes, then we launched into what is, let's face it, the highlight of FHE: the game.  We played "The Newly Wed Game", a favorite in our house, but the kids keep trying to come up with a new name since our teams do not involve newly weds but rather sibling pairs...the current title though is "the Creeper Stalker game" and I am not sure I really care for that one either.  Other popular games are pictionary, charades, party quirks, pyramid and assassin...yes really, assassin.  We tend to make all of these up ourselves having long ago thrown out our Hasbro version of pictionary because the clues were too boring and predictable, instead our Daddy makes up our fantastic clues, things like "Bert and Ernie on Fire"...  you know (that particular example was actually a charades clue..... and it was very funny to see acted out).

So, end analysis:  how are we doing?  Ok. But as simple as it sounds to narrow down the truly 'important stuff" to just 3 things, they are all things that require constant attention and constant intention.  If we are going to have family prayers, well we have to get people out of bed, if we are going to read scriptures we have to turn off the tv before Daddy is asleep.  But despite the little bit of effort it takes at the end of a long Sunday of meeting after meeting to then also put together a bowl full of pictionary clues.... well honestly it is all worth it to see your 14 year old  frantically gesturing in frustration at his stick figures on the board that so obviously (to him) represent "Dude looks like a Lady!"

Kids Are Funny....

Received the following in a series of text messages from a couple of my children.....

Hey look i found a blue tribble!!!

Oh no! its multiplied!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

No! its too late!!!!! run! run while you still can!

They've claimed their territory

Ronans somewhere in there. We tried to save him but the were multiplying so quickly we couldn't get a good hold of him. They've probably suffocated him by now...

Star date: 4414. this may be the last entry of mine. the tribbles continue to multiply in number and increase in size. most of the fleet have been swallowed by the sheer number of furry creatures, left to choke and suffocate in the midst of the fuzz. hope is wearing thin now.

Why We Homeschool

One afternoon I was washing dishes and looking out the window into my backyard at my then twelve year old and five year old daughters.  They were sitting on a blanket in the grass. Between them was arrayed the plastic tea set that had once belonged to the big sister, but was now more the property of the younger sister. The two girls were chatting and playing together, pouring water from the teapot into one another's cups. There was nothing patronizing about the older girl's attitude and nothing manipulative about the younger girl's these were just two sisters enjoying one another's company and playing together.  The seven year age gap was completely inconsequential and unheeded by either girl.  The thought suddenly entered my mind THIS is why we are homeschooling.

When we first discussed homeschooling, a million years ago when we had only 2 girls each under 3 years old, we thought of a lot of grand reasons to do so.  We could design our own curriculum. Our children could learn at their own pace. They could learn about what interested them most and not what someone else thought an 8 year old had to know. We would have an awesome teacher to student ratio at our school. We could include our faith in their learning. Our children would be exposed to ideas on our time frame, not the public school's. School bullying would be a non-issue. Our children could enjoy a field trip to the zoo without having to fill out a worksheet. They could take the time to actually finish their lunch without worrying about when the next bell was going to ring!  They would have lots of time to just play. We could include the learning of basic life skills like cooking and home repairs. All of these reasons are very valid and they are still there in the back of my mind as advantages to homeschooling.  But none of them are THE reason we homeschool.

THE reason we homeschool is that we want our children to be together as often as possible and to build beautiful sibling relationships with one another.  We want them to be one another's best friends.  We want them to learn and grow and play together.  And we want them to do so with more than just a few hours in the evening when they are each bogged down with homework and extra curricular activities and whatever else the public school kids do after seven hours in school.

Can siblings who attend public school still grow up being great friends?  I am sure they can.  But I am also sure it is a lot harder to accomplish and that there are many more obstacles and risks.  My older children attended brick and mortar public schools for a few years, and quite frankly it sucked the life out of any 'family time.'  The kids left for school at 7:30 in the morning.  Hopefully they were home by 4:00.  If we were really lucky they could get their homework done in time to eat dinner, take baths and get ready for bed so they could do it all again the next day.  More often we weren't so lucky and they were still struggling (read that "crying") over math assignments after they should have already been in bed. Keep in mind that this was elementary school! We had to make it clear to the school they attended that we actually wanted our TWINS in the same class.  It astounds me that the norm is to split up siblings that would normally be in the same grade. Of course there are weekends.  And vacations.  And those blessed snow days.  But what we really wanted for our kids was the chance to share their lives, all of it. To work together, play together and learn together every single day.

Our children are not shut off from the world.  They have other friends and their own interests and ambitions. But they are undoubtedly one another's best friends.  Even now, separated by continents and communicating only through once a week emails or the occasional letter they continue to be one another's number one support system. When I see my grown sons tear up at the sight of one another after six months of separation: or read the emails from younger siblings to older brothers and sisters detailing their day to day activities and then read the emails back begging for current pictures of everyone at home and encouraging each in their current challenges: or even when I read through a long Facebook exchange that looks like nothing but a very long list of random movie quotes, but is in fact the latest development of a long standing family game: when I sit through a long, loud and hilarious game of charades on a Sunday evening: or when I hear my now sixteen year old, who was once the little sister playing tea party in the backyard, well after she should have been sleeping, chatting on her cell phone to that same big sister who is away at college: I know that no matter what else our homeschooling experiment produces, we succeeded in what mattered most.

Plague at our House!

My family apparently has the plague.  We have been sick, I kid you not, since early January.  It all started with a memorable Sunday at church when I was summoned out of Relief Society by Fionnula's new primary teacher, who informed me in the hallway that Fionn was "puking in the drinking fountain."  Great.  Don't worry, it is now the cleanest drinking fountain in the building.  I disinfected the bejeebers out of it.  The thing is, in a family the size of ours...even at it's current diminished size, one person coming down with anything can mean weeks of passing that anything around the house, and if multiple people bring home separate viruses, well goodness help us all. This time I think I can track at least two different infections that are making the rounds and possibly a third. It is no fun.  And any sympathy I demonstrated early on for the sickies has slowly ebbed away.  I am just so tired of it all.  Yep, with this many kids you want to be one of the first sick, when Mom is still willing to make you cream of wheat and jello and get you all comfy on the couch and bring you blankets and buddies (stuffed animals) and read to you and snuggle with you.... if you are near the end, she doesn't have it in her anymore and you find yourself filling up your own humidifier and making your own honey lemon tea while Mom plays one more level of Candy Crush.

I have to say, I prefer it when whatever illness it is just strikes everyone at once, there are a couple of really frightening days.... and then another couple days of cleaning up the aftermath, and it is over.  At least I do, right now, as I endure the endless days of one or two or three children at a time stumbling around in a stupor, and squabbling for rights to the couch and the remote.  Because I have lived through some hellish bouts of everyone sick at once too, and probably when I was in the midst of those I would not claim to prefer them over the days that go on basically as planned, if a little more slowly and with someone new every few days occupying the couch for 72 hours.
Like that time I had 4 children under five all puking.... we covered the entire living room floor with old blankets, gave them all a bucket, and hung out watching Disney movies and disinfecting one bucket after another.  Yeah, that wasn't fun.  Or how about eight children, including a nursing infant AND both parents all vomiting.  Seriously, I just puked right over the baby in my arms.  Not so much fun either.  But they were both over with within about 48 hours.  None of this lingering sneezing and coughing and moaning and whining and yes, even occasional puke that we have been dealing with for five weeks now! Five weeks! There aren't enough Disney movies on my shelves to get us through another five weeks.... ok, let's face it, there probably are, but that is beside the point!