Big Love

We have four kids, which means we have a “big family.” TLC isn’t knocking down our door to offer us a reality show or anything, but it does put us squarely in the category of Two-Door Hatchback No Longer an Option. Although it's more than average, by no means did we have the biggest family in the town in which we used to live.

That town, which I'm visiting right now, has some really good-sized families.  I forgot how much I missed that.  Almost everyone my age has at least five siblings; many have eight or more.  There are several different parishes in town; our old house was in the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Childbirth.  As an added bonus, everyone in town knows each other because “my brother Steve went to school with her sister Sue.” (Everyone has a brother named Steve and a sister named Sue.)

Not every Sue went on to have eight kids of her own, but some of them did. Cookie had a classmate who was ninth in line of a dozen kids. So you can be sure that no one in that town even bats an eyelash my measly four. 

Outside of Vatican Hill, Pennsylvania, though, people definitely notice.  They notice my kids emerging from our van, clown car-style.  They notice that when walking anywhere, we naturally form our own parade.  They notice that in the pediatrician's waiting room, we take up most of the seats.  And then they start with the questions.

Are they all yours?  OK, this one I get.  I could be babysitting, or have a niece and nephew in tow, or have picked up some neglected strays in the Chick-fil-A play area.  It's a fair question.  The answer: yes.  They are all mine and you can't have them.  Maybe you can borrow them sometime, but I'm going to need them back.

Don’t you know how that happens? I know this one is meant as a joke, but it's a joke I've heard a few times now.  The answer: yes, and we’re getting really good at it, apparently.

Did you mean for that to happen?  Did you mean to just say that, muttonhead?  Yes, we meant to have four kids.  It just goes to show you that if you work hard and really put your mind to something, you can make any dream come true.  Maybe you can someday realize my dream for you, which is that you will be less of a nitwit.

Do they all have the same daddy?  Nah, they all have different daddies.  Even the twins.  Bwahahahaha.  Seriously, anyone who asks me this does not deserve a straight answer.  What they deserve is to be smacked upside the head with a Jerry Springer DVD.  But I don't usually have one of those in my purse, so I'll settle for giving a snarky answer.

How can you afford that many kids? This is code for "I hope I’m not supporting your lack of planning with my tax dollars."  Good news, folks: we're totally self-supporting.  In fact, I'd love some help with the medical bills, but it turns out we make just a little too much money to qualify.  So, we've decided to earn some extra money by becoming one of those family bands like the Partridge Family or the von Trapps.  You should hear us hum the theme from Star Wars.  I'm certain we'll be rolling in the dough soon.

Have you given any thought as to how this will impact our environment?  This is one of my all-time favorites, and wasn't actually asked of me.  Someone asked this of a friend of mine when she was pregnant with her fifth. Now, this is someone who is as eco-friendly as you can get.  She follows the three R's: Reduce (the amount of packaged stuff purchased because it's too expensive); Reuse (hand-me-down cloth diapers); and Recycle (that dining room table the neighbors were throwing out).  Another friend of mine, a dad of five, came up with the best response: "Yeah. And maybe some of that climate change will warm up your cold, cold heart."

Now that you finally got a boy, are you done?  Gaaaahh.  There are so many things wrong with this question.  First of all, and I'd like to have this printed on a t-shirt, we were not trying for a boy.  We were trying to have a baby.  You know what kind of baby we wanted?  The healthy kind. And regardless of the insane number of doctor's appointments he's had, he's basically healthy. Of course we're thrilled to have a little boy.  Little Dude completes our family and I can't imagine life without him.  But the truth is, if we'd had another little girl, we wouldn't be able to imagine life without her. 

But back to your question, are we done?  Well, we're certainly not done raising our kids.  Any muttonhead can have a kid; it takes some work to raise them into functional members of society.  It takes even more work to help them turn into the kind of people you'd actually enjoy having dinner with thirty years from now.  If you think about it, you'll have a longer relationship with your child during their adulthood than during their childhood.  This is especially true if you drink as much diet Coke as I do, because the preservatives in it will apparently keep me alive forevah.  So my plan is to raise kids that I'll still enjoy hanging out with when they're all grown up.  So, no, I'm not done.  I still have a tremendous amount of Blondie to make them listen to.