You Might Just Have 5 Kids If…

…you take the family out for a celebratory dinner in January, it’s 20 degrees outside and you find your 3 year old in the car with outgrown sandals on and bracelets around her ankles!!!

At least she has shoes on, they are on the right feet this time AND…

you go anyway.

…the entire family has been out and you discover upon arriving back home that the front door was NOT shut by the last person out the door because “there might have been someone still inside!”

You check things out to make sure there are no intruders inside the house.  Give the children a lecture on how and when to shut the front door and feel grateful that nothing was stolen this time. 

…you go to wash the dinner table and discover chocolate ice cream dripping down the wall from the birthday just celebrated. 

Wiping it with the dish cloth, you return to the cupboard for some 409 and a scrub brush because the rest of the food that needs cleaning off the wall is dried.

 

…two of your children are a full decade apart in age but each struggling for the same things:

 

 

 

 

self expression

and

independence!

 

You think “it’s just a stage”.

(You HOPE it’s just a stage).

 

…you hear someone yelling through the house about a car in the kitchen and this is totally unremarkable to you one way or the other.

You knew exactly what was meant.

…the entire family is running late but at least your son says he is “ready” and has his coat on. 

One problem…you realize his hair still looks like this:

If messy hair is a sleep barometer then this guy had a great sleep.  You glance at your watch and check the time…

You justify that it pretty much looks like that anyway once he takes his hat off AND he’s about to jump in the water for swim lessons.  Just GO!

OK, there is no picture for the following except for the one you form in your own mind…

…just as you are in the middle of draining a pot of boiling water and noodles, your child who has a helium balloon tied to their wrist enters the kitchen from the outdoors and climbs up to the kitchen table to see what another child is doing.  Directly overhead a ceiling fan turns at full speed and begins attacking the balloon.  Both kids at the table begin yelling for a rescue at the same moment the smoke alarm decides to go off alerting you to the fact that there is SOMETHING going on in the kitchen AND a child who is SUPPOSED to be cleaning the bathroom starts yelling “Help!  Help!”  The pot of hot water and noodles is left for the balloon and two kids who are then left for the child who thinks they’ve peed their pants…but you get there and their pants aren’t wet but their big toe DOES hurt.

Upon examination it turns out that it is just a super sized bottle of Pine Sol in the bathroom that got kicked over, (hence the sore toe) cracked and spilled creating a puddle the same color as the one often left by your potty training toddler. 

You are grateful that the bathroom floor is, after all if not accidentally, disinfected as you rubber band a piece of plastic over the top of the remaining Pine Sol.  You figure it could have been worse if the phone had rung at that very moment as well.  The only thing that would have topped the experience would have been if the clown that sat on your 8 1/2 month pregnant lap earlier in the day had shown up ringing the doorbell right then and you pause to reflect that clowns really aren’t your thing anymore.  Just then your precious husband emerges from the peaceful vegetable garden to find out if dinner is ready yet and asks if he has heard some commotion! 

And FINALLY

You might just have 5 kids if…

…your living room looks like this and you are NOT preparing to go on a major vacation.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the normal weekday morning craziness.  “Does everybody have everything?  Don’t forget your lunch!”  You do NOT wonder why road trips are few and far between these days.  You wonder if you will ever travel anywhere of interest or distance again AND figure for a few years, it might be better for people to visit you.

Later in the day you pick up the kids and the principal reaches into the van handing you the large tupperware of leftover cupcakes from the class party as kids clamber into the vehicle over napping children, car seats  and toppling over various instruments and baggage.  “You’ve got your hands full” she states and shudders when you mention you’ve still got another pickup at the next school to make.

The song “Never Lonely” pops into your mind and you cheerfully hum it all the way to the next school pick-up.  Life like this, you realize, is…

THE BEST!