Big Families

Do you ever feel like life is moving way too fast?

I just put Goosie and Mae down for a nap, and I have a couple of hours down here with Magoo until they wake up.  Magoo is just now stopping taking naps, and on some days she still takes them.  But on these days when she doesn’t, it’s nice to have this time with her.  Most days of the week, her teacher gives them journal prompts to write on, and so we’ve started doing some of this at home to help her fire up her writing juices.  Sometimes she’ll spend almost all of nap time writing little books.  Today she wrote about what it would be like to live in a jungle.  I love hearing her ideas, and the thrill of seeing all of this written down in her own little handwriting… well what could be more of a joy to a mom who is in love with words?

But then I worry about the little two.  Since they both nap at the same time and there’s really no way around that, I fear that they are getting the short end of the stick with me.

Mae is going to be ten months old in a couple of days.  Ten months!  Where has the better part of a year gone?  In a very, very short amount of time, she won’t be a baby anymore.  I feel like I blinked, and it’s over.

I want to sit on the floor and roll balls with her.  I want to help her play with shape sorters.  I want to spend hours laying on the floor with her staring at the world from her point of view.

And Goosie…  I guess I get a little bit more time with her because while Magoo is at school in the mornings, Mae is usually fairly good at entertaining herself and I can read to Goose and print out “homework” sheets for her.  When we are at stores, I can talk to her about what we see, and I can hear her very rapidly improving sentences.

But still, with her I would love to do more classes and art projects and reading and play dough and, well, everything.

And it’s something that is taking me a long time to get accustomed to — the idea that they can’t all be treated like only children all the time.  That there is less to go around than in houses that have fewer children.  That they have to share.  That with the wonderful, amazing gift of siblings comes some sacrifice in terms of time spent with parents one and one.

And I guess that’s what I need to look at.

I have recently gotten hooked to the show, Parenthood.  Obviously it’s a dramatization of life and as such everything is just a bit exaggerated, but in general, I think it’s a fairly accurate portrayal of what it is like to be a part of a big family.  The variety, the friendships, the memories, the laughter, the camaraderie.  It’s all there.

One of the hardest things for me when Terry and I first got married was a lack of people.  I was used to living in a house with so many people and so much activity. Then I moved to college where again there were always people around.  And then when TJ and I first got married, it was just us.  Him and me.  And so when he wasn’t there, the silence was almost deafening.

And that’s what I always come back to.  No one will get as much one on one attention as Molleigh did during her first three years except perhaps our youngest child once everyone has moved out and it’s only him or her left.  They can’t all have brand new $100 outfits for every little event.  They can’t have a perfectly clean and tidy house ready to comfort them at any moment of the day because there are just so many of them to clean up after that I can’t get to it all.

But on the other hand… what is more important than growing up in a home full of love?

And I guess this post is ending where all my thoughts have ended lately — on the joys of having a house full of love and family.  Mae is ten months old.  Around this time when Goosie was this age, we were starting to think about babies again.  I don’t have it in me to do the two under two thing again much less the three under three.  But one day soon…

So to my girls when you grow up…

My hope is that you won’t remember

the mess

the frazzled mom

the constant running around

the constant search for missing shoes

the dress up clothes that are all torn because I don’t have time to mend them

the less than Pinterest worthy meals and snacks

the hand me downs.

 

And I hope you do remember

the laughter

and the love

the joy of sharing life with your sisters

the security of a constant companion

the sisters to share stories with

the partners in crime

and the second opinion about the disgusting nature of my newest culinary creation.

You could have had more one on one time.  You could have had more new stuff.  You could have had more personally enriching experiences.  But you would have had to give up each other.  And my prayer is that you never for a moment believe that would have been a sacrifice worth making.