16 Weeks: What's on my mind

Last weekend I went on a trip to get my haircut.  This was a different experience, since Tim and I went with my mom and just two of our four kids.  I noticed a difference in the way people looked at us.  When walking around public places with four kids I often get half smiles, nervous looks, and comments like, "Are you done having children?"  All I can do is imagine what having a fifth child will be like.  So far I am in the chubby pregnancy phase and since I am carrying around a small eleven month old baby, people do not dare comment on my belly yet.  I mean, I could still just be loosing weight from my last baby.  With my second child I did look like this one year out of pregnancy.

So there I was walking around in this bliss of feeling like a "normal" part of human society.  I had my boy and my girl and people probably looked at us thinking, what a nice little family.  This is not a far fetch thought since people would tell me this when I only had my first two kids.  The second one goes crazy and has three kids people seem to start talking out of turn.  "Have you figured out what is causing that?"  "When is you husband scheduled for his surgery?"  There are unspoken assumptions when you have three children.

By the time I was walking around pregnant with a forth child, I began to feel the world caving in on me.  I have always wanted a lot of children, I just never thought it would create such a fight to fit in with the rest of the world.  A fourth child seemed to offend people.  At this point, I might as well have gone insane.  How does one plan to put four children through college, or even put enough food on the table?  These are good questions.  I think we have figured out the food, but I do think about saving up for college.  My parents started saving money for me when I was four years old and by the time I got to college, their savings only payed for about two years of my college tuition.  I guess I just want to believe it will all work out.  I have seen many motivated kids make it to college and I am sure we will figure something out.  One only has so many years to have kids, but a lifetime to make money.

Now I will admit that when I thought four kids was going to be a challenge, five is an adventure into the unknown.  I can count on one hand how many families I know with four kids, but most of them stopped at that.  I thought I might stop too, but my own convictions about birth control got to the better of me and pregnancy is a gift.  So here I am really trying to accept being pregnant again.  A part of me loves it and a part of me wishes it could be easier.

Practically, the world I live in is not set up for larger families.  The average family home costing about 300,000 in my town only has three bedrooms.  Most people don't need more space than that.  In fact, my husband and I looked for houses with more bedrooms and in some cases these houses actually cost less.  (not that we are planning to buy a house yet)   Our van will barely fit another car seat, though it is made to fit five people in the back...who decided to make car seats so big?  Do we really need to upgrade to an SUV or a 12 passenger van?  I really don't want to.

On the flip side of these rambling thoughts, having more kids has taught me a lot about spending money.  It took me to three kids to start looking into buying food in bulk.  It really is great to buy all of our oatmeal for the year for thirty-five dollars.  Yes, fifty pounds of steel cut oats!  It is awesome.  In the store I would be spending about a dollar a pound.  This saves us some cash.  We also started buying things like rice, beans, lentils, pasta, tomato sauce, eggs, and some other stuff in bulk too.  Not only does this save us money, but the less I go to the store, the less likely am I to buy random stuff like ice cream.  When I only had two kids, it seemed simple enough to go to the store with both kids.  Now I have one kid on my back, another in the cart, and two hanging onto the sides of the cart.  This is not a pretty picture and a frustrating experience.  My other option is to shop at night, but I still love cutting down on trips to the store.

Kid's clothing is another thing I hear people talk about.  So far all four of my kids have been able to wear mostly other people's hand me downs.  I love living somewhere were people like to share their kids clothing.  It has been a huge blessing.  We do buy some things every year for our kids, but I would say we spend about two hundred dollars total on clothing.  Maybe more if we need to replace winter coats or shoes.

Toys are great, but too many fill our house up quick.  We do not buy that many toys, though I would love to have a playroom some day.  My kids play with dolls that were once mine.  We have tons of little match box cars.  Classic toys have been great for our family and most of the kids at all their ages can join in.  Charis, my youngest, is not interested in her baby toys.

Now comes the crazy urge to decorate when I am pregnant.  I have spent hours looking at nursery room decorating pictures and furniture, but at the end of the day all of my babies have slept in a pack and play instead of a crib.  We borrowed a crib for Joel, my oldest, but when he tried to climb out, I got scared and put him in a pack and play.  Do I like the pretty picture of a tidy, well decorated nursery?  Yes.  I think about it a lot, but I also know that the picture do not include the poop smells and a baby climbing up the dressers.

Somebody recently asked me how I manage to have so many kids.  This is part of how I manage.  I don't feel like my life is lacking.  I do have days when I realize I have not been able to sit in a quiet place until 8pm.  We don't have a ton of money, but a lot of love and family support.  This morning my husband looked at me and asked, "Don't you think our house would feel empty without all of our children?"  I agree, this is the life I know and I love it.  :)