the squirts

Hi,
I've decided to give blogging a try. My goal is to post once a week. Let me start with an introduction. I am a stay at home mom of 7 wonderful children (11,8,7, almost 6,3,almost 3, and 6 weeks). I stopped working outside of the home in 2000. Although I miss the challenge and joy of being an ICU nurse, I do not regret our decision for me to quite work. The days and years go by quite quickly, and I love all the time I am able to spend with our children. 3 new children have been added to our family this year. Our 2 Serbian blessings came home March 1st and our home grown, secret, world traveler joined us May 8th. Needless to say, we are still all adjusting to the changes. We have been very blessed this year.
It has been interesting to see/hear how others respond to our family out in public now. Last year with 4 children, we would get a few glances. Now with 7, we tend to draw more attention. There have been those that feel the need to make rude comments. Others seem to ask questions just out of curiosity. Last Sunday at church, one of the ladies expressed her disapproval of our number of blessings. She told our oldest daughter she is way too young to be a mother, and asked if she is ever allowed to have any fun. I'm not sure why people think that the oldest child would be given all the tasks, chores, and responsibilities. They have not been to our house to see how things work. For many years now, all of our children who are over the age of 1 have had chores they do. All help out, and yes they all have plenty of fun too. In my opinion, it is not a bad thing to teach children how to be age-appropriate independent and not have everything done for them. One of our main goals is to teach the children to be responsible, independent adults. That training slowly starts from a young age and grows with the child. I'm sure it is hard for some people to accept families that do things against the grain of society (larger families, homeschooling, ,etc). All we can do is be a good example and do the best we can.
Here are a few of the events that color our day. Yesterday, I thought I was quite clever coming up with the title for this blog. It brought a smile to my face. The reason for the title is this:
The morning started off by me coming into the bathroom to find lotion spilled. You know how when you throw a bottle down, the contents splatter out blobs on the floor. Well one of our talented children was able to make the splatters go along the floor and all the way up the wall to the ceiling. Nice.
After cleaning up the lotion mess, we proceeded on to breakfast. A bit chaotic, as usual, but nothing really out of the ordinary. Then comes time to brush teeth. I began by plopping Dan (the 30 lb. almost 3 year old) onto the counter. The problem is , I plopped him right onto the brand new toothpaste tube with it's lid partially open. Yes, a large amount of toothpaste squirted out onto the counter and onto Dan's shorts. That took a bit of time to clean up.
Then we proceed on to today. Unfortunately, my clever little title became reality. I smelled the awful smell upon leaving my bedroom. I assumed it was Dan. His digestive system had finally gotten used to our food, until we went to church camp. He was down to about 3 or 4 stools a day. Since all the junk food with camp, he is right back to his many (7 ish) stools a day. No, it wasn't Dan this time. Next I checked Danijela. She has had a couple of accidents since coming home, if we do not get her up early enough. No, not her. Then Truman (our other 3 year old) came out of bed. Thankfully, I am still putting diapers on him at night time; just in case of an accident. Well, let's just say it was a horrible mess that required a bath and their bedding to be washed. Uugghh. After that upon rising, we proceeded on to our scheduled swimming lessons.
We went for a family walk tonight. I felt joy in my heart as the day ended. During the walk, most of the children were up ahead of Matt and I. Some were on bikes, others on foot. As I watched our children, I especially noticed Danijela. She was running to catch up with the other children, swinging her little orange flag. Her face shown with a great big smile, and she periodically looked back to see if momma and daddy where still behind her. I told my husband, "she has come a long ways in just 3 months". He shook his head in agreement. This is the little 7 year old girl who just 3 months ago couldn't run. Thank you Lord for our many blessings.
guess I better stop for today,
wishing you all a great week,
Vickie