From Time to Time

It isn't so much that family life can hand you a string of difficult, or even painful days, that makes it attractive. Heck, you can get that in ANY life, you don't have to be a part of a large family to have a bad day. You can have a bad day all by yourself and that will be that. There won't be anyone at home needing you to care for their most basic needs, except for you. You can sit in a tub and sip sparkling grape the rest of the night and no one will even notice that you've slipped off the "work" radar. Just try to do that in a house with five non-sleeping children. Try to take a shower or just close a door behind you. My children are like wardens demanding my strict compliance to their rule that "Mommy must have no privacy at any time." Even when I have physical privacy, one of them - usually my four year old son - is outside the door "talking" to me and poking his fingers under the door. Well, and that's just the privacy thing. One must understand that with many people comes the propensity for many problems or sometimes disasters, occurring simultaneously. Often, there are many many crying yelling kicking screaming people in numerous areas of my home, each needing immediate attention. It very often happens the moment I need to have a phone conversation (and I do mean literally "the moment") or when someone has come to my door with important business. Like a volcano, my home can erupt. I can quite often find a quiet spot to continue my phone conversations. All I can do is feel sorry for the person who needs to speak to me at the door. If they don't have a bountiful array of offspring in their own home, they usually wear a look of bewilderment on their faces for a few seconds until they remember why they are standing there and try to communicate their business. More than once, a conversation has started with "How many children do you HAVE?" The correct answer to that question is five, but if I really want to astound the individual I'll add an "only" or a "just". You know, "Only five." The next phrase is usually "I don't know how you do it." On the other hand, if the person has had experience caring for many children, they just smile and nod, usually chuckle a bit and ask "How many do YOU have?" There is an unspoken bond between parents of large families. I have to admit here that I honestly do enjoy little fingers poking out from under the door. It's the ultimate "I want to be close to you" message.
Real life, family style is a string of these events day after day and it can wear you thin. As I said before, however, these are not the things that attract people to family life. The real allure is in the tiniest details and the smallest moments when things are right - or at least the way you imagined they would be. It doesn't happen very often, but it DOES and to a mind conditioned to functioning with chaos and craziness, that moment can seem to last a lifetime as though we were all suspended in time. The trick is to realize that family life isn't supposed to be that way all the time. If our floor was piled high with diamonds, would we recognize the value of them? Anything that is plentiful, we rarely consider a blessing - that's the way we humans are. The chaos is the price we have to pay for eyes to see just how wonderful a family of young children can be, from time to time.