Four Is The Looniest Number
Monique | Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 4:24PM Person: "Oh, congratulations! Is this your first?"
Me: "Thank you, no, this is number four."
Person: "Number four, that's grea- ...Wait. Did you say FOUR? FOUR children? Wow... Good luck to you."
This is the same kind of conversation that I have a few times a week, at least. It is annoying.
What is it about the jump from three to four that makes people gasp and look at you like you're bound to become the next Duggar family? I got a little of that reaction while pregnant with Mercutio, but nothing beats the shock and awe of FOUR! (until FIVE, I'm sure, but by then I guess people are like... meh, whatever...)
So here, I will answer some frequently asked questions (and yes, theses have actually been asked!):
Q: How are you going to handle four kids, geez!? One is hard enough for me!
-Cages and very strong rope. Do you know how to tie a slipknot? Great, you're one step ahead of the battle.
Q: How will you keep all of those kids occupied?
-Staring, Who Can Be Quiet The Longest and Who Can Fall Asleep The Fastest contests. Oh! And television.
Q: How are you going to fit everyone into a car?
-You know those stackable cups...?
Q: How do you deal with the differences in their personalities?
-Whoa. They have personalities? Yeah. We're gonna have to nip that shit in the bud pronto.
Q: What do you do when they're all screaming and yelling at the same time?
-Duct tape, not unlike club soda, fix most everything.
Q: Don't you get tired of having all those kids around?
-Of course! That's why we live in an apartment building. Tons of potential babysitters!
Q: What do you do when they're all fighting over the same toys?
-I'm sorry. Toys, you say? No, we don't encourage imaginative play. Too much noise.
Q: What if you have another boy? Then it will be uneven!
-Really? Because having two boys and one girl now, perfectly evens things out, right?
Q: Does your husband help with the kids?
-When he's not in prison, sure.
Q: What if you have a Special Needs child?
-Special? Like those gold Pokemon cards? We can sell those right?
Q: What about discipline?
-Wire hangers usually, but those plastic ones work just fine.
Okay, okay - all sarcasm aside.
My diaper bags progressively get bigger and fuller, we consume more food in the house and have more kids. Those are about the biggest differences between having one and four.
We never had any misconceptions about raising children, we knew we would have to deal with annoyances, poop on the carpet, faces covered in eyeliner, possible illnesses, surgeries, all nighters filled with grim worries.
Two days moving into our new apartment, the boys used my permanent markers to decorate their bedroom walls. Caesar had a very routine surgery and it took Christian and I weeks to recover from it, while Caesar was happily eating PB&J two hours after the procedure. Not having Samara is a constant devastation to all of us, you never get used to not having your child around, it is never totally comfortable, there is always something missing.
And yes, this is all very stressful. There are things we deal with everyday, small things that end up making one or all present children intensely miserable.
We make concessions to ease our day, we pick our battles, and we stand firm even when it's not to our sanity's detriment.
All typical parenting stuff, but we are very well aware that we do something differently by the way we don't fit in with other groups of parents. (Which doesn't upset us, because frankly, we'd rather not.)
We are disarrayed, disorganized and I spend most of my day looking quite manic and threatening to eat my children.
At the bitter end of our typical day. After Ergo's protective forcefield has successfully been activated, and the boys have switched beds, blankets and stuffed animals three times, 30 minutes of "I'm not tired!" or "I don't want to be here!" I know we will just wake up to more lunacy, and that's okay.
At work, people always ask me if working with kids all day makes me crazy, and I tell them the absolute truth: While some kids drive me up the walls, it is predominantly the parents who are most hard headed, stubborn and impatient.
This, I see is also true with parenting. Parenting is not hard, the moments within can be terrifying, mortifying and more painful than imaginable - that's what's hard. But it's parents make the day to day shit difficult.
When Christian and I are asked how we can have and handle the ones we have and be excited at the possibility of more, we are stumped by the question. Which sucks, because we are asked it so often and still don't have an acceptable answer.
Four is not too many, our hearts can hold so much more! And since we weren't very sane to begin with, we have easily found luxury and comfort in insanity.
Reader Comments (2)
OMG hilarious!!!! I love the way you write Mo!
Four kids r the looniest How bout FIVE kids and one adopted minion/sister thing?