"Wow" (ie. "that's nuts")

So further to my last post which was an introduction to pondering the questions that are frequently directed at me, I thought to start with the most basic:
"4 kids!  Wow."   


I don't know if you can hear the tone of that "wow", it's not a "wow!  That's amazing!  You're so lucky!".  


More often than not it's more like, "wow, that's insane" 


But really the question is "WHY?", why would I inflict this kind of existence on myself?  Why? 


(I cannot answer for others with "larger" families, so no generalizations allowed :)  and I certainly mean no disrespect for those with small families, so I hope no one's feelings are hurt.  Disclaimer complete.)

I freely admit my family size is reactionary*, completely based on my family experience both growing up and as an adult.  I ended up being an only child at 6 mos, after my adopted brother drowned at age 2.  My parents had adopted the 2 of us after dealing with infertility for many years and scaling down their desire for 6 kids to 2.

I hated being an only child, even more so after my dad passed away when I was 7. After that it was just my mom and me for the next 21 years until I got married.  And then it was my mom, me and my husband ; ) until she passed away in 2009.  I cannot begin to say how much I hated growing up under the microscope that was, for me, being an only child. I dreaded evenings, weekends, summer holidays, Christmas break and any form of shortened school day since they all meant I was at home alone with my mom. She was not a bad person, she never abused me or neglected me, I understand why she was this way and I loved her immensely, she was just INTENSE. Everything was under scrutiny all.the.time.

This is not what I wanted for family life! It still terrifies me! If God was going to bless me with a family my thought was to at all costs to stack the odds against this scenario.  So, 4 children it is.  If I were younger and more capable, perhaps we'd have a bigger family (imagine the reactions to that!) but 4 is all I can do! I try to remember daily that these are not my children but God's, and He has the final say. I try to have a life outside of children (surprising to some I imagine) so that my focus is not myopic. None of this a guarantee should the Lord take 3 of them home and my hubby along with them. Maybe I would become that person after all.

Even so, I see so much joy around my house that I can't help but feel like my cunning plan is reaping some rewards. My kids laugh more in one day together than I can ever remember doing at home unless there was company over with kids. Imagine that!  Sometimes I know I let them get a bit loud and carried away but I just find it so fantastic that I don't want it to stop.

Another only child syndrome I wanted to avoid was just plain aloneness.  I thought it would go away when I got to be "grown up" but actually I just got lonelier! As a kid my heart would want to burst when I was around friends' families and they were just plain old enjoying each other but I never was quite "in".  As I get older it's more wanting to have someone to call on when the chips are down or to talk to someone with a shared history, maybe even having a sibling who could be a friend.

I really hope my kids can be best friends as they go through life, at the very least I hope that because they are family, that each of them has a place to go on Christmas and that they will look out for each other. This is largely out of my control I realize but I'm hoping that barring everything else, they can share the burden of taking care of their aging parents waaaay down the road.

So that's the long answer, for anyone that wants to know. Occasionally someone says "better you than me", (right in front of my children) and I think "yes, you're absolutely right".


*I'm beginning to believe that whether we admit it or not everything we do is reactionary in one form or another.