It's All for the Blog!

My family seems to think they are my agents. No, not just a few of them, ALL of them! Daily I have "suggestions" on blog posts. Daily, I think how in the world would I work that into the blog, let alone make it more than a one liner? Then again, every once in awhile someone says or does something regarding the blog and I think "BRILLIANT! I am SO using that!!" and as you might have guessed this whole post is going to be just that.

When you have six kids, you do things different. You have to in order to survive out there in the trenches of parenthood. Most of what we do is not because we've analyzed and researched some phenomenal parenting method sure to produce happy, functioning, contributing adults. Instead, it is pretty much the game of survivor. "outwit, outlast, outplay" could be the title of a parenting book that I could author on any given day, and I think I am going to embrace it as my own personal style of parenting. When the question pops up "how do you discipline your kids?" My new answer is going to be "Well, we just outwit, outlast and outplay our children.....how about you?". When I say we do things different, I mean most of the things we do are different. We are still bathing our children (although I do take advantage of the showers at the pool or beach when we are done swimming so I don't have 6 kids fighting over hot water), we still have bedtimes (except mine are probably much earlier than yours just because I am worn out much quicker), we still have the kids in sports (but maybe they are not in their first choice because I just can't watch 24 years of the same sport), and we wear clean matching clothes (I just have to be sure I get 3 loads a day done or we might be wearing our undies inside out)....see? We do some of what the rest of the worlds parents do, we just "adapt" accordingly.

This is true for sleep overs too. When we have one extra child spending the night we just go ahead and have everyone invite a friend. It sounds crazy and loud and sleepless...... and. it. is! Although, I've learned to dread the "sleep over" I can't imagine doing it any other way. If we let one at a time have a friend sleep over we'd be doing it for 6 consecutive weeks and by the time the last kid had a friend, we'd be starting the whole cycle over again.......I really don't like other peoples kids that much! REALLY! If they are over 2 years old and I'm not the boss of them, I pretty much don't want them around. So low and behold, we end up with 12 kids in our house about once every couple of months where we can do it up good! The kids can get out games eat lots of candy and stay up late and eat pizza and have donuts for breakfast and get loud and not have sleep and cry over someone looking at them the whole next day! It's a blast, let me tell ya!

Guess what we did this weekend? What? Am I that predictable?

Saturday night we had 11 kids to be responsible for. Only 6 we really liked, but 11 we were in charge of! (I know the math doesn't add up because one of my daughters couldn't invite someone. Because this not-to-be-mentioned kid has had a problem with following the rules and when she gets caught disobeying and in turn gets in trouble she's been peeing. Peeing on things....peeing on lots of things....like anything she can reach her booty over to pee on. So, when it came to inviting friends she didn't have the choice; for obvious reasons. Which I'm sure she has hidden pee somewhere for me to find because she was so mad about that decision. This is clearly not my oldest child, and it's not my boys because they are not my daughters and it's not either of my middle daughters either...but I'm not going to mention WHO it might be that didn't get a friend because how embarrassing for her right? Oh dear, back to blog post....) So, we have this house full of kids, who have lots of energy because they've been about to burst with excitement for days over friends coming and now they are finally here so they can let out this energy. We made personal pizzas on pitas and the kids were scattered all over the place when I decide somehow we've got to wear them out! It's like 7 p.m. and I'm already so tired it's disturbing, and yet, these kids are bouncing off the walls! So I suggest they race. I know "Hunt's" will present in this challenge well because my girl Grays has some skills!

The kids jump on board because the unsuspecting friends think they can beat my girl! I know better than this but I'm just glad to get them sprinting. I want them spread out too, it's not going to be tiring enough to just have them race across the yard a few times, so I have them running from our yard through 3 neighbors yards where Emma is standing as the "finish line". Now, two of the neighbors houses are vacant because they are new builds and aren't yet complete but the last house across has just recently been moved into. We've not yet met the neighbors but no one has fences so it's the perfect place to race....or so we thought! After a few rounds of racing and Josh and I sitting on the back porch so pleased with our energy burning idea Emma brings the finish line one house closer. I holler to her and say "Emma, move back" and she proceeds to tell me "No, the neighbor just yelled at me to stay off their property!" WHAT? The kids can't even run in their grass barefoot? I looked at Josh with my mouth hanging open and said "welcome to the neighborhood, new neighbors" Seriously? I find this really bizarre! They don't have gardens or shrubs or anything but big trees and grass. How in the world would these 11 little kids hurt their grass? I was a bit irritated at the whole issue and found it totally frustrating that seeing us out there they chose to yell at my child instead of coming over and talking to me about whatever issue they had. Instead of marching over there, handing them a beer and telling them to relax I just told the kids to run the same length we had originally planned, just outside their grass on the common area surrounding the pond. Good compromise right? WRONG AGAIN!!!! Now, the husband came to the window and yells out to "get off his property!" and here's where I am so proud of my girl who will not be bullied she answered by (respectfully) saying "Sir, this is the neighborhood property. We are off your grass. (looked back at next racers and yells) GO!" The man proceeded to yell at her from his window to stay out of his yard, and that he would be calling security!!! Yes, he really said that! Josh and I sat on our porch hysterically laughing at what he might tell security when he made the call "ummm...their are neighbor kids playing in the common area" or "These kids are laughing so loud and having so much fun they are disrupting my bad mood". Clearly, we didn't let the kids hear us cracking jokes, but I certainly was not going to make them move their races elsewhere either. There is a good 10 feet of common area behind this particular home that then backs to a pond where people fish all the time. Is he going to kick them out too? C'mon people! I don't know much about Southern hospitality, but I do know these people are probably not from around here!

When the races ended (yes, my girl smoked everyone of those kids) Emma came to talk to us. We got the whole scoop of what our new neighbors said. They told her what we had heard and then she said "when I responded the wife asked 'was that the child or the mother who responded to you that way?' " Funny, how that question even had to be brought up, as if a child can't state to an adult what they know is right. Funny, that seeing us out there they knew they had no right to kick the kids off the common area but thought they could intimidate a child to move. To be quite honest with you, I have no problem with my girl having enough confidence to stand up for what she knows is right. She doesn't need me to fight her battles or to confront a situation head on. When someone is irrational, whether they are an adult or not, I expect my kids to stand firm on what they know is right. I expect them to be polite and respectful, but I expect them also to be socially savvy enough to not come running to me when they have an issue. Obviously, when it went a step further and security did show up I stepped in and took over. (the security guard had a good laugh over the "suspects" since he was told that a "bunch of teenagers" were circling this house....hahaha!). Clearly, security told the man the same thing Emma had, that as long as they got off his property and were just on the common area he would just have to relax. When security left and we finished getting the scoop from Emma, Josh and I told her that she handled it well by letting them know she respected their request to stay off their property but that they would continue to race on the common area. We acknowledged that at 12 years old that could have been a little intimidating and that's when she said "oh, I just was thinking I was giving mom some good blog material!" ....hahahaha! YES, you did. Thanks for the suggestion Emma!

I'm still not convinced I will take all the suggestions for blog posts, but this one just had to be shared!