What's it like having 8 kids?

Many people have asked me..."Whats it like having eight kids?" My answer always depends on my mood. Some times I reply with "I love it!" others it's "Busy!" Often I reply with "Exausting!" But that's just how being a mother is, isn't it? It's wonderful, amazing, busy, exausting, and fufilling. It's being lonely and, at the same time, desperate for your own space. It's wanting silence and then crying all day when the kids are away. I'ts never ever getting to go to the restroom alone and a life full of dishes and laundry.

But it's something much more. It's a million kisses and hugs. It's giggles and toothless grins. It's the pride you feel when you watch your child accomplish something that you've taught them. It's the joy in knowing that long after you are gone there will be someone (a part of you) living on.
You see, What I've learned most about having a lage family is that for double the work load of the "average" sized family we quadruple the joy.

Sure, there are times when I day dream about sending all of the older kids to school and the little ones off to preschool. But what would I actually gain? I might gain peace of mind temporarily but I would loose a million opportunities to show my children how much I love them. I would loose precious opportunities to teach them the values and morals that I want them to have in their adult lives. I would also loose those memories. I hardly think the memory of a perfectly clean bathroom is one that I would treasure over that of my 9-yr-old finally getting a math concept we'd been working on for 2 weeks. I know that I don't always do it right. But even if I fail 50 times out of 100 that's still 50 times that Ive suceeded in teaching them what they are supposed to know.

So here I sit at 9:30 at night with all of my children in bed. Rambling about my feelings about being a mother. Why? To be honest, I'm not even sure if any one will even read this...I don't do much reading of other people's bloggs. I'm just doing this as kind of an "addition" to my journaling. I want to leave behind the knowledge that I gain through out my life. Almost in hopes of helping another young mother, perhaps one day my own daughter.