large family "one-liners"

OK, I must be in the mood for "lists." I am following up yesterday's list of 20 historical events that have happened since the Cubs last won a world series with a list of one-liners that having a large family produce from the public.

Where does this thought come from, you may be asking (or not)! By the way, let me just say here, I like to humor myself and really believe that people enjoy reading my thoughts. So when I say things like "you might be asking, you might be wondering, for all of those interested, etc", it is my way of building up my low blogging self esteem. So leave me a lone and let me do it. OK, back to my blog. As I was saying, because all of you were curious (he he he), this list is a product of a conversation that I had with a co worker this morning. Here is how the conversation went.

Co worker: "Hey Red. I heard you have like 10 kids."
Me: "Ha." "No not 10, just 5 with one on the way."

Co worker: "You know what causes that, don't you?"
Me: (sarcastically, b/c i love this question) "Nope, actually I can't figure it out. My wife pops up pregnant about every 10 months and quite frankly, it is scaring the crap out of me. Any suggestions?"

Co worker: "Yeah....get neutered."
Me: "HA"

Co worker: (obviously realizing my sarcasm) "Seriously, are you Mormon?"

I have never been asked that one before. Between my wife and I, we have heard some interesting comments re: our family, but this was a first. Am I Mormon? That is funny!

The conversation went on for a bit longer and I will spare you the part where I really tried to freak him out and dropped the God card on him and said, "it is really up to God how many children we have." You should have seen his face. He was back peddling and I was all over him like one of Jesus' ninjas at this point. Just kidding, obviously. But this was a very real conversation that got me thinking about all of the comments we have heard and some I have heard from other families regarding their larger families.

I am interested to hear from my Cousin, Cyndi, who has 9 kids. So here goes it:

One-liners that a large family produce from others:

1. Are they all yours? (probably the most common)

2. You know what causes that don't you? (this begs for a "here's your sign" response, which is what I should have said to my co worker)

3. This is not per se a comment, but you see people counting your children (either out loud or by using their finger) when you are out in public.

4. You have your hands full. (My wife loves this one)

5. I have actually been asked, "What do you do for a living?" (My wife says people ask her all the time, what does your husband do)

6. How do you do it? (I sometimes want to respond to this one by saying, we don't. We have actually been admitted to a mental institution and we are out on our weekend visits with our kids.)

7. Do you have a Nanny? (Are you kidding me? It is enough to afford all of these kids and the stuff that goes along with them. How could we afford to pay a full time Nanny?)

8. My wife gets asked (since we only have one boy) "do you hope it is another boy?" (I sometimes want to say, nah, just a healthy baby will do fine).

9. I am glad it's you and not me! (hmmm....Me too with that comment)

10. Since my wife is pregnant, this one is common also: "Are you going to get your tubes tied, fixed, or some variation of the sort. Or is this it?" (Why should we get fixed? Nothing is broken from our standpoint)

11. You must never have time for yourself.

12. You just don't see large families this day in time.

13. How many do you think you will have?

14. You must have a lot of patience.

15 And finally, the newest on the list: "Are you Mormon?"


I could keep going here, but I will stop at 15. As I look back over this list, I am realizing that I have kind of with my responses made them seem negative. Sometimes they are, but not all responses are negative. I just want to go on record and say that. You can tell when someone is responding to the size of your family in a negative way. We just laugh about it now. Actually, we try to come up with creative ways to respond. It is a fun hobby for us now.

Big families rock. I was an only child growing up and my wife was 1 of 3. So neither of us had a larger family experience as a child. We just are open to what God wants for our lives and that's that. The door of adopting opened up for us a few years of go and we felt led by God to go that route. It has been an awesome experience. Maybe, we along with other large families (which seem to be the minority) can bring large families back in style. Kind of like bell bottoms (in style, out of style, back in style). The same thing can be said of large families. At least in our opinion.

Stay tuned for my next blog which will be a "list" of things that change when you have a large family. I am still thinking that one up.

Happy Friday to you all!