Cleaning,cleaning, cleaning on the everlasting light...

"Her children will arise and call her blessed!"  Proverbs 31:28                

So I am trying to get the house in order for Thanksgiving company.  Not that anyone really cares if I have scrubbed the bottom of the toilet around the little bolt in that groove, but it makes me feel better!  I keep up with my house and cannot relax when it is dirty and cluttered.  I am learning to live with some of it (the alternative would be death!) and trying to not let it get me stressed.  I went through a severe post pardum depression that was on the brink of suicide and I ended up with a psychiatrist.  All of my prayers and scripture quoting was not enough to restore my serotonin levels to normal.  The psychiatrist told me that my expectations had not adjusted to my family size!  I try to remind myself of this when the little ones are spinning through the house like little tornadoes!  I suppose a lot of my issues with cleaning stress comes from my childhood.  I came from pack-rat clutterers that expected ME to clean everything.  Hmmm...here I am 25 years later still doing all the cleaning and feeling that same stress I did as a child.  Some inner healing and prayer counseling is definitely in order!  I have to forgive my parents regularly for my judgements toward them and repent for my blame. 

Nevertheless, I am a mom of 7 kids and an elderly grandmother so cleaning is a major part of my life.  I do have chore assignments, but that in itself is a chore!  I need a foreman (woman)!  That would make life so much easier and more organized, but I live in the "real world". 

Today's work started in the kitchen and I had planned on doing floors.  Kelly will be coming with her seven children (yes, I have a friend with seven children) and Elizabeth will be here too.  I figured I would clean up the boys' room since there is a large play area in there and that would reduce chaos in the rest of the house.  While I was cleaning the kitchen, I sent Jake and Sarah to play in the play area.  You would think they'd play with the billions of toys in that room, but NOOOOOOO...they had to climb to the top of the book case and pull down all the games and books (about 75-100) and scatter them across the room.  This set me back an hour and a half.  I decided that we will eat from the tables and not worry about scrubbing the floors!

In the mean time, I remind myself that they will all grow up one day and leave home.  While I will have the opportunity to use this time to keep my house just as clean as I can get it and have it stay that way, I have this feeling that I will long for the days when my kids were climbing the walls and leaving hand prints all over them!  Then, the quest for grandchildren...

                                One of the games we found!                
                                                                                                    

                                            "Is your chore done?"

                                          "Yes Maam!"

They mean well...Don't they?

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and  multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:  Genesis 1:28

According to the above scripture ^, I am blessed!!!  The intention of this blog is not to tell my life story and how I got here, but rather to share the joys, hardships and outtakes of being the mother of seven children.  I hear comments ranging from "I can't imagine!" to "I completely understand!  The other day my dog..."  I've been told I'm crazy and the most famous phrase "You know what causes that, don't you?"  I'm often asked in the grocery store, "Are they all yours?" which reminded me of when Lori Apon gave her response to that question, "No, I get up early in the morning and go around the neighborhood gathering up children to take to the grocery store!"

I am still getting used to the fact that people feel that since you have a lot of children, they have a free pass to discuss your sex life as if you are some sort of nympho couple.  I suppose this is because they automatically rule out that we are Mormon or Mennonite based upon my nose ring and tattoo!  I'm thinking of writing a book of good comebacks to stupid comments.  I have thought of beating them to the punch and saying, "You only have two children?  Marriage counseling might help!"  but that would break the golden rule!

At the core of our family is Jesus and we try to keep focused on God's plan for our family and ourselves as individuals.  Not having been raised in Christian homes ourselves, raising our family according to the Word of God is new to us each day.  Like every family, each day comes with some new challenge as a parent and a wife/husband.  We have four older children: Ayana-14, Emily-11, Samuel (Sam)-9, Nathan-7 and then there is Jacob-3, Sarah-2, and Janine (Maddie)-almost 1 year!  The older four brought different challenges than the younger three.  The younger kids have been Kryptonite to my parenting skills.  I am still searching for the ones that came with these little darlings!  Somehow, I missed the meeting on raising three small children back to back in a large family. Now, with my 86 year old grandmother, that has had a stroke, joining our family, I have more on my plate than I ever thought I could manage. 

I pray this blog brings you joy,laughter, good experiences, better experiences and an appreciation for large family life!  Stay tuned, so much more to come!