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One month check-up

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My new baby turned five weeks last weekend and boy, does time fly or what? I am still getting the hang of surviving a six-kid family which may or may not explain the light blogging. Writing anything coherent is challenging on two three-hour stretches of sleep and the challenge is compounded by single handed typing: by the time the first half of the sentence is written, I cannot remember where the heck I was going with it. My days as a graduate student seem so far away and I can hardly believe I finished writing a whole thesis last summer. Today, I can barely keep on top of emails, to say nothing about birth announcements and thank you cards.

Many people think I’m brave to have such a large family. I think that “brave” is what people say when they don’t want to say “insane” in front of the children. I have been considered “brave” since my fourth child and I would be lying if I didn’t admit to questioning my sanity on a regular basis.

Recently, on a particularly hairy evening when my husband was away, the baby was fussy and the toddler was screaming his head off, I issued a teary “I quit this job!” to the world. The world didn’t accept my resignation and so here I am, as “brave” as ever, trying to juggle a modern life with three times the national average of children.

Over the last five weeks, I have developed a system of priorities deployed whenever the baby gives me a break. As soon as the baby settles down, I go through the list until she wakes up. The list goes a little like this: personal hygiene, prepare supper, tidy kitchen, fitness training and housework. I sometimes switch fitness and housework according to need: yesterday for instance, the bathrooms were so gross that Public Health would have closed the whole place down. As for fitness training, my rebel streak believes that a mother of six shouldn’t have to train to be fit… and so I sit on my extra 30 pounds trying to will it off my midsection. Last week, we were eating in a fancy restaurant and the waiter said: “Six children! And a seventh on the way…” To which my husband replied cheerfully “Oh, this is just leftover from the sixth” and I thought “Guys, a slow and painful death will be too good for you” and ordered the goat cheese crème brûlée to drown my sorrow. The baby sleeps so well in the jogging stroller that colic-avoidance and self-preservation should whip me back into the shape of my life by the summer. In the meantime, a brownie a day keeps the baby blues away.

That’s what I like to believe anyway.

Checking in from Planet 6

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Well, I’ve done it again! I have run the 40-week long race from gamete to infant for the sixth time. My little girl is now a week old and, as many will tell you, I can’t imagine life without her. As with previous deliveries and early postpartum periods, I am going through a roller-coaster of emotions – no doubt 90% hormonally-driven — and an uncontrollable urge to binge on carbohydrates and chocolate. Must. Stay. Awake.

Being a parent for the sixth time is a lot more fun than the first three. Sure, mild neglect of house chores tends to have bigger consequences faster. I am presently staring down a 1-foot high pile clean laundry that completely covers the surface of a king size bed. But my little bundle of joy is only happy when she is held. So there goes the laundry. And most of the meals. In fact, I am writing this post cradling baby in my left elbow so I can type with both hands. She is not the first newborn who will not put up with being put down. But I remember her siblings – particularly her oldest brother, now 11 – as fussy babies whereas I think this little one is pretty easy going… as long as I hold her. What 6 children have taught me is that the laundry will not have changed tomorrow but my little girl will. At this point, it is far more important for me to enjoy every minute with my newborn – her smell, her skin, her little noises, her little fingers, her hair – than take pride in having the best folded laundry in the neighborhood. In the mean time, my little girl learns that it’s okay to fall asleep, that someone will still be there when she wakes-up. And when I get overwhelmed and wonder if I will ever get anything done, I look at the big bodies that live in my house and am reminded how quickly the last 13 years have gone by. Before I know it, this little girl will be 13 and her biggest sister will be 26 and I will wonder where the days have gone.

I love the wisdom and perspective – and helping hands — that come with a large family. The more children I have, the more I truly enjoy and appreciate them. Now, to all the people who ask me if “six is it, are you finished?” I answer that with my first four children, I couldn’t imagine having one more. Since the fifth, I can’t imagine not. And whether or not my baby ends up being the last one – and she very well could be – I am thankful for the love she and her siblings have brought into my life. Because each child doesn’t take away from the love pie: it’s the pie that gets bigger.

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