Big Families...

I don't know... I never really considered us a "big family."  Extended-wise, yes.  Nuclear... not so much.  I have four children.  Thirty years ago, that was pretty normal.  Now... people think we're nuts!  The perfect family, in this day and age, seems to be one boy, one girl.  If you are lucky enough to get both on the first two tries, then anything additional is just masochistic.  Or so it seems.

Anyway, because I love sharing photos... here are my four babies this month.  And yes, I do have a husband.  He doesn't often factor in my photos. But he will.  It's coming.  We're getting a family photo done this year, whether Cory wants to or not!  My Christmas card will have my husband in it, too... promise!  :)  

But I digress...

True story:

My boys stay up too late.

Way too late!

They go to bed around 8:30, a socially acceptable bedtime for children who have school the next day.  But I'll admit, even that's pretty loose... sometimes I don't even get dinner on the table until then.  And then I spend the next two hours going back and forth from the living room to their bedroom telling them to stop talking and go to sleep - because for some reason, when the lights go out, suddenly the boys become the best of buds!  Meaning that our mornings are epic grumpfests.  Yet, they keep on talking and talking into the wee hours of the night.  Making it very difficult for Cory and I to have any kind of adult time together...  you know, to watch HBO without being overheard!

Last night, around 10pm - way too late for other people's normal children with normal bedtimes, I went in to the boys' bedroom to tell them to stop talking and GO TO SLEEP.  In the dark, lit only by the hallway light, Connor was up on the top bunk lying next to Alex, reading to Alex from a Garfield comic book.  Alex was helping him sound out the hard words.  You could see how proud Connor was of his ability to read and how happy he was that Alex was "teaching" him how, and how excited Alex was that his brother was actually reading to him.

My heart overflowing with mushy, maternal pride, I turned the lights on and  and them stay up for another 15 minutes.

How could I not?

And that, dear readers, is why when people ask me, "Four kids, you do know how that happens, don't you?" I say, "Yes, we do, we have the perfect family, two brothers, two sisters.  Couldn't have planned it better if we tried!"

I'm very happy that our children have siblings!