My wife and I have always wanted a daughter. We’ve thought about trying to have one in the not too distant future. However, what happens during the next two weeks could change those plans.
You see, we have house guests.
My sister-in-law arrived tonight with her four daughters, aged two to nine. Yes, FOUR DAUGHTERS. And they are staying for two weeks.
TWO WEEKS: 14 days. 336 hours. 20,160 minutes. Not that I’m counting.
They arrived at about 8:20 p.m. as my son and I were just winding down. My wife was not yet home from going out with a friend. I opened the door and four little girls burst past me and descended on my son and his toys like deranged howler monkeys with a day pass from the zoo.
Note: My sister-in-law occasionally reads this blog, so I can imagine at some point, I will have to explain that no, in fact, I do not think her children are howler monkeys.
As the girls played with E’s toys and chased our cats around the living room, my son stared at them, smiling, but not quite sure what to make of them. It was kind of the way he looks at animals he’s never seen before.
Who are these girls?
The last time he saw his extended family, he was an infant, so the children are all strangers to him. And what’s stranger to a boy (or any male, for that matter) than hyper little girls?
Within 25 minutes, my living room looked like a toy bomb had detonated during rush hour at Fisher Price‘s Little People Village.
Soon, the kids were alternately playing, laughing, jumping, screaming, crying and making all sorts of noise with enough raw energy to power a small suburb.
My son is hyper enough on his own to tire me out in an hour. Add four girls to the mix and… holy crap!
I know a lot of mommy and daddy bloggers read this blog and that a good number of you have several kids. All I can ask is -
ARE YOU INSANE?!
I’ve never been good with rooms packed full of people. I’m even worse when those people are all roughly three feet tall and screaming incoherently as they run around in circles then fall to the ground laughing and/or crying.
Once my wife got home, I fled to the safety of my office to get some work done (i.e., watch the Orlando Magic/ L.A. Lakers Game Three Playoff).
I’ll probably be spending a lot of time in my office during the next two weeks. Or popping Tylenols like Tic-Tac’s.
The next 14 days should be very interesting – for readers, anyway. Remember, the motto here at BloggerDad.com is My Discomfort = Your Entertainment.
Who knows? Maybe, I’ll grow to like the idea of having a large family. At the very least, the experience will make for some entertaining blog posts.
Perhaps the series will make up Chapters 1-4 of my next book, Why Daddy Got a Vasectomy.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
God be with you… I’ve had birthday parties at home for my daughter. You may soon be at the “Kill me now!” stage. But be patient; it’s all worth it when you see them snuggling and cuddling each other on a sofa. I love coming here, Dave, not just because I start my day laughing, but because you make me feel good about having tweenagers!
What’s really insane is when you start deliberately inviting kids over, either because your kids like them or because you like the parents. “Oh, your kids are the same age as my kids; why don’t you come for a coffee and bring them over.” It gets a bit awkward next time when what you really want to say is “Come over for a coffee; leave the kids with someone. We haven’t had the insurance money through yet.”
One thing I found really difficult when mine were small was the reaction I got when I asked other people’s kids to follow our house rules or asked other parents to “..have a wee word with” their kids. I could never understand those parents who just smiled, shook their heads indulgently and said “Kids, eh…?” as their wee angels trashed things deliberately or tried to hurt my kids. I used to dream of that scene from The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, where Rebecca de Mornay ‘has a wee word with’ the bully.
janices last blog post..Skin Deep
I will be praying for your soul.
And a speedy recovery from that vasectomy. heh.
This post does not impress me. I once flew on my own from Ireland to the US with 3 kids ages 4, 3 and 1 on a plane filled with Brazilian 6th graders and survived sanity almost entirely intact.
You’ll be fine! In the meantime, just do what I do and every day take one kid at a time to the coffee shop or something so that you can have some one on one time with them. It’s very important to kids, you know! And mine are all angels when I take them out alone because it’s a huge treat. It’s great because I get to have all these neat conversations with the one I take and he doesn’t have to compete with a gang of boys for attention.
Tracy O’Connors last blog post..People who need pupa are the pluckiest people
I laughed and laughed while reading this because I identified so well with it – except the girl thing: I have all boys.
Our house is always full of kids: the neighbors ride their bikes over unexpectedly to play Wii or World of Warcraft (of course kicking me off my computer and, thus, my Death Knight which I have been trying to level up for what feels like months now); friends and friends of my boys come to stay unexpectedly (during the summer this could mean for multiple days); or cousins show up with oodles of kids just to say hi.
But, it is a lovely insanity. The hustle and bustle of kids running and playing, rifling through the fridge, laughing, wrestling and arguing are like a wondrous, cacophonous symphony that makes my home feel so much more like a home.
Conclusion: yes, I am insane! But, I revel in, bathe in, relish that insanity because in this case it is what I live for.
Mr. Nuggetss last blog post..My Son, My Hero
Tracy: I’m impressed.
Dave: Dude, I’ve been alone in a room with twelve – all under 5 – many a time, but I’ve never had to deal with a four to one ratio girl to boy. I can hear almost hear the east coast squealing all the way out here on the west.
The more miserable you are, the more we will laugh. It’s a fantastic formula.
Tracy’s right, it’s a great idea to pull them out one by one for alone time. You’ll get a break from the insanity AND look like a hero. 1 + 1 = like ten or so in that scenario.
14 days, best of luck my man.
Writer Dads last blog post..Children Write the Future Writing Contest
Dave,
You need to find out if any of those nieces can write. If each one does a guest blog post, you could take a full month off. Turn the howler monkeys into copywriter cubs. That’s the ticket.
Just try to remember that it is not because they are GIRLS, that was because they had been trapped while traveling. All kids have to burn off energy after that.
Jennifers last blog post..Let’s get crafty Baby
You bloody great pansy. Get with it soft boy and start wearing the trousers you were issued with when your voice broke. Be a man, Jack. What sort of example are you setting for your son by locking yourself away but not before feeding him to his cousins?
My two girls had their cousin here yesterday. All three of the girls are around the same age and have a riotous time. At one point the three came into the room together and I suggested to my sister-in-law that all they were missing was a cauldron.
I’m not too sure it went down all that well, especially as I’ve made the same joke when my sister-in-law, my wife and their mother are sitting together.
Dave Fowlers last blog post..I can’t blab such blibber blubber! June 2009
Yup – I’ve no clue how parents do it either. We have two boys (under the age of two) and it’s total bedlam. I would have loved to have had a girl but there’s literally NO WAY I’m having another child. Vasectomy is very possibly on the cards here.
Lady Mamas last blog post..The strange incident of the body in the road and the impatient soccer mom
The most fun I had with children was flying 18 hours on a jet with 4 other adults with 6 babies, 4 toddlers and 6 3 year olds. My Mother, God bless her was an angel on the flight – no English spoken by any of the children. We taught kids how to tie their shoes, how to say Mama, Daddy and their new siblings names (from their new family books) we took care of tears and hyper, hyper activity….The worst guests on the plane were the drunken, realators who were headed to a convention in Seattle and they would not sit down, follow directions, or stop smoking….they also made a mess of the bathrooms….the children were terrified of them as were the stewards and stewardesses…
IT will be okay and you will survive….and I am sure we will benefit in the humor…
Patricias last blog post..There’s a place For Me
had the same experience a couple of weeks ago. my wife’s aunts and their 3 girls and other people who are total strangers stayed on our house for three days! darn, i have never felt the word “overcrowded” in my life! and guess what happened? my wife who was at that time 8 months pregnant gave birth 3 weeks earlier than scheduled.
i guess, the last chapter in your book is something that i would want to adopt too eh, ehehhe
elmots last blog post..Dont’ Vote on May 2010!!! No To Con-A** Holes!
Good luck with that. I think having even 1 house guest for two weeks would be challenging.
Ds last blog post..Inspiration in the strangest of places
Too funny. I have to show my husband this post. We have three girls, so he’s really outnumbered at home. What makes all of our busy, talkative girls seem even more “other” is that they’re all blond, even though my husband and I have dark hair. Sometimes I find myself studying them like they’re creatures I’ve never before encountered.
I will say, though, that once you get used to parenting one gender, the other seems like a complete mystery. When my husband and I decided he should get a vasectomy, it was mostly for the usual reasons—we feel like our family is big enough. But there was a side reason: If I got pregnant, we could end up with a boy. And that would be strange.
On a slightly different note, two weeks with five house guests is probably more insane than having four kids!
Kristin T. (@kt_writes)s last blog post..Jesus scrapes wallpaper, too
I hate to laugh at your discomfort, but, I did. I do hope the days offer less post opps than you predict. I was lucky enough to have one of each, and had no desire to let the adults become outnumbered here. Remember to tread lightly on the floor, a tiara, tramped on, can cause trouble…
OMG!! we have only one daughter (so far) and already she is fully capable of driving us crazy. I can’t even begin to imagine how it would be with four girls.
a father’s diarys last blog post..Stranger Anxiety
I have survived like six kids in my care, but only for five hours. I reckon I aged about five months, so, by my quick math, you should be about 300 in two weeks time.
SingleParentDads last blog post..My Son is a Compost Heap
Weenie.
At typical family gatherings, we’ve got our 7 girls, one son-in-law, my parents, my bro, his wife, their 4 kids, my other brother, his wife and their 5 kids, my other brother, and my sister with her hubby and 3 kids. And sometimes, my sis-in-law’s family shows up– 3 extra kids, and 5 extra kid cousins.
5 kids is NOTHING.
GreenJellos last blog post..Random Tuesday Thoughts