More Kids Than Adults: Lessons Learned

I haven’t been home for a full week.

Seven days.

Seven nights.

It’s July.

And in our framily July means one thing.

The annual July Fourth party.

A tradition at least twenty years in the making.

And – oh boy – will I have a lot of things to say about this past week.

Here’s the first . . .

Lots of us slept at the farm house.

The grand total was something like this – 5 adults.  9 kids.  (And some days held more children drifting in and out.)

The point is – the adults were outnumbered.

The kids could have thrown a coup and forced us to feed them brownies for dinner and cupcakes for breakfast.

But they didn’t.

They apparently were not that well organized this year.  (But it is something we might want to be on the look out for as they seem to be growing more intelligent each year.)

Anyway.

We adults did learn a few things from living for a week with so many small humans.

And here’s what we learned from staying in a house filled with more kids than adults.

1.  You are always out of bread.  And milk.

2.  Someone is constantly stepping on toy blocks, mini tanks and crayons.

3.  There is an inordinate amount of noise.  All the time.

4.  Cameras are always flashing.  It’s like these kids had their own paparazzi.

5.  Sleeping in is unacceptable.

6.  Some child is always screaming (see Number 3.)  either in laughter or in pain or in anger or in terror or what have you.  Like when one kid did not want to apologize for stealing a gumball.  Or when one was stung by a bee.  Or when one wanted to have her shoes tied.  Or when one didn’t want to leave the lake.  Or when one could not sit beside Colton at the dinner table.  Or when one was being terrorized by Beckett’s growling.  Or Otto’s glares.  Or when one child was tired of consuming bananas.  Or when the television was turned off.  Or when one little girl couldn’t go on a gator ride.  Or when one was not allowed outside.  Or when one child was not given permission to stand on a chair beside the butcher block while an adult was wielding a sharp knife that could have potentially cut off her small appendages.  Or when one child’s cup did not have his name written on it like every other child’s.  Or when the playground was off limits for two days due to a wasp infestation.  Or when one child was pointing a loaded water bottle at another child.  Or when Papa Dale forgot to make homemade ice cream for the party.  (Oh wait – that was me crying.)  Or when one kid’s pizza featured sauce, a usually standard topping at most pizza joints.  Or when Papa Dale jokingly smeared ketchup on one child’s face after that same child flipped Papa Dale’s ketchup up his arm and on the floor with most of his meal.  Or when a child’s finger was caught in the gate.  Or a baby’s leg was trapped in a crib slat.  Or when a one month old baby was hungry for his routine feeding.  Or when the wind was blowing.  Or when the grass was growing.  Or when it was dark outside.  Or light.  Or sunny.

7.  Upon entering the bathroom you are not repulsed to see gobs of excrement and wads of toilet paper unflushed and floating in the toilet.  You are not even all that disgusted when you see loads of excrement and NO toilet paper (which should probably be worse.)

8.  At Dairy Queen the kids six and under take up an entire table of their own.  At which one kid may be drinking ketchup as if it is his beverage of choice.  And maybe when seven kids begin eating ice cream cones for dessert and Piper and Beckett were the last ones to finish their cones, the table divided up and made a quick bet to see which two-year-old could cram their cone in fastest.  London and Bergen placed their bets on Beck while Cole and Emma wagered on Piper for victory.  (Hey, where was that other kid anyway?  Oh yeah – Mosely?  I don’t know.  Maybe getting napkins or something.  Or serving up another round of ketchup for Colton.)  Anyway, as the toddlers licked and bit their way through more ice cream than their small bodies actually needed, London whispered encouraging words to her contender – “Look alive, Beck.  Look alive!”

9.  While enjoying a dinner of (oh, who can remember what we were eating?) Beckett walks through the kitchen and it’s pretty easy to notice that he is soaking wet in his nether regions.  As Sally was calmly pointing this fact out and as Beck began walking like a little cow poke coming in from a rough day of riding, some object fell out of his pants.  It wasn’t a surprise to me what that object was.  Hey, I’ve been at this rodeo before.  Yes.  It was poop.  On the floor.  In the kitchen.  And no one really even leaped up to do anything.  At least not right away.  Mostly we just laughed.  And pointed.  (Securing Beckett’s future sense of self-confidence.)  Even the other kids got up to cautiously investigate the pile.  Of human poop.  On the kitchen floor.  While we were eating dinner.

Trust me – that is just a sprinkling of the knowledge base we amassed after so many days spent together.

I bet you can hardly wait to hear more – eh?