This weekend I had eight children at my home for the afternoon and evening.  They played intense and well-orchestrated games of a Nerf gun version of Capture the Flag.  I took them out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants in town.  Those magical kind of lights hung across the restaurant’s deck, live music was playing, a bubble machine was going wild for all the younger guests’ entertainment.  (And mine too, actually.)

The weather was dreamy.  The night clear.  The stars bright.

Afterwards those same eight kids and I bounced on over to a giant field of freshly plowed dirt with a series of white metal gates joined together to form a corral and bulls and horses lined up ready for an evening of classic American entertainment as grown men risked their bodies for eight seconds worth of maintaining their balance on the back of a bucking bull.

(Two of my brothers used to ride bulls.  I can’t even believe it sometimes myself.)

The kids all fell asleep in a satisfied pile of humanity and the next morning I fixed grits and bacon and sausage and eggs and basically created a country diner at my dining room table.

After lunch a friend stopped over to borrow some camping gear and left one more boy at our house to join the rescheduled Nerf warfare happening in the yard.

At church, an extra friend slid over to our row and joined us while his mom volunteered in the nursery.  After church another friend needed a ride home and so we tossed him in the car too.

And even though all of that (just the two days really) sounds full of kids not my own mixed in with kids my own, it really was nothing particularly out of the ordinary.  It’s what my life looks like right now in this season.  And I don’t hate it.

I’m not bothered by excess noise (generally speaking) and feeding a handful of extra mouths at the dinner table no longer concerns me in the least.

In fact, I like it all.  

I like the laughter from the hall and the kids climbing trees and attempting to walk across the slack line between the two trees and the rope swings always being occupied.  I like the pretend games of “store” as the girls post sticky notes on everything in the library because apparently it is all for sale with imaginary cash and imaginary credit cards and it’ll be days later and the note that says “Blankets $10” will still be resting on the top of the stack of blankets before any of us think of moving it, even though the game ended over the weekend.

When there was a Time Before Children Existed (that was a real time, wasn’t it?) I occasionally would imagine such thoughts as – How I Picture My Life With Children.

(Now, in full disclosure, there also existed a Time I Never Thought I Wanted Any Children At All.  Funny how life (and love) shifts and shapes you, isn’t it?  How it moves you all around and slides you through time and space until you land directly where you are and you can say it’s directly where you are supposed to be even when you aren’t entirely certain of the truth of that saying but you are where you are so in some ways you are incapable of denying a bit of the truth of that sentiment.  And, anyway, time has had such a way with you that you have a difficult time remembering much of what you thought when you were thinking those thoughts at all.)

Now, back to the time of which I was originally thinking. (If I haven’t lost you entirely by this point.  My thoughts are not so linear tonight.)

When I thought of How I Picture My Life With Children I envisioned a house where kids wanted to be.  Where kids felt free to welcome their friends and free to be comfortable and free to be themselves.  I’ll never own a white sofa or have light colored carpets.  I don’t want to hold it against any kid when their inevitably muddy foot wrecks something.  I want a yard with zip lines and rope swings, soccer goals and bicycles.  I want woods to play in and a field to kick a ball in.  I want a house where kids know it’s alright to grab a glass from the cabinet and pour themselves a cup of cold water.

I love the friends my kids have.  I love the moms and the dads attached to those kids.

When I think about How I Pictured My Life With Children I naturally hoped and assumed some things would be true:

There would be kids hanging out together a lot.
Our yard would be full of fun and kid friendly items – like giant Jenga and rope swings.
A dad would be living in the house and sharing this with us all.
Animals would play a significant role.
Kids would spend time exploring woods and building camp fires.
A “yes” attitude would exist when it comes to inviting people over.

I didn’t hit the entire list, obviously.

But this weekend was a pretty sweet reminder that I am meeting an awful lot of the hopes and assumptions Younger Lacey had for How I Picture My Life With Children.

I’d say, like so many other aspects of my life, that – for now – the good parts I’m marking off the list outweigh the bad parts I can’t check off the list.

And I’m okay (today) with calling that Enough.

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