The pros and cons of having four small children – the abridged version (and, yes, there’s a few pros)

I’ll start with the cons, just because I’d like to end on a positive note.

The Cons:

• It’s almost Twilight Zonish… my house is like the original Woodstock…for germs. But the party NEVER ends. Someone. Is. Always. Sick.
• Bubble baths. Manicures. Counting blue cars… all a thing of the past. (And yet I find time to blog about it, I know.)
• Once upon a time, Taco Bell was a weekly staple in my household. Now it’s things like Cheerios and mashed peas for the babies. And because Taco Bell could be construed as unhealthy in some circles, I have to actually make real meals for the older kids.
• And speaking of Cheerios. They’re worse than the germs at spreading and multiplying and showing up everywhere – inside my shoes, my purse… and nothin’ beats a crumbly mess of ‘em between your toes in bed. (This is a direct result of having four kids because you don't have enough eyes to watch them all as they sneakily hide those Cheerios as though they were Easter eggs.)
• Laundry. It’s like a seeping, oozing sore that doesn’t want to heal.
• Adult movies are also a thing of the past. I’m not even talking about the kind that involve Xs. No, just your regular ol’ Rated R, or even PG-13. Because even if the husband and I have an evening weekend to ourselves and a rented movie to stick into the DVD player (theater schmeater... YOU try finding a sitter for four small children), we have a hard time staying awake to find out if the butler did it.
• I come from a large family, so cooking for four kids isn’t a problem. The PROBLEM is eating my food warm, because someone is always needing more milk or a slice of bread or a napkin or a second helping or just to see a grown woman cry.
  
  
  The Pros:
  
• I’m not the first to say this, but having two children is probably harder than four. Because once you pass two, the older ones are no longer your children. They’re the help.
• You no longer have to be Entertainer Extraordinaire, like you did when you were a mother of two. There are usually enough imaginations floating around to fill the average high school football stadium. (Although this sometimes becomes a con, for example when they use those imaginations to scheme a coup d'etat.)
• No more time for the games that people play, unless it involves a ball, some dice or a 22-month-old singing, “Ashy, Ashy, we all fall down!”
• The days of lame excuses are gone. Now what I have are lame EXPLANATIONS. “I couldn’t attend the office party because we needed to finish up Antonia’s science fair project, and I have to make sandwiches for the school’s Fall Festival, and clean my house because I was stupid enough to allow a slumber party to be scheduled with only three-days notice and then there’s Jonah’s soccer uniform needing to be washed and, oh, did I mention the baby has croup???” I see this as a pro.
• If it weren’t for TV and novels and a few choice egomaniacs, I would have already forgotten the meaning of words like “lonely and “bored” and “melodramatic.” So, actually, what I’ve forgotten is what those words FEEL like.
  (But then again, I have forgotten what the words LONELY and BORED and MELODRAMATIC FEEL like!!)
• The “serious” writer I was ten years ago, has developed a serious sense of humor. Not only that but I have enough writing material that I’d need three more lifetimes to record it all. This is good, right?
• I’ve become quite good at things I wasn’t good at before. Multitasking. Eating with my right hand because my left hand is busy. Mending socks (some people still do that sort of thing). And sidewalk chalk art.
  
  And speaking of multitasking, I must go do that. (Sadly, blogging is one of those things that demands my full attention.) I need to feed the germ-infested people with my left hand, while feeding my own mouth with my right. Meanwhile I’ll explain (with a very straight face) to my five-year-old that when you give someone a “flap-flap” it’s still The Bird.