22 Big Family Facts

 1.   Parents are not obligated to use correct names. 
Children must accept this and make assumptions about who is needed.    

2. Somebody's always streaking naked,
which is fine 'cause ain't nobody got time for modesty.

3. Grocery runs are mini marathons.  Costco trips? 
Olympic events with pizza slices as medals for those who finish.

4.  Somebody needs a band-aid.

5. Nobody bathes alone, except momma. (Hear that lock turning?)

6.  Sharing.  (Ah, sharing.) 
The littles are becoming masters, but not without some battle scars.    

7. There is a toilet that needs to be flushed.
(If I see you making your way to our bathroom during a visit,
pardon me if I knock ya down trying to get in there first.)

8. Somebody's crying, possibly lying prostrate on the ground, and with certainty if the phone rings. 
Fortunately, somebody else is wiggling their booty and giggling.    

9.  Somebody's shoes are on the wrong feet, and on occasion,
somebody arrives at an event shoeless.

10.  The right to potty privacy is not happening. 

11.  Somebody's messing up, but somebody else is stepping up. 

12.  Littles copy bigs.  Bigs care for littles (see #4). 

13.  Littles have more chill parents than the bigs had. 
Grace streams more freely as the years pass.

14.  Littles are way more independent than the bigs were at their age. 
Need to learn to swim?  Watch a big. 

15.  Everyone must fetch. 
Mommy and daddy need things.  If you're the closest small person, tag you're it.    

16.  If the small people posse is grumbling,
momma's either gonna run some bath water or open the back door.

17.  In the night, some small person will pad down the hallway to snooze with another. 

18.  Everybody serves.  Dinner?  Laundry?  Team effort. 

19.  Somebody is sacrificing.  Each of us daily shaves off some "me focus". 

20.  It's pile-ups and time-outs, belly laughs and tantrums, squeezed out toothpaste, hand-me-downs, crumbs under the table and sticky syrup on chairs.

21.  It's ordinary and extraordinary, exhausting and refining, hilarious and messy, giving and receiving, flawed and just right. 

22. Momma smiles more, letting a thousand little things go, but also working harder to step away from the role of chaos controller and toward tender of little souls.