The other day I saw a link online to a sensationalized article about a family somewhere in Scotland who had ten boys and one girl. (The 11th child was the girl!). Since I now currently have eleven children in my home, I was curious, and clicked on the article. It says that she washes forty-nine loads of laundry a week. What! I mentally counted in my head. I only wash eight to ten loads a week. Unless we have to wash bedding. Then it could be maybe fifteen, tops. Except, my older kids do their own laundry, so I would need to add on about four more loads to that number. And I have a really big washing machine. And it probably holds about three loads worth of some small European type washing machine. So, if you add that all up, say, I do twelve loads, plus four loads, equals sixteen loads, times three, equals forty-eight loads of laundry. Hmm.
The article also says she vacuums her house seven times a day. Well, now that’s just weird. Must be a clean freak. 🙂 Unless her house is all carpeted and it’s small. I could see vacuuming a lot if that were the case. I don’t vacuum seven times a day, but I probably clean my toilet that many times. Too many little boys in the house.
They didn’t mention how many times she washes dishes. I use paper plates. (Not environmentally friendly, not sure what to do about that…)The other day I ran out of paper plates and wasn’t going to be able to make it to the store for a bit. So, we used the regular plates. I washed 3 large dishwasher loads a day, as compared to one large dishwasher load a day, plus handwashing all the oversized pots and pans that don’t fit. Lots of fun.
They also mentioned that she went grocery shopping twice a week!! I scoffed for a minute, then thought about it. Well, yes, I do go grocery shopping twice a week, but that’s not two GIANT shopping trips. I usually do a really big grocery shopping, then halfway through the week, I go and stock up on fruit, milk, bread and whatever random thing I’ve run out of. Because when I buy an entire weeks’ worth of fruit, my kitchen tends to fill up with fruit flies. Plus, it helps keep things fresh if I go twice a week. But, my second shopping really isn’t THAT big. Maybe just two trips walking from the car to get everything in the house.
The photos of the family in the article showed all the kids lined up in color-coordinated t-shirts. The mom is an exercise instructor and looks amazing despite having just given birth to her eleventh child. The children are all handsome and photogenic. Sigh. My children are beautiful, most of them are photogenic, but several of them have not mastered the art of the “real smile” and instead look sickly or constipated, because, for some reason, that’s what they think they’re supposed to do when someone points a camera at them. I have one child that has literally spent his entire life trying to mess up our family pictures. I won’t mention any names, but if you track down any family photos you’ll spot him. I think that color-coordinating is corny and refuse to participate in that particular form of child torture. Though, all my friends that do coordinate, do look very nice in their photos. 🙂 And, lastly, an exercise instructor I am not. Double sigh.
In the end, I found it really funny to read this article that was trying to make having eleven kids sound like some kind of weird freak show. What? They even brought up the OctoMom. I especially found it funny that I spent the entire article comparing my family to theirs, trying to justify how my family was better. What was that all about? I went back and found another article, not so sensationalized, about the same family. They sounded like regular, interesting people. We’d probably get along pretty well if we ever met. When am I ever going to get over this comparison thing? It’s not a competition.
I will keep reminding myself of this.
Life With Esther 