What Six Kids Think Is a Completely Normal Household

One of the funny things about having six kids is that none of them really understands that having six kids is unusual.

To them, this is just... a house.

There are eight people. There are always shoes by the door that belong to someone else. There is always a baby somewhere. There is always someone yelling that they can't find a charger.

This is normal.

And someday, they're going to go to other people's houses and realize that perhaps their childhood had a few quirks.

Our older kids have spent so much of their lives around babies that I don't think they understand that most homes don't just permanently contain one.

There's a high chair. There are bottles. There are tiny socks in places tiny socks should never be. There's some enormous piece of baby equipment occupying a significant percentage of a room.

You pick up a baby. You put down a baby. Someone asks where the baby is.

Normal household stuff.

At some point, Lily is going to grow up and our house will contain no babies at all, and I genuinely think we're all going to look around wondering what's missing.

A normal grocery delivery for eight people looks slightly alarming.

Multiple gallons of milk? Sure.

A quantity of bananas that suggests we may own a monkey? Obviously.

Enough snacks to stock a small convenience store? Those will be gone by Thursday.

The kids don't blink when enormous piles of food appear at the door. They simply begin asking which parts are for them before we've finished bringing the bags inside.

Our kids have also grown up in a world where there are frequently extra adults in the house.

Nannies arrive. Babysitters arrive. Someone is helping with the little kids. Someone is putting away laundry. Someone else is picking somebody up.

Nobody asks questions.

An adult walks through the kitchen and one of the kids basically thinks, Seems legitimate.

Someday they're going to live alone and be absolutely stunned to discover that if you leave a basket of clean laundry on the floor, nobody magically appears and puts it away.

With six kids, birthdays have stopped feeling like isolated annual events and started feeling more like a recurring household condition.

There are balloons. There are Amazon boxes we're not supposed to open. Someone is counting down. Someone else is already explaining what they want for their birthday, despite the fact that it is seven months away.

Right now we're heading directly into a particularly ridiculous stretch of birthday season, and the children seem to consider this completely reasonable.

Of course we're having another birthday.

We are always having another birthday.

Screen time.

Dessert.

Bedtime.

Who gets which seat.

Whose turn it is.

Whether "maybe" means yes.

Especially whether "maybe" means yes.

We don't really make decisions in this house. We open negotiations.

I say, "We're leaving in five minutes," and six tiny attorneys immediately begin identifying ambiguities in the proposed agreement.

I dance a lot, so our kids have grown up with music blasting through the house while I practice choreography, learn a song, or decide for absolutely no reason that the kitchen needs to become a dance floor.

They barely notice.

Mom doing Zumba in the middle of the house?

Normal.

I'm curious when they'll discover that not everyone's mother suddenly starts doing choreography while they're trying to eat a snack.

We own approximately nine million electronic devices.

We also apparently own zero compatible chargers.

This mystery has never been solved.

At any given moment, someone needs to charge an iPad, a phone, headphones, a watch, a game controller, or some other device that I don't remember purchasing.

"Where's my charger?" is less of a question in our house and more of a traditional family greeting.

If you close a door, someone will open it.

If you lock the door, someone will knock.

If you don't answer the knock, someone will begin shouting through it.

If you say, "I just need five minutes," a child will correctly interpret this as an invitation to explain something extremely complicated about Minecraft.

There are eight people here. Privacy exists. Technically.

This is the part I hope they don't fully appreciate until they're older.

There's almost always someone around.

Someone to play a game with. Someone to watch TV with. Someone to annoy. Someone to make laugh. Someone to climb into bed with on a Saturday morning. Someone who understands exactly why Mom saying "maybe" is actually very promising.

Our house is loud. It's crowded. It's constantly running out of something. There are too many shoes, too many devices, an unreasonable number of birthdays, and for the foreseeable future, at least one baby.

And our kids think this is simply what a home feels like.

Someday they'll realize it wasn't completely normal.

I hope they'll also realize it was pretty fun.