You know you've had too many children when...

[LynetteScavo]

You nearly have a heart attack paying for their new school uniform, then struggle to carry it all home.

you can't split them up around the dining table to stop the squabbles

You are either a

Super earth mother who manages to 'juggle' a busy working from home business with raising your 'brood' with a gentle but firm hand (and the obligitory smear of flour on your glowing cheek)

Or

A feckless, under educated needy baby lover who 'pops' them out for something to love and loses interest when they get over 2yrs, you are also too thick to control your fertility or your children

What catagory you fall into has nothing to do with who you actually are but entirely depends on who people think you are.

OMG, the sock thing, the different style of pant thing, the no leftovers, the calling 'em down en masse from dinner!!

I thought I was the only one

And my DP has worn kids socks to work and wondered why his socks had shrunk!!

BTW, Lois from Malcolm in the Middle is my role model

I like Joy from My Name is Earl hahahaha!

I'm feeling very because I only have one and our socks rarely reach the drawers...

Fab thread!

Thought of some more reasons when enjoying our yummy but cramped Sunday lunch!

-When your nearly 2 year old dd (no 3 of 4) knows how to use her big brothers ds lite better than she knows her animal noises! Much to the hilarity of the big boys she says that every animal quacks!

-When you have a strict admission criteria of what is allowed into the ironing pile. Dry, flap vigously, fold, drawers!

Ironing

I felt able to get away with less ironing when I had fewer kids.

Somehow I feel crumply clothes are more noticable when you have several wearing them

at the boys weeing on eachother's wee! i only had sisters but am expecting the worst with 3 boys.

i only have 3 but i'm thankful every morning we have a worktop stretching across the whole kitchen when i line up the bowls for breakfast. i reuse 'dirty' dishes at the next meal to save washing up

i tease dh all the time about evening up the numbers.

I have 3 of them standing around the toilet weeing at the same time which is cute and funny but also messy - when they start playing 'sword fights' (with wee swords, you understand) I have an instant sense of humour failure. Thank Pampers that DS4 is still in nappies!

I only ever throw sock out when they have holes . DS3 is very fond of mismatched pairs which he choses - why on earth I still bother to pair and fold his socks, I don't know .

at some of those beds -fab!

Ironing - I think the last thing I ironed personally was my posh table cloth in honour of MIL's 80th birthday which was held at our house. That was 2 years ago. DH looks after his work shirts (he is a very good and fast ironer or he brings them away to be ironed, either way, it is up to him to sort it out). Nothing else gets ironed. I have to say, it was much the same before I had children though... .

We go through unfeasibly large amounts of cereal - heaven help when they are all teenagers
There are days on which I cannot bake bread as fast as they eat it
My voice is hoarse from too many bedtime stories as they get one each - when did that stupid custom creep in??

If I was daft enough to want to 'even out the numbers', I'd have to have another 4, and that's assuming they'd all be girls ! I did once work with a woman who had 7 sons and no daughters....

at wee sword fights! One hormonal afternoon late in preg with dc4 I had a mega wobbly with dh, ds1 and ds2 about wee on the floor. "someone has peed on the floor and it is not me or dd1" was met by three shocked faces as if to say "and so what exactly is the problem mum?"

She has never said anything to me but my mil is a knicker, t-towel and sock ironer, I'm sure i am a massive disappointment to her!

I heard one of the boys say to the other lets make the 'x factor'. When I popped my head round the bathroom door they were crossing streams

Another time I asked ds, 6 to bring ds,2 into the little loos at school when we were picking up one of the others. I looked in to see what was keeping them and ds2, who was just out of nappies hadn't mastered the peeing standing up. So ds,6 was very helpfuly holding his wee brother's willy for him while he peed. Brotherly love eh!

queenmaeve, that's phantastic - the mental image I have of it!!

We have a firm rule that in the bath 'you can play/pull/wash your own willy, but nobody elses' - and that goes for Daddy and his bits too .

I am nominating this for Classics Fab thread, has made me laugh all day. On the other hand, the bits I read out to DH may have hardened his resolve that we are stopping at two.

I am an aunty to a large family db has 6 dc's. We're going for Christmas dinner this year. That's me, dp and dc's. Df will be going swell. I have no idea where we will all sit but my dsil is a fantastic cook and we will have a wonderful day.

When your dc accept as the norm to get hand-me-downs.

Example; DS, 7 said to me yesterday when is J (eldest) getting a new dressing gown? I said 'the next time I remember to buy it, why?'

' because he says I can have his football one and N wants my scooby doo one and then N can give his red one to R'.

LOL queen you are so right. Older one gets some new clothing and younger one is already eyeing it up for the future

haha dd1 is trying to get my old ipod. dd2 is bugging dd1 for hers, and dd3 wants dd2 ipod shuffle.

another one here that only has 1 DS, you lot are all bonkers

and we wouldnt have it any other way

I frequently think "What was I thinking?", so I would not disagree with that assessment, Dirty .

Possessions is like Musical Chairs, isn't it? You just hope you don't run out of the means for new dressing gowns/iPods/toys so the chain can keep going.

hand me downs even go through the neices and nephews as well.

my ds has some lovely pink INTG t-shirts.

actually the craziest thing is the amount of shoes we seem to have, not helped by them all being girls me thinks. Those things just breed and breed it would seem.

ha ha, your households sound like a lot of fun, even with the random sock thing, it's quite lonely here when DS has gone to bed at 7pm :)