• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

With eight kids, or any number really, it’s hard to have time for all of them collectively, let alone individually. I have really struggled with spending enough time with each of them. I have a lot of guilt about that, but I tried to not miss the details. My guiding principle has always been that just because I have eight doesn’t mean I can’t try to treat them each like an only child. I realize that’s setting the bar very high, but since when do I ever set mediocre goals?

Some of the kids were more independent than others, and I just let them go. Those who wanted to hang on me more or needed more attention from me knew to come find me. I just had to trust that whoever needed the extra attention would seek it out. If someone came wandering downstairs in the middle of the night, we didn’t make a big deal out of it and just scooped them up into bed with us or made a little bed on the floor next to us. When they wanted to spend time with me in the kitchen, I put whoever came in up on the counter so we could talk while I made dinner.

When they were babies, it was harder to figure out which one needed me more; so the older they got, the easier it was to give them more attention. When Mady and Cara were old enough to start doing chores, I put together a chore chart, which included rewards. They could choose spending time alone with Mommy or Daddy, getting ice cream, or staying up an extra hour—all of which they loved. For them, time with a parent was the best reward.

Once I remember Cara really needed time alone with me, so I took her grocery shopping. At one point while we were shopping, she got a cart’s length behind me and freaked out. She then asked me to call her name each time I was ready to leave the aisle. Even though she was right behind me, she was fearful I would turn the corner without her noticing, and she would once again become separated from me. Then after I loaded the groceries in the car, I returned the cart, and when I came back to the van, she was out of her seat huddled down on the ground. I was shocked that in ten seconds, she was that scared! I knew she had developed a fear that someone was going to take her or that I would lose her, but I didn’t know how bad it was. I talked with her, telling her I would never put her in danger because she is my “prized possession. ” I told her that I loved her and would always take good care of her. I also told her that though being wary is good, she was going a little over the top. I made sure to pay extra attention to her over the next few weeks, and she seemed fine from then on.

The huge struggle with multiples or kids the same age is the classic, “It’s not fair!” If I’m making a salad and give the one who’s in the kitchen a crouton, they run to tell the others about it, which gets them all running in to claim their own. It’s not feasible to do eight times the same thing you do for one on a whim. This reporting back to the others happened so many times that I had to tell them if they got something special in the kitchen, like a lick of icing, they weren’t allowed to tell the others about it. Seems so sad, but it was necessary.

Whenever I made a cake, I dipped two additional beaters to hand out four. But because I didn’t make cakes too often, it might have been another three months before I could get to the other four—and by then I wouldn’t remember who hadn’t yet gotten a beater. The whole situation would became a huge production, so I had to loosen the rigid rotation schedule and simply give them out to whoever was wandering through the kitchen at that time.

My motto is now “life’s not fair” so hopefully they’ll quit expecting me to treat them all exactly the same. Wish me luck on that!

Hannah with her dinosaur egg.

I’m often asked if we gave the little kids all the same present at holidays and birthdays. We didn’t. It was never economical to buy six of the same toy. They learned how to share, and they rarely all at once wanted to play with the same item.

One