A Test...

When you go out with two preschoolers, a toddler and an infant, you are bound to get noticed. Before we had Hudson, we'd get a lot of comments when we went out, two or three each time we hit the grocery store, etc. Mostly, people said "You look busy!" or "Are they twins??? (speaking of Grace and Patie) or "Look at how many helpers you have!" etc. After we had Hudson, it changed to, "You've got your hands full!" Jim and I both noticed it right away. We started getting so many comments that after my first trip out with everyone (to the doctor when Hudson was 4 days old, and then after that we got groceries) Grace picked up on it too. She was playing with her stroller and dolls when we got home and she loaded it up with lots of "kids" and came proudly into the kitchen. She introduced me to her "family" and exclaimed, "Yeah, so, I've got my hands full!" I had no idea she'd been listening to everyone's comments, but, apparently there were enough of them that she caught on. I should add that we don't feel like it's a big deal to go out with them at all- there are of course "moments of crazy", like every parent/child has, but adding Hudson into the mix doesn't seem to have added any extra challenge. (Maybe that means we've "arrived" somewhere as parents... We've had a couple of different people with 6 or more kids tell us once you have three you might as well have 6 , or more. At the time I thought they were crazy, but now I totally understand what they were saying.)

Today I decided to do an experiment. We ran to Safeway after a doctor's appointment and picked up a few things. I decided I'd keep track of all the comments we got as we shopped. In the 15 minutes we were in the store 3 people told me I had my hands full, 2 people asked if they were all mine, one person asked if I did daycare, and one sweet old lady told me I was a brave woman to go out of the house with so many kids.