Not fitting in...

So, is it just me, or have they really shrunk those benches on the side of the chapel, where you sit in church? Holly and I showed up somewhere between 9:05 and 9:15, however, with all the benches in the middle taken, we were forced to sit on the side. It quickly became apparent that this bench situation would not work any longer. We had NO room. It is at times like these when I realize that I am the head of a large family. Five kids, two parents and one bulldog on the way, which I wished I had now, but I do not.

This is even after we have all totally slimmed down from hot yoga.

Anyone could see that we were having a hard time fitting in. I had Brooklyn and Sydney on my lap; Holly held Cali and Boston and London sat next to each other, passionately discussing which one would have first crack at the paper I brought from them to draw on. After 60 minutes or so, Holly took Cali out and I started sending her one kid right after another to join her in the foyer. By the time we were singing the last hymn, I was lounging with an entire bench to myself. But as I got up to leave, I found three of my five kids lying on the ground making a road block so that people trying to move to class could not pass. Not a road block because they were in the way, but a road block where they were trying to get people to pay to cross.

You have to make up the money somewhere, and I try to teach my kids how to work every angle.

Anyway, our trouble fitting in reminded me of a situation three months ago while we were at the beach in California for my birthday (Yeah, we drove to Newport Beach for the day. That was before gas hit $4.23 a gallon). I wanted to document our happiness and attempted to capture the entire family in one shot on my camera phone. However, after much pushing and shoving, I found it much too hard to get everyone in the shot. This of course, was made all the more difficult by the fact that an unnamed nanny was involved, something we have done away with since then and don’t talk about now. After much effort, we were able to squeeze 7 people into the shot, which made me happy inside, while simultaneously forcing me to calculate the odds of an early retirement.

But benches and photos are not the only things that make it hard for us to fit in. For some reason, we also don’t seem fit into my car. Holly would say that this is something that was carefully considered before it was purchased. In fact, if I remember closely, this is exactly how the conversation went at the dealership. Me: “This should be the perfect automobile for our family. Holly: “This only sits four, how are we all going to fit in this car?" Me to the sales person: “Interesting. We’ll take it.”

But with all of the trouble we go through to fit in, we have recently made the decision to stand out. We’ve stopped worrying if we are too loud while we are out to eat; if we throw too many balls over the fence into our neighbor’s yard / pool (this guy gets so mad at us and we all just sit there looking at him over the fence, like, ‘Ah, Dude, can you hurry, we’re trying to play a game here.') or if we happen to laugh so loud that we get shushed by other sitting in back of us at church (come on, don’t shush me, I’m like 30. Get a life. Make some noise).

I am proud of my big family. There are a lot of us. We are many in number and we are happy. And yes, from time to time, we laugh too much; we almost always yell too much and I am always trying to get us to play too much. We love life, but more importantly, we love spending time together.

The more time we spend together, the more fun we seem to have and the more time we get to teach our children. I spent last Sunday teaching my son and daughters how to bar-b-q. Each one took great pride in turning their respective steaks (the only true way to make sure a steak is cooked to perfection) and making sure it was done with pure Red Flame zeal.

Once the steaks were ready, Boston grabbed the plate, proudly displayed them as he walked in the house and unceremoniously dropped them all on the floor. “No matter, I said, I once fed a lady a steak right out of the garbage on a catering job and she did not die (at least I have never heard that she died and I don’t have a warrant out for my arrest, at least not for that).” While that stoic proclamation did not make him feel better; understanding that he was not the first person to drop something on the floor did.

So, are we loud? Yes. Do we like space? Yes. Do we say what is on our minds? Ahh, yeah. But we are a happy family, full of people that know they have BIG support for whatever BIG dreams they want to accomplish….and that is the kind of big that can’t be measured by a church bench.