No More Kids, Please.
We Only Have 8 Dinner plates
My 3 youngest children from R to L: Molly, Chase and Kyle
At what point do you know that your family is finished growing? I think the typical American family is supposed to have something like 2.5 children. Being the overachiever that I am, I went all the way to six children. I thought we were done. I was wrong.
Yes, you are reading this right. Our family is growing yet again and let me tell you, nobody is more surprised than I.
A couple of weeks ago when I was at the elementary school helping with a Halloween party, Mrs. Wragge, the Extended-Day Kindergarten teacher, caught me to ask a question. She wanted to know who our youngest child was. I was confused. She is the teacher of our youngest child!
She really looked serious so I just pointed at Chase and told her that he was our youngest. In my head I was wondering if she’d slipped a cog or if all those little chattering kindergarteners had finally driven her over the edge. A smile spread across her face and she nodded. She said she thought that was right but that is not what Chase is telling her.
I was even more confused! She explained that Chase has told her that we have a two-year old girl named Molly. When questioned about Molly, Chase explained that she sleeps in the “girls’ bedroom” and that I am her mommy.
Mrs. Wragge and I had a good laugh at Chase’s “new” sister and later that night I nonchalantly asked if I needed to set a place at the table for Molly. Chase stopped dead in his tracks, cut his eyes over to me and with a tiny smile nodded his head, yes.
I heard nothing more about Molly and figured she had vanished as quickly as she’d appeared in Chase’s life; until I attended Parent/Teacher Conferences on Tuesday.
It seems our family has grown yet again. This time the new person is named Kyle and he is Chase’s little brother. We are not sure how old he is but Chase contends that he sleeps on the couch and we do not set a place at the table for him. That is good news for me because we only have place settings for eight people and Molly already had to use a paper plate.
Mrs. Wragge and I giggled during the conference about Chase and his huge imagination. I was at a complete loss as to why Chase is inventing new family members. After all, don’t we have enough? But Mrs. Wragge had an idea about what is prompting this new family expansion.
It appears that during the “share time” in class all of Chase’s classmates talk about their little brothers and sisters. Chase is the only kid in the class who doesn’t have a little sibling. In our house, Chase IS the little brother!
With all the issues we face due to not only the size of our family, but also the idiosyncrasies of children who have experienced life in an orphanage, I never considered the fact that the last kid would want a younger sibling. I try hard to meet every need our children have, but Chase is on his own with this one. If he wants younger siblings, he is going to have to continue to make them up.
In the near future, if you happen to see our family dining out in a restaurant with a couple of extra empty chairs, please be sure to stop by and say hello to our new “children” Molly and Kyle.
And in other news…a BIG thank you to the Dave and Geri Wemhoff family for sending us the special blue elephant bank with the words “BAIL FUND” on the side, change rattling inside and a dollar bill sticking out the top. We are very grateful and hope, as you suggested, to be able to get back to saving for our children’s college funds instead of bail money.
Jill Tate lives in
Copyright 2005 Jill Jacks-Tate