BECOMING A FAMILY OF FIVE

A rare moment of relaxation with my babes

When my husband and I were expecting our second--everyone seemed to be thrilled and excited for us. When we cut the news that we would be adding a third little to the fam-bam, the reactions we received were much more, shall we say 'mixed'. 

"Oh are you guys trying for a girl?"

"Oh man--three kids?! Were you planning that?"

"How are you all going to fit in your small house?" 

"Man, three kids? I can barely handle the two that we have!" 

(Same here!😜) 

Now don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion, so no harm no foul, however I wanted to share our reasons for adding our third (and probably not our last if God allows it) to our family--and no we were not 'trying' for a girl! If Rosa had been a boy we would have been just as thrilled! 

When my husband and I first met and got to know each other, one of the first things we connected on was our family size. We both had 5 siblings, I only had brothers, he happened to have a twin. Anyhow it was kinda one of those things that we just understood about each other without having to explain it. 

Having a family was important for both of us; it didn't matter the amount of money we would have, the size of our house nor if we could provide our children with everything we didn't have. What we wanted to give our children was EXPERIENCE. Just like we had growing up. EXPERIENCE doesn't mean all the he things--it means life lessons.

See when you grow up in large families you learn values, characteristics, and virtues that I feel are hard to come by these days. I want my children to understand that life is not all about them, the best way to do so is give them some siblings. They learn the value of patience, empathy, forgiveness, loyalty, compassion, and understanding at a young age.

When you have several siblings, life isn't all about you, you have to share when you don't want too, you have to forgive when you really would rather not. You learn empathy and compassion at such a young age---When your sibling is hurt (even if you happened to hurt them) you see the pain in their eyes and realize they have hurts just like you too so you hug them and say 'sorry.' 

In large families you learn the value of hard work because you all have to work together. Whether it be cleaning the house, helping each other get out the door, the yard work, tending to the garden or cooking a meal.

You learn that even if you don't agree with everything your sibling does--you have their freaken back no matter what. If someone treats them wrongly--watch out! You also learn that you don't always get what you want, that hand-me-downs are the bomb, designer clothing is NOT a big deal, how awesome thrift stores are, and one day they will SO appreciate that we taught them the value of hard work. 

So no, we were not exactly 'planning' a third. But we weren't avoiding it either. We knew God called us to parenthood and putting a 'limit' on how many we put into that family seems a bit silly. 

God always knows exactly what your family needs. He provides for the animals & birds so I know that He's got our back too. So we are trusting HIM on that as we try to get a handle on this parenthood gig! No one said it was going to easy--and it really isn't, but watching these babes grow and develop into kind humans each and every day sure is freaken worth it. 

How many siblings did you have growing up?!

And to my parents who gave me the gift of siblings and life experiences--thank you!!

Happy Wednesday! 

XO, 

Kaitlin