Just Call Me Pento-Mom

So, here's my admission for the day. If circumstances were different (like I was married, just a wee bit more financially secure and still had working fallopian tubes) I would totally have more kids. There. I said it. I know it's not a popular notion in this day and age of two kids being considered a large family and three kids basically insane.

When I tell people I have 5, their eyeballs literally fall out of their head and are then squooshed by their jaw crashing to the ground. After the stunned silence and they take a moment to put all their facial features back into place, they usually ask me to repeat myself. Oh yeah, it's 5... last I counted. This is usually followed by head shaking in disbelief and some form of "I don't know how you do it." To which I just smile and nod knowingly. If I'm feeling flippant, I'll say "medication" or "I drink heavily in the afternoon" - something along those lines. People like for me to acknowledge that this is indeed crazy, that no sane person would purposely have FIVE children. And that it must be just an overwhelming, mind-robbing, life-sucking, emmense to the nth power job. I have a secret... it's not.

Sorry to disappoint. I love it. I LOVE IT. Oh sure, there are bad days. Everyone has their bad days. Even billionaires have days that blow. Even gorgeous people have butt-ugly days. Life isn't all daisies and rays of sunshine all the time. Cause seriously, that would be totally boring. And then we wouldn't appreciate it at all, would we?

So, I love having a big family. I FREAKING LOVE having five kids. If I could, I would have a dozen. That is not in any way, shape or form an exaggeration. I would totally have 12 kids. Maybe it's just that my kids are more awesome than other kids. Maybe that's it. Or maybe that I'm just a big kid, so I like being surrounded by my peeps.

It probably has to do with coming from generations of big families. My dad was the oldest of 11. Yep ELEVEN. And I loved hanging out at his parents' house, which was literally just a block away growing up. I'm just 5 years younger than my youngest aunt, so I grew up with my aunt being more like my sister. Especially since my only real sister didn't come along until I was nearly 14. I loved being a part of that big, noisy, chaotic family. As a kid, there was always someone to hang out with, someone to play with, someone baking cookies or willing to teach you to sew. For a kid, this was like being at camp all the time! And I always wanted my kids to grow up with that same cameraderie and feeling of inclusion.

And maybe that's why my autistic kids are much more social than most. Sean is the most "severe" and yet he's always talked, if not clearly, certainly with abundance! He's a little jabber-jaw. Same with Skye. Sean is still more of a parallel-player, but he knows how to get along with other kids. He's never had trouble sharing, or having other kids in his play space. Cause that's just been his reality since birth. There have always been other kids around. He's always had to share. That's all he's ever known. He also does unusually well in loud and chaotic situations. A bunch of people talking at once rarely freaks him out. Why? Well, that's what he's heard since the womb! Being number four of five has been nothing but beneficial for my little Seanathon Beastly!

Now, as a single, totally broke, working mom, having more kids is not even an option. So I won't be competing with Octo-mom on any reality shows in the near future. But if things were different, you'd still be calling me Tiffany (cause really, Pento-mom just sounds stupid!)