Thank You, Al Gore

I would like to publically, right here and now, thank Al Gore for giving me the internet. And perhaps the good people at Dell and AOL, as well, for getting me up and running. May blessings be heaped upon you all.

My computer is my number one resource center. Those of you who have many children (or even less than many!) know how easy it can become to drown in, well, STUFF. Papers, books, magazines, charts, newspapers, notes and reminders. Wading through it all is a constant chore for me, and I'll do about anything to help alleviate some of the mess. Thankfully, the internet helps me emensely!

Part of my daily morning routine (many thanks to my numero uno household resource, Flylady) I check my email, the morning headlines from my local newspaper's rss feed and the family calendar, which I have on Outlook.

Here are a few of my other favorite resources:

The Childbirth Collective - this is a fantastic local resource for expectant parents. I would have loved to have been plugged in to it when I was busy having babies. As a postpartum doula, though, I'm thrilled to be a part of it now.

The Well Trained Mind - while I no longer consider our family to be Classical Homeschoolers, I still find this book to be an invaluable resource for homeschoolers. I especially love the reading lists and the history book lists.

Positive Discipline Resource Center - yes, Meagan included it on her list, too, but this has been a really important site to me and my family.

Graceful Mothering - this is a small parenting website that I helped launch a few years ago with some like-minded mamas.

All Recipes - zillions of great recipes that real people have submitted, and other real people rate and comment on.
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Bonny is a homeschooling mom to five kids, ages 14, 12, 7, 5 and 5.

What to read, what to read

I'm pretty scattered in this. I do read everything I can get my hands on - cereal boxes, magazines, flyers that come in the mail. I read at least two books at the same time, and am a regular at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

So, what books, magazines and websites do I frequent?

First on the list would be the MOMYs list and website. MOMYs stands for Mothers of Many Youngsters, and it is geared specifically for Christian women who have, at any one point in time, had four children ages eight and under. The emailed discussions cover many, many topics and I can always count on the discussion to be both frank and Biblical. Having six kids makes me the mother of one of the smaller families on this list, and I really enjoy gleaning from the knowledge of the other, more experienced momys. www.momys.net

I frequent another discussion board, One Hot Mama. I've been on that board for seven years. It's a smaller board with really friendly women, and I've made some true life long friends there. We've gotten together in real life several times and I have brought many different problems there, with great success. The board is primarily dedicated to pregnancy and breastfeeding with an attached parent philosophy.

I also read about 100 blogs. I'm a big time Internet reader!

I'm an avid magazine reader, but I don't bother with the tried and true Parents and Parenting. Don't get me wrong - when my kids were smaller, I read them from cover to cover. They seemed to discuss the same information over and over, and I'm pretty much past the decisions of breast vs. bottle, cloth vs. paper, and time out vs. spanking. I read Real Simple, Shape, Fitness, Women's Health, Redbook, Good Housekeeping and O every month. I can usually find lots to ponder between the pages of those magazines.

One more website that I get a lot out of is Blogher. There are many, many different schools of thought and many different affiliations discussed and debated on Blogher, and it helps me to keep my brain working.

Because, after all, I'm raising a big family and big families consist of lots of people with lots of different points of view. I think it's a great idea for me to learn about as many things as I can.

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When she's not folding socks or driving carpool, Carmen can be found drinking coffee and furiously blogging about her life with six kids over at Mom to the Screaming Masses and her 75 pound weight loss, exercise and diet choices over at The Elff Diet

Recommended Reading

For the next two weeks here at the Larger Families blog, we'll be giving recommendations and reviews of our favorite resources--you know, the books, magazines, websites and other tools that help us manage our homes and finances, raise our kids, put food on the table, and even care for ourselves.

I admit that I chose this topic this week specifically because I wanted to make a rather self-serving announcement! My book Table for Eight: Raising a large family in a small-family world will be released by Alpha/Penguin this October. As you can tell from the title, Table for Eight isn't just about my family--it's a peek into the lives of a variety of big families, packed with wisdom, tips, and ideas on everything from home organization to sibling rivalry. Most of the expert parents whose advice is featured in the book have between four and eight kids, but a few contributors have between nine and twelve kids, and one or two have even more. And though the advice is geared at a larger-family audience, there are nuggets of information that families of any size could benefit from.


(isn't it pretty?)


Table for Eight is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.. I've also launched a companion website for the book, which will feature information about the book, FAQs, details about signings and events, a blog with content and news that matters to big families, and best of all, will give you the opportunity to tell the world about YOUR family and get entered for a chance to win giveaways and more. Check it out!

If you'd like your blog listed on the Table for Eight website's blogroll, please e-mail me the URL. Eventually, I hope to compile a comprehensive list of links to other big-family bloggers. (this may take a while!)

And now I end my shameless self-promotion and leave you with links to a few of my favorite resources!

http://www.lotsofkids.com/ (Articles, recipes, a message board...and the FAQ is the best I've seen for answering all those annoying questions about having big families).

http://www.thenewhomemaker.com/ A celebration of the domestic arts full of practical resources on parenting, homemaking and more. Targeted at SAHMs, but anyone can benefit from the information there.

Positive Discipline Resource Center. Just what it sounds like.

WonderTime Magazine If you're tired of looking at the same-old same-old parenting magazines, give this one a shot...it really is different, focusing less on how to potty-train or teach kids to sleep through the night, and more on why and how our children grow and learn.

What are your favorite books, magazines, websites and other resources?

--Meagan also blogs here.

Middle Child Syndrome

I will be the first to tell you that I know very little about birth order. What I am pretty knowledgeable about however, is Middle Child Syndrome.

Like many of you ... I've got one of those - a middle child. She's the girl who, in toddlerhood, we (temporarily) lost at every place we ever went to. Our favorite story to tell is that when we lost her at the apple orchard, at age 2, we ended up finding her perched on top of a camel, riding around. She'd wandered off, gotten in line for the camel ride, and off she went (now, in my own parental defense, I had two infant twins, two other kids, and was sicker than a dog that day).

I try really hard to be deliberate about making time just for my middle child. Well, I try to do that for all of my kids, but for whatever reason (because she's the middle child, perhaps?) she seems to get the short end of the stick all too often. She's 7 - not quite old enough to always be included in what the 12 and 14 year olds are doing, and sometimes too old to be interested in what the 5 year olds are doing. She's definitely the most easily overlooked of the bunch. Do any of you have this problem? I'd love some advice or ideas on how to keep the middle child from being the low man (or girl) on the totem pole!

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Bonny is a homeschooling mom to five kids, ages 14, 12, 7, 5 and 5.

Oldest, Youngest, or Somewhere in the Middle?

I find birth order very interesting. As the oldest of three girls I’d have to admit that a lot of it is accurate when it comes to my sisters and I. The neat thing is that we’ve settled into our roles in the family and our differences really seem to compliment each other rather than compete.

Now when it comes to my kids they are pretty young yet, but I can see where some of the typical birth order traits can already be applied to them. Lydia is the oldest and is definitely the over-achiever. She does great in school and sometimes gets upset when she doesn’t do things perfectly (pressure she’s putting on herself). She is also very responsible, but her tendency to play the “mother hen” also leaves her acting bossy at times.

Connor is the second and has definitely taken on that middle child syndrome at this point. I compare him a lot to my younger sister (also a middle child). I remember teasing her that since she would fight with me AND she would fight with my youngest sister (but my youngest sister and I didn’t fight) then SHE must be the problem. The same could be said for Connor these days. Actually just this weekend he was gone visiting that same sister of mine for the weekend. I knew it was good for him to have this one-on-one fun time with his aunt and uncle, and honestly things were definitely more peaceful around here (so a win-win for everyone!).

Owen, my 2 ½-year-old is the third and I used to worry that he’d get lost in the shuffle. Right now he and the youngest (who are the same size) are the “little ones” in our family, but he is starting to set himself apart with his personality. He is incredibly sweet and usually very easygoing, but he has started to figure out ways to get reactions out of people. He can charm his older sister into getting his way and he is starting to take great pleasure in making others laugh and entertaining them. It’ll be interesting to see how he changes as he gets older.

Tyler really is the baby of the family. He’s only 13 months, but everyone goes out of their way to make him laugh (especially the other kids) and therefore he gets a lot of attention. Although I make real efforts to keep things as fair as possible, I already find myself doing things a little different because he’s my last. For example I quit nursing my other kids at 13 months, 9 months and 12 months. They seemed ready and so did I (sometimes because I was already pregnant with the next one). Well Tyler is 13 months and showing no signs of slowing down. He even still gets up during the night half the time because of it (something I NEVER would have done with the others). But what can I say, he’s the BABY!!! But honestly, I’m still doing this because he seems more attached to nursing than the others did at this point and I’m simply meeting his needs. Right?!?!

So I think there is some significance to birth order and how it impacts our upbringing and development. Regardless I plan on trying to find a balance between being fair by making sure all of them have the same opportunities while also considering their individual needs and personalities. I just hope to do a good enough job so that they can grow up to be like my sisters and I-where their differences compliment each other rather than compete. This really makes for fun family gatherings!

Jennifer Applin is a freelance writer, wife and mother of four in Toledo, Ohio.

1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th...

Birth order has always fascinated me. In fact, I like to try to guess where a person falls in their family after spending some time with them. To me, the first borns seem more reserved, ready to take on responsibility. The middle children can be a bit unsure of themselves but eager to please. And the baby of the family is used to attention, wants more and is usually fun and maybe a little bit wild.

I also think gender plays a part in the birth order status. If you have 7 boys then yes, the middle boys will typically act more like the stereotype. But if your middle child is a girl surrounded by brothers, she'd going to stand out on her own just on the fact she's the only girl.

My kids fall into some of the birth order traits. My oldest son Zach is book smart, takes criticism a little too much to heart, and can be bossy. Next up are my twins (identical girls) and by 3 minutes, Ally is considered the middle child of my 5. But because they are twins, they receive a lot of attention, more like the baby of the family would.

If any one could get lost in the shuffle it would be my second son, 4th in birth order. There's already a boy in the family so he's not the first and he doesn't have the coveted roll of the baby. But Kyle has so much personality (both good and bad), he's hard to miss, you know he's here!

And then the baby. My youngest daughter is such the baby of the family. We do spoil her a bit and I can now see how the youngest can be that way. I know I didn't coddle my other children at 4 years old like I do her, there was always another younger child that needed my attention more when they were that age. As the baby, she doesn't have another person to push her out of that spot. And yet while she is spoiled in some ways, she's easily frustrated by not being able to keep up with her older siblings. She can't ride her bike down the street like her nine year old brother and when Kyle goes off to kindergarten in the fall, she'll be the last at home.

Me? I'm the oldest. And so is my husband. I like this position in the family, the first to do things, the one my siblings look up to (I think they do, hehe). Or maybe they'd just say I'm being bossy. It goes with the territory!

Katie Fleck is a stay at home mom of five, Zach (9 years), Emily and Ally (8 year old identical twins), Kyle (5 years), and Kelly (4 years old). On a quest for a self cleaning house and 27 hour days, she writes at Ramblings of a SAHM

Does birth order matter?

I have to admit that I've always been fascinated by the topic of birth order and how it plays (or doesn't) into personality, leadership qualities, academic acheivement...even intelligence. Growing up the youngest of four, but with various step-siblings, both younger and older, thrown in, I played the part of older and younger sib. And when I was twenty my dad and stepmother had a child, giving me plenty of opportunities since to say "Well, I USED to be the baby!" with a heavy sigh.

Fact is, I always rather liked my "youngest" status of the bio siblings, but I'm not sure it actually did much for me except maybe netting me more hand-me-downs and the benefit of slightly more mellow parents. Since my siblings spanned a decade, I was into movies and music from the 60s and 70s even though I really grew up in the 80s and 90s. I knew pop culture references from far before "my" time.

As for the supposed personality traits that go along with being the baby...I'm just not sure I buy it. I don't really think I'm inherently more flaky or irresponsible than my siblings, except perhaps my older brother Buck (second born) who is the very model of responsibility. I never thought of myself as a "free spirit" type. I'm musically inclined, but no more so than my brother John (second youngest). I'm certainly not more outgoing than my sister Kathreen (firstborn) though I may be more ambitious than she is. So...I'm inclined to think it's a bunch of hooey. But there's been an awful lot of time and money and research effort spent on the idea that birth order plays a part in how we behave as adults....perhaps even how smart we are, (though that most recent study apparently has its weaknesses.)

I watch my own kids for signs, but so far they are just contradictions in themselves. My oldest is sensitive and seems to feel a large amount of responsibility for the family, but he's not very academically inclined or ambitious. My second born is bright, matter-of-fact, and driven. My thirdborn is certainly no shrinking violet, and as a middle child doesn't seem in any danger of fading into the woodwork. My fourth is still a bit of a mystery, though he's got the adventurous and daring youngest thing going right now...of course, he IS only 19 months old. I don't want birth order to define my kids, and yet I find myself looking at them with curiosity wondering if they'll "fit" or not. Maybe parenting is so unpredictable that it's just nice to feel like I have some kind of model to base my expectations on. But then, that's silly: my kids are individuals, not numbers or placement stereotypes.

So what do you think? Does birth order play a role in a child's development and personality, and if so, is it nature, nurture or both? How has the birth order placement played out in your family? If you have adopted children, were you careful to adopt in birth order, or are you skeptical that it matters? I'm curious to hear what others think.

--Meagan also blogs here.

Slowing down....

I love summertime. For starters, we take time off from homeschooling. I know there are people who homeschool year-round, but around here we all need a break.

This summer I am having my 9-year-olds earn their video game time by reading-- 30 minutes of reading earns them 30 minutes of video games. The reading keeps them in practice, and the two year old gets a few extra stories out of the deal too.

Just in the past week, something clicked for my younger 9-year-old. He's now decided that reading is entertainment, and has been reading even longer than his 30 minutes a day, just for fun. I'm thrilled. Some kids take a little longer than others to really enjoy reading, but it is worth it to keep pushing them to read until it 'clicks' and becomes enjoyable.

We keep our organized activities minimal during the summer. The kids play soccer with friends every Friday evening, and there's an occasional sleepover with friends. But no big involved sports schedules for us. It's lovely.

In the past we have done swimming lessons during the summer. Five days a week for two weeks was the usual schedule, which always left me worn out, with all the hurrying to be on time, and rassling with soggy kids in sopping wet dressing rooms.

Then I discovered that our local indoor pool offers lessons year round. Now we do swim lessons in January. Scheduled two days a week (for 5 weeks) the lessons feel more doable to me. And the physical exertion of swimming is very welcome at a time of year when it is too cold to play outside for long.

We do fit lots of recreational swimming in during the summer, though. In the heat, the kids are often in and out of our little pool two or three times during the day. My hubby and I are seriously considering investing in a bigger pool next year. Our 10-foot inflateable gets pretty full, and we'd love to have something that would comfortably accomodate our teenagers and their friends.

Summer is also time for camping. Once or twice a month we head up to the mountains with our travel trailer. John's mom has some land alongside a little river, complete with a power pole where we can plug in our travel trailer-- and our air conditioning! (Yes, I'm spoiled!) It's like having our own campground. For added fun, John's siblings bring their kids camping sometimes too, so the cousins can splash in the river and we can all chat around the campfire in the evenings.

Sometimes when I hear about the activities other kids are doing all summer long, I wonder if maybe we should try to do more. But the rest of the year is busy enough. I think we'll stick with our mellow summertime schedule.

~~~~~

Mary is the mother to 10 children ages 2 through 19, including two girls coming home from Ethiopia in August. She also write at Owlhaven and at her Ethiopia Adoption Blog

Gone Fishing

This week, our family is taking a break from our regular schedule and kicking back at the cabin for the week. We're sleeping in late, swimming, fishing, catching frogs, picking blueberries, shooting off fireworks and pigging out on s'mores and Skunk Lake Blueberry Pie (and doing lots of cabin maintenance and upkeep, which isn't nearly so fun to talk about).

The rest of our summer is filled with swim team practices, weight lifting classes, running clubs, football camps, overnight church camp, assorted youth group activities, archery lessons, swimming lessons, knitting lessons and hanging out at the pool and playgrounds with various groups of friends. Sprinkled inbetween the kids activities is some time at working and working out (not nearly enough, lately, unfortunately!). My part, of course, is paying for and chauffering my offspring to and from said activities and making sure that the gas tank, water bottles and lunch cooler is full. Remembering to pack adequate amounts of sunscreen and hand sanitizer with us on our excursions is an added bonus, which, unfortunately, I did a lot better at a few kids ago.

The first part of each summer seems to have a bit of a learning curve. There are always plenty of activities that the kids want to participate in - activities that are only available to us during the summer - and it's a job in itself getting it all coordinated, while still leaving some time to relax and try to salvage Mom's sanity. With a new season's schedule, plus the fact that the kids are all another year older (funny how they can age but I don't ...) we spend the first few weeks or so settling in to it.

Now that we've got most of the settling in to the routine over with, the time away this week is a really nice break. The kids are enjoying the extra attention from Grandma and Grandpa (I think the feeling is mutual) and we are all just appreciating the much needed break. I have a feeling that next week, when we're back to "business as usual," we'll have to take some time to learn the routine all over again. It's definitely a price I'm willing to pay, though, to have this time away, if even for a week.

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Bonny is a homeschooling mom to five kids (14, 12, 7, 4.5 & 4.5)

Fun in the Sun

Tropical breezes, lying on the beach as the cool water splashes across my feet, an umbrella drink at my side. Ah, this is the life!!

Well, not my life. But I am sure it is some lucky person’s!

Our summer is much like the rest of the year – minus the snow. Our vacations occur in the late spring and early fall, so summertime is spent close to home.

Due to my enormous weight gain since we started adopting kids eight years ago, I decided to start this summer off with a bang. Actually, I think that bang was the sound my chart made, when my doctor dropped it, as I stepped on the scale during my annual physical last month.

Within a day of that “bang”, I had signed up with a personal trainer and for daily aqua fitness classes, at our local health club.

While I do underwater jumping jacks, my eight children are joyfully playing soccer, swimming, or hanging out in the gym with their new-found friends, whose moms also started their summer with a bang. And they are having a blast!

After a couple of hours at the gym in the morning, we head home for lunch and an hour or so of math and reading lessons. Since five of my eight children are non-readers, I feel it is imperative to work on their reading skills year round. Following a rousing rendition of the ABC song by my preschoolers, it is back to the gym so the kids can swim and play at the outdoor water park for an hour or so.

By 3PM we are headed home, so the older girls can prepare dinner. Once my hubby gets home, we eat and head back to the gym for cardio and weight training. My husband got pretty darned excited about working out once he discovered cable TV attached to every treadmill! You’ve just got love that!

Now, not every single day and night are spent at the gym, as we have Vacation Bible school, library days, play dates and all the usual summer time activities. When we skip the gym, I get a few extra hours to soak in the Ben-Gay. When you don’t exercise “purposefully” for eight years – working out daily can really hurt!!

Our weekends are devoted primarily to family events and church. We have quite a few summertime birthdays, weddings, reunions, and we host a monthly play date for adoptive families. Our kids love to have a yard full of other kids to run around and play with, as eight kids is apparently not enough!

We enjoy our summer, but my primary focus is to continue on this healthy new lifestyle, that not only benefits me, but also my children. I love starting off the morning in the pool, with the sun warming my shoulders, and if the breeze is just right, I can smell the coconut oil on the 72 year old woman next to me, who is slamming those weights in that water, with the strength of an 18 year old. I soon realize I am a long way from lying on that beach with those tropical breezes. Man, am I out of shape!

Read more about Sharon’s ever expanding, somewhat chaotic family at Hearts of Hope.