The Big House

And no, I don't mean an insane asylum...

Happy One Year Anniversary, I think. Is that what you call it when you have live in "the new house" for a year, an anniversary? Hmmm... not sure about that.

I'm embarrassed to admit that we live in a very large home. What I love about this is that there is plenty of room for everyone to spread out. I swear there is less bickering because of all the extra space.

Leo, at ten, is privileged to have his own room complete with an extra bed for sleepovers. The others share a room. Grace and Mia in one. Gus, Jack and Abe in another large room. The girls, well, technically they share a room, but in actuality Ruby has her own room because she sleeps through the night and Julia is with us because she doesn't, yet! At nine months, today, she is the oldest to not be sleeping through the night. She is still up at least twice for a bottle and then right back to sleep unless of course it is after 4:30 or so and then she sleeps rather fitfully and often joins us in bed for the last couple of hours in the morning. This is exhausting when it is night after night.

Last night we thought it might be time to try letting her cry it out. We lasted and excruciating long hour. Now, it wasn't screaming and crying the entire time. There was intermittent dozing, for Julia. After an hour I couldn't take it anymore. It was a bottle, some cuddling and right to sleep. I guess she isn't ready. She is a little thing still and is crawling all over the place. Spending a lot of calories, but she refuses baby food and will only feed herself what she can get in her mouth. She hates to stop and eat during the day, so I am thinking she is making up the calories at night. Oh well, perhaps another few months of exhaustion... I digress. I started this post thinking about the pros and cons of having a large home...

Pro's:
4 bathrooms for 10 people
craft room for mommy with a door that closes!
a huge kitchen
room for a table that fits 10
dining room for special occasions (like the never ending laundry)
a laundry room with a place for the extra fridge!
grown up living room
family room (1000+ sqft) filled with toys, ping pong and foosball table
master bedroom downstairs (nice for the "older years")
room for guests

Cons:
4 bathrooms to clean
lots of floor to mop
many rooms to heat and cool (Summers are in the upper 90's low 100's)
no intercom system
I'm the maid

The last con counts for at least 10 or 15...

All this, while I sit and supervise the cleaning of the family room. The oldest six are madly cleaning while Ruby crawls about narrowly avoiding certain death by legos, knex, and all things small and chokable. This room turns into a disaster so fast- At times I threaten to walk in with a garbage bag. Today, some boys called to come over and play. Nothing like a few friends wanting to come over to provide the incentive to get this room clean. It's working! Yahoo!

Next time, and once I figure out how it is that you post a photo within a post, I will show a before and after shot.

You'll die.

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