How Many Children Should I Have

Recently I ran into an old friend that reminded me of this story. It touched her and changed her life as it did mine so I thought I'd share it.

We grew up having a personalized song for each child in our family. Robin's was a cool jazz "When the Red Red Robin comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along." Mine was the theme song to a robot commercial put out by Mattell in the mid sixties. It was bad but not as awful as poor Weston. His song went "Shh- be quite as a mouse/ There's a baby in our house." I couldn't imagine why my mother would chose it. Didn't she realize he would grow up? He wasn't even the youngest in the family. He was a middle child. So one day I asked my mother why she had chosen that one for him and she told me-

When my mother was expecting her sixth child, she had decided it would be her last. With my father travelling so much and a full house already, she thought she was done. She felt this new baby would be a boy and she was going to name him Weston. Well, as she lay on the delivery table all doped up she could hear the voices of a number of children laughing. One said, "Isn't it funny? Mother thinks you are coming and its really me." Shortly after that the doctor placed a beautiful little girl in my mother's arms. She named her Robin.

Because of these events, my mother felt she should have that boy. She got pregnant again and had another girl, Carolyn. Finally three years later Weston was place in her arms and mother gave him the song since he would certainly be her last child and the baby of our family forever. She was done.

But soon after this time, my mother had a dream. She dreamed that a little girl with bright blond hair was crying and crying. The child told my mother that she wanted to be in our family and didn't want to be forgotten or left behind. My mother took the dream seriously. She had another boy, Robert, and another boy, William. Then she finally had a girl with red hair that she named after herself. Jaroldeen Edwards.

Mother thought that maybe she had just gotten the child's hair color wrong in the dream and was thinking that eleven was probably all she would have, but soon after that she had the dream of the little blonde girl again and Patricia was born whose beautiful blonde hair is her trademark.

How grateful I am that my mother listened and had all twelve of us. I can't tell you how wonderful it has been to be part of my fabulous family. But how nice that my mother's story touched someone else into being brave enough to move forward and create their own. I cheer anyone willing to make the huge sacrifice to create a large happy family unit. Such homes are sacred and rare places where the most valiant saints flourish.

Sorry, Life Got in the Way

Okay, I know it has been way too long since I blogged but if you had lived at my house lately, you would understand why.

Right after the writer's conference, I drove out to Utah to my parents home. (This is a picture of all twelve kids in our family at the funeral.) When I arrived the rest of the family had already been there and the few things left were either in boxes or scattered piles of things no one wanted but no one had the heart to throw away. It is an eerie feeling to disemble your parent's home after they are gone. I'm way to young to be an orphan.

We rented a Penski Truck and headed back home with it filled to the gills. The only problem was that when I was got home, I had to make room for it all. We got rid of two book shelves, a large sectional sofa and a washer and dryer and drove them to the good will in the same truck.

It took me a solid week of arranging things to get them like I wanted them but I think it turned out great! I talked Greg into buying new shelves for the office to put the five boxes of books I inherited. I got two couch sets and even filled the little shelf in my front hall with my mother's silk flowers.

By the time all this happened, with one son starting football, scout meetings and just life with five children at home, I finally turned my attention to my son who was about to turn 18 in three days. He had finished his eagle project, told me he had the write-up done and was working on his last three merit badges. He even said he had contacted the counselors.

Well, on the Thursday I finally sat down with him and asked him to show me his stuff. The neighbors could hear my scream of horror. He had drawn some nice pictures for his art merit badge but hadn't done a museum or art visit; he had left a message on the genealogy counselor's answering machine twice but that was it and he had done electricity with his brother but never gotten it signed off and forgot to call the counselor.

The eagle write-up was in four separate files, none of which went together but you could tell he had really tried. So we immediately called around. We replaced fingerprinting with genealogy since we couldn't find an available counselor in time. We re-did all the 15 requirements for electricity, since his original couselor didn't have time to meet with us. It was a hard one. We had to make an electro magnet (which was sooo cool) and hook up a buzzer with a button and light with a pull switch. The hardest part is that everything at the hardware store works on alternating current and you had to use batteries so it was hard to find all the supplies. We had to pull apart a flashlight to find a light bulb that would work.

By Saturday everything was done and in the mail, and we sat back and relaxed for one minute. BUT because I had been so focused on George, the laundry was backed up, the house looked like a tornado hit and I don't even think I got on the computer for over a week.

Sunday George turned 18. We had two other families over and a great day. He didn't want or need anything so I went to the dollar store with my daughter and we got him eighteen little things. We wrapped them separately and by the end of the day both Camron and William said that is what they wanted for their birthdays. Funny, since I spent so much on William last year. You'd think I'd learn. The magic trick cards were a huge hit as was the grooming kit, yo-yo's and root beer.

By Monday I was in knots. I just felt over-used and like I needed to unwind. Greg left on a business trip and I wandered around, not wanting to clean or do much of anything. I let the children play all day and grabbed a stupid Delinsky from my mother's old books called Three Wishes. I was surprised because my mother liked some trash fiction too. Often I read to be lifted, to learn and to stretch my mind, but sometimes I just want to escape and be entertained.

The story was cute and predictable but a definite page turner with a very clever premise. When I gobbled up the last page at three o'clock in the afternoon still in my pajamas, I felt like I had gone on vacation and was ready to come home.

I think that's the best gift of fiction. It refreshes me.

So life is good. I've got two weeks before school starts and I plan on enjoying the time with the children and coasting through. The majority of the shopping is done so it's just a matter of having fun- that is something I'm good at.

Why Do Bad Things Come in Threes... or Fours

Yesterday was an awful day. It just was. Our house was supposed to sell and the buyers backed out last minute. I got an email telling me that my next book was rejected from church headquarters for copyright and that I have to bring 44 quotes down to 10-- its killing me!!! And I was supposed to go to a baptism with a teenager who was investigating the gospel, but we walked in as they were closing the font doors and the missionaries looked like they wanted to kill me- well, maybe only beat me up really badly. It was a bad day.

I wish life was fair, that when you have a really stinky day like that the next day is filled with incredibly happy successes like a publisher from Harper Collins happened to read my little fragment on Hatrack and offered me a million dollar advance to write it or that the last four years of my tax refunds were miscalculated and I really should receive twice as much back-- or maybe just that someone really wants to buy my house.

So today instead of finishing the manuscript and sending it back to church headquarters or finishing the taxes which are still hanging over my head or working on my next manuscript which I really want to have completed within two months to boost my first book sales, I played literi on yahoo for a couple hours and won almost every game! Then I called three of my sisters and four old friends long distance, gabbing happily for hours catching up on the news, our children, and life in general. As the children bounded through the door home from school, each kissed me on the cheek before running outside or upstairs. I have to admit it was a pretty great day to be surrounded by that much love. I know I couldn't possibly afford to spend every day just playing around, but now and then I think everyone needs a day where they simply enjoy life. All the responsibilities will still be there waiting for me tomorrow but for today it was nice to let it all go.

And it almost offset yesterday- almost.

Keeping my Playdough Clean

I don't buy playdough anymore. Not because it sticks to my carpets, which it does, and not because it dries into shriveled blobs when the lid isn't put back on. No, I don't buy it because we can never keep the colors clean. It starts out great and then one of my children decide to make a blue flower with a yellow center. Her project turns out beautifully but when she is done admiring her work, she squishes everything together and there is this yellow cancerous mass in your blue that you can never really get out. Each time we play it gets a little worse until finally every container is filled with an ugly swirly pinkish brown mess and the playdough is declared ruined.

School had such clean compartments like the playdough containers. Everything stays in its place. A bell rings and it's time to read, another bell and it is time to eat, and another bell and time to play. When I had my first baby, I planned on running my life like that, keeping all the playdough in clean little cannisters but by the time I had my third son in four years everything was smushed together. My days be a mixture of constant eating, bathing, playing, sleeping, reading and crying with no shape or form and with a croupy baby sometimes that continued late into the night. My life was just like that pinky brown swirly mess.

So when my youngest went to kindergarten I decided I was going to change. I was going to have clean lines and keep all my colors separate. My time was my own and I could control it, right? So I planned on spending an hour scripture reading and calendaring, then do housework until ten, when I would start writing until lunch. At which time I would put in my lean cuisine, and write until two when I would put away my computer and make an afterschool snack, happily greeting my children as they walked in the door. My life was going to be orderly, I would be thin and everything would be perfect. So how have I done?

Well, the first glitch was that my wonderful pre-missionary son comes home for lunch (say good bye to the lean cuisine), then my great husband works from home now and then, which is great but a constant interruption. Then my bishop decided I should be the YW president and I've got wonderfully talkative friends. There are always little needs that I can't seem to leave unfilled and then I got this contract on a book I'm writing with my sister and have been feverishly trying to get it done to meet our deadline, writing late into the night, or in the car during basketball practice. Ahhh. My life is still one swirly mess of pinkish brown goo.

Maybe it is practice for the eternities. Maybe life is supposed to be full of noise, fun, hope, work, mess, love and craziness- or maybe I need to plan better, live with a timer and force myself to keep my colors clean. I just bought some more lean cuisines- we'll see.

For You It's So Easy- NOT!

Last night I attended the Worldwide Leadership Training. I had heard it was on raising a righteous posterity and went prepared to feel guilty. Halfway through the event, I found myself crying not with guilt but with relief. I was agreeing with so much of what was said that I left feeling like it was doable and that I was actually on the right track.

Many of Sister Beck's comments were touching and I loved how Sister Tanner reminded everyone that the ideal is one thing but reality often looks very different. But the comment that won the day was when Sister Lant told us about how hard she had worked to get all her little children ready and to church on time. She would start Saturday afternoon and it was exhausting. One day after arriving at church with her brood, a sister walked up to her, put her hand on Sis. Lant's shoulder and said, "Oh, if my children were as good as yours, I'd have a big family too. For you it is so easy." Sister Lant admitted she cried during the entire meeting. It hurt!

Right after I had my first baby and started staying at home for the first time, my visiting teacher was the Stake President's wife. When she found out that I had decided to be a full-time mom, she looked at me and laughed, "Well, it is nice that you can do that, my brain is just too quick to handle being home all the time." I was young and swallowed it, feeling like an idiot and a failure for days.

Why do we do that? The truth is both sides behaved less than their best.

Often comments like those above are done in admiration or ignorance. Sometimes they are subconscious reflections of an individual's struggle with that principle and are said to alleviate personal guilt. In those cases I hope women realize the impact of their words and love and support these great mothers who sacrifice so much to raise a family because it is disgustingly hard. Other times they really are meant to hurt. So what if they are? As I look back on it, my biggest disappointment is in my own reaction.

Most of the world thinks I'm insane for having seven children. I remember walking into a grocery story with my first four children all under the age of six and having a woman sneer at my posse and say, "Don't you know what causes that?" I smiled back and said, "Of course I do, isn't it great!"

When I had my fourth child, a little indian woman who believed the world was already over populated delivered my beautiful first daughter. While I was on the delivery table she asked me if I was ready for a tubal, since I was already numb. I looked at her in shock and told her absolutely not. She shook her head and commented, "Then you'll be here next year in the same position." I smiled at my perfect new baby and replied, "I certainly hope so."

When people in the world make such comments, I am delighted because it allows me to express truth. I believe that if they bring it up, the topic is free game and I can openly express my side of the issue, which I do- in detail. But when women in the church do the same thing, especially someone I admire, it hurts- but it shouldn't. If I really remembered what I knew to be true, I would be sad for them, that they didn't have the vantage point that I do.

At my father's funeral my entire family came to mourn his early passing. I have eleven brothers and sisters with large families. We have never lived very close to my family but that day all the brothers, sisters, spouses, cousins, grandchildren, great-grandchildren sat side by side in the chapel. We filled the entire center section. In the middle of the funeral we stood up and sang our family song, "What does it mean to be an Edwards!" In the very heart of our grief I knew and my children knew the joy of being couched in a loving family. They knew that no matter what there were hundreds of people that were bound to them eternally and would do anything to help make their life better. They felt the joy of the most essential part of our Heavenly Father's plan.

That's why I had every one of my beautiful babies and changed thousands of diapers and spent day after day being more like a chair than a human being as my clingy, croupy third baby was never happy unless he was in my lap and I wasn't doing anything else but rocking him. That's why I get up way too early every morning to drive my teenagers to seminary in my pajamas and stay up way too late helping them with homework at night. That's why I drown in laundry on a regular basisand spend half my life either doing dirty dishes or nagging my children to do them. That's why my thyroid blew out with hormonal shifts during pregnancy, my knees where pulled out of alignment from widened hips and I lost my waist entirely. But the price is worth it, so worth it.

Tonight we all gathered together and watched a stupid movie with arms and legs hanging over each other in comfortable, connecting peace. Earlier today my thirteen year old spoke in church with confidence, expressing his pure testimony and I beamed. And two days ago my second son came home doing a victory dance because his missionary papers are finally in. The price is huge. It is yucky, hard, routine work to raise a big family but it is also fun, glorious, intellectually and physically satisfying, and the most incredible blessing of my life.

So the next time someone says something about how easy it is for me, I'm going to smile confidently and say, "I wish! But the work is worth it because look what I have to show for it."