Consider This

By LC Van Savage

Our home is just too small. Well OK, actually it’s not. It’s a good size. A nice size. For us. But since we began to multiply, and I mean grandchild-wise, we can’t fit everyone in here anymore. It’s just too crowded when they all show up, and I’m talking crowded-sliding-along-walls -to-pass-someone crowded. I’m talking crashing into someone literally every single time we turn around to head in some other direction crowded. I’m talking fighting for seats in the living and dining rooms crowded. It’s getting way, way too tight in here.

It was fine when these grandchildren were babies. They could be stashed nearly anywhere. Drawers, boxes, baskets. We could squeeze a crib here, Pack & Play there, bassinet anywhere, and everyone could squash into one bedroom per family, and Mongo and I could keep our own. Sure we all had to share bathrooms, but hey, while they’re not quite the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, they’re not exactly outhouses either. We managed, sort of. No one really suffered. Everyone could bathe if some were willing to do it at 2 AM.

When and why did these g.kids begin to grow so huge? Many women in our family are 6 ft. tall and it’s becoming obvious that some of our female grandchildren have absorbed those genes, while the boys hint at ending at a healthy 6’5." They’re all getting just too bloody big, and I’m getting battle weary of tripping over their hip-deep toys, sliding on their floor-covered CDs, and begging to please, please be allowed to use my computer, to please, please end that crazy, blasting video game, to please, please let the adults watch something on the tube slightly more advanced than Sponge Bob Square Pants, Blues Clues, Jay Jay the Talking Airplane and Elmo, that abdominous, annoying, bouncing, chirpy purple dinosaur I just simply detest. Does that grape colored grape brained Mesozoic flesh eater have a motivational, silver-lining song for every single one of life’s misfortunes? There’s never a good hunter around when you need one.

Anyway, our house is just filling up these days but I really do I love the chaos and the mess and the noise. For me it’s like ---- well, it’s like everything good. But we just don’t have enough room anymore, and oh, how they do love to all show up at the same time, you know, like Christmas and everything.

Hey, Mongo and I never expected this when we bought this home in our beautiful adopted state of Maine back in 1974. We managed to fit the five of us in here adequately and with a various array of livestock too. And even when the boys married the women we’ve come to love dearly, we could still squeeze in here OK. No one had to give up shower time, or a chair, no one had to do battle for the Cheerios or punch someone out over ownership of the red sippy cup. No, it was fine back then.

Ah, but our kids were fruitful and multiplied and now when they all arrive, it’s like living in an over-flowing storage bin. We are all climbing up and over things to get somewhere in the house where we climb up and over more things to get to even more things. It’s astonishing. What a mess!

I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m just boggling, wondering how all this happened! I mean the grandmother thing; well, that’s another issue. Love it, love it. But it kinda snook up on me and I’m still stunned at its sudden arrival. It’s one thing to be a grandmother, but another to be a grandmother of actual people—people who keep acquiring siblings, and people I adore but who insist upon growing bigger and then bigger. And speaking of Christmas, I’ve finally, after much deep thought decided what to give our sons this year; vasectomies.