5 Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed

When people marvel at our living situation, not-so-secretly thinking that living with 7 kids must be, er, difficult, this is what I want them to see. It's bedtime, and the kids are fresh out of the bath, clean and combed and snug in cozy pjs (there's nothing like a freshly laundered kid in his pjs, is there?). They all climbed in to Declan's bed, Erika read a story, Matty threw them in the air and bounced them up and down, and I hovered nervously nearby in case they should, as the titular monkeys did, "fall off and bump [their] head."

No one fell, and of course the fun can only last so long--there are bedtimes to be met, and teeth to be brushed, and tired little children to be put to bed.

But it's times like this that make living in this house so rewarding, it's times like this when we really see what it means for these kids to grow up together, under the same roof.