Julie and I have 12 children. That still comes as a shock to some people. The other day I was in the doctor's office for treatment of a persistent, irritating, awful, nasty skin rash type leprosy on my hands. I'm fortunate I don't live in Old Testament days, or they would have me holed up underneath a big ol' gum tree down in the woods near Fox Mill swamp rasslin squirrels for acorns and pine seeds and trying to choke one of 'em to make some varmint stew. As it stands, the ol' doc got me on some drugs and the issue seems to be getting resolved. He said I had an allergic reaction to latex. As I was signing forms the lady behind the desk started chatting and subject of "children" came up as she noticed a lad or lass or three or four of mine in the computer system. One thing leads to another and she finds out I have 12 and she just stands there and shakes her head and says, "No you don't." Over and over she kept saying she can't imagine what it must be like in my house.
Well, let me help her out. Let's just take one of our children. Namely Olivia. Just 17 months old, but a terror in the Team Sabo house. We start out at around 7 o'clock in the morning when I find her on the kitchen table eating someone's raisin bran. It's more on her clothes, face and hair than in her belly. I get her cleaned up and a short time later I find her back on the table with someone else's raisin bran. She's just getting warmed up. Over the course of the day I might find her with an ink pen tattooing various of her appendages and cheeks -- with a permanent marker. This morning Julie was relieved that Olivia was doing this with an ink pen that wasn't a permanent marker. Does that make it right?
This afternoon I looked over to find her standing on the piano bench playing the piano -- buck naked from the waist down. She had removed her shorts and her diaper, for reasons that remain unknown to me; perhaps it had something to do with the freedom it presented her to really "feel" the music. Either that or she was grooving so hard to her tune her britches just dropped off. This evening she discovered "Chapstik" and decided it went in her hair. Two nights ago she found one of those soft candle type things and decided to lube up her do. Let's just say the candle wax doesn't exactly come out of hair easily. But then, have you ever tried to get candle wax and Chapstik out of your hair? Didn't think so.
We don't know what to do with this child. Where did we go wrong? Are we bad parents? After 11 kids do we suddenly not know what we're doing anymore? It seems with each child there's something new and unforeseen that we've never experienced before. Eli can throw some raging fits. I mean raging. Ezra has some quirks to his personality that leave me shaking my head. Now Olivia. And that's just for starters. Don't get me started on some of the older ones. Maybe it's just God keeping us sharp. On top of our parenting game, so to speak. Yeah, maybe that's it. Because how else are we going to be prepared for 60 grandchildren -- or more?
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