Major reality check happened this past week for me. We were fortunate enough to get the privilege of watching four cute little munchkins. These kids were an absolute dream being ages 10, 8, 4, and 20 months. Then adding our 7 month old to the mix was a real adventure for us.
Now why was this such a reality check? It wasn’t the fact that we went from 1-5 kids instantly, but more the fact that the more kids you have the harder it is to do things together, just the two of you.
When it’s just us and our son life gets busy, but I never thought about what life is like with more kids until we actually had them. We have watched kids together before, but didn’t have a child of our own.
Coming from a family of only two kids I have always wanted to have at least four kids because I always thought bigger families had so much more fun. They all would go to sports for the other kids and supporting and cheering one of the others on.
Watching these kids made me realize that we need to enjoy the simple moments of life and I need to prioritize time with just my wife. I would get home from work and she had just been with all the kids all day: getting them ready for the day, to and from school, entertaining the little ones, feeding them all, and helping them with homework. I would get home from work and instantly help with what needed to happen: feeding, cleaning, putting to bed, changing, etc. But our time together was limited as we became a team for the cause of family.
By the time you get to bed you’re too exhausted to even talk about the day and how everything went. So how can you prepare for this moment in life? Well, you add the kids one by one, but you make sure that you always make time for the two of you. One thing that we loved doing was including the kids in that conversation and incorporating them in the daily highs and lows, laughter and what we did to serve someone.
Make sure that you help your wife with anything that she needs. Even though you, as the father, have been working all day you’re day is not over once you get home . There are kids to be fed, math and science to be worked on, pajamas to be put on, teeth to be brushed, books to be read, and prays to be said.
We are a team and we need to work as a team if we want to get time to be together. When our kids are on a team we will go to support them because that is fun for our family. We love to watch and support all the fun kids and young adults in our life because that’s what we enjoy and how we choose to spend our time together.