Ever since I was a little girl, I've always claimed to want a big family of my own someday. When I was in high school, I decided I wanted to have 6 kids. Partly because I love children, and partly because 6 is Wade Redden's number.
Now, I'm 24 years old, I have no boyfriend, and I'm no where near being close to getting married and starting a family, so logistically, those 6 kids probably aren't going to happen. It's just as well. I've discovered a TV show on TLC that I absolutely love, but it has also opened my eyes to what life is like in a zooey house filled with children. The show is called "Jon & Kate Plus 8", and it's a reality show that follows the Gosling family, Jon & Kate and their two sets of multiples - twin girls Cara & Maddy, and sextuplets Aaden, Collin, Joel, Alexis, Hannah and Leah. The twins are about 6 years old and the sextuplets are toddler age, about 3 years old.
I started watching re-runs of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" in the summer, and I was happy to see new episodes that began in the fall. To me, Jon & Kate are miracle workers. They have these 8 children to raise, and as far as I'm concerned, they do an amazing job. They are so organized, and they do such a good job of giving their kids opportunities, even though it would be easy to keep them all penned up in the house and yard all the time. They go on family outings, they have worked hard to maintain their family traditions, they feed them organic & nutritional food as much as possible, and on last night's episode, they even let the kids draw names and shop for each other's Christmas presents. There's often chaos, but they seem to handle it so well!
Jon & Kate's relationship must be extremely strong - I've heard criticism that they fight too much, but seriously, if you had 8 kids under the age of 6, I'm sure you'd also have moments where you'd want to rip your spouse's hair out. They do lose their tempers with one another, and get easily frustrated, but there are moments when they're joking around with each other that you can tell they have a bond so strong that nothing - not even 8 children - will break them.
The children are absolutely adorable. One of my favourite moments from a past episode was when one of the little boys, angry at his mother, told her, "Mommy, you a boy" - the biggest insult he could think of to hurl at her. They all seem to be happy, healthy, unique little kids with strong personalities. And all things considering, they are extremely well behaved. The family never ceases to blow me away with how adventurous and organized they are.
So yes, it's fun to watch Jon & Kate each week to see what's next for their young and exuberant family.
But I think I'll just stick to 2 or 3 kids someday!
