Maybe eight is enough

Well, it's true that eight ain't enough for a baseball team, but I had eight kids one time, one at a time that is, and not every team needs a short stop anyway.
Even after all these years, I still mumble when someone asks me how many kids I had. Those kids multiplied and now there are 25 and that's not counting their spouses. People can be downright rude about big families. Some people even asked me if I knew what was causing me to have all those kids. Well of course I did, by then anyway. There was a time when I didn't. I searched the cabbage patch on my uncle's farm every summer until I was in junior high school. That year our gym teacher showed us "that" movie. In those day when I was having my children a woman couldn't do much about birth control and our family was Catholic so I was working toward the star on my crown. I think I actually only needed seven children to secure my heavenly tiara, but the extra kid was loved too.
I'm not saying my kids were accidents, and of course they didn't come from a cabbage patch, but none of them were started in a petri dish either.
A large family presents all kinds of challenges and solutions are often "out of the box." For instance, we put the Christmas tree and the gifts in the playpen and let the toddlers run free and Tootsie Pops were only allowed during church on Sunday morning and the kids could have as many as it took to keep them quiet for that long hour each Sunday. One time I forgot one of the kids. We were on our way to church and I had all the Toostie Pops packed but I had a feeling something was missing. When I realized it was our youngest we sped through the neighborhood in panic and were very relieved to find her still on the bed where we had put her. She was immobilized in her bunting like a stranded turtle and sleeping like the proverbial baby.
Let the economists and journalists worry about the dynamics of raising those octuplets. I have been thinking about socks. Without factoring in the other six children, the young woman in California can expect to wash an excess of 190,456 socks in the next 18 years. That's two socks per octuplet and hey!, what about Christmas socks. Some poor grandmother is going to be pretty busy sewing all those sequins on eight felt creations and if Santa puts a limit of $10 per sock each year it will still cost him $144,000. And pity the poor tooth fairy!
Now if those silly thoughts don't give you the willies, think about birthday celebrations. Even if each child is limited to three guests the McDonald's across the nation will stop answering their phones and Ronald McDonald will hang onto those stripped socks as he hides in the playgrounds.
What do you think! Should there be eight cakes or one cake with eight candles? One cake would need 80 candles when the kids turn ten.
A trip to the store presents logistical problems that are mind bending. Remember when you got your two toddlers snugged up in their snow suits and the boots finally pulled over those hard high top shoes and the last hand finally mittened and then the first kids said, "I have to pee."
And I don't know about you but I still haven't mastered hooking up car seats and where would you connect eight of them anyway.
Just think. Eight! Halloween costumes, kindergartners who announce the night before the day that you are the homeroom mother who needs to bring treats, scout meetings and badges to sew on uniforms, soccer games, dance recitals, Little League, report cards, in-school detentions, dentists, immunizations, first communions, proms and weddings.
My daughter-in-law is planning to breed her purebred dog. She hopes to make enough money to put her TWO children through college. I don't know, the cost of college is skyrocketing, but then... maybe she should consider in vitro fertilization. I hear there is a doctor in California that can help. Just imagine eight times the usual number of newborn puppies!
Merriam Webster said enough was plenty and plenty is sufficient. I say I wouldn't want eight babies at one time even if I found them in a cabbage patch.