Very few of us are thrown into the situation where we gain a large family overnight.
It grows gradually, and we adapt and change as it does so.
We don’t look at our family as big or small.
It’s just our family.
We don’t notice it until something happens which makes you stop and realise that yes, I do have quite a large family after all!
You know you have a large family when:
You can pick any item off the sales rack at random and know that it’ll fit ‘someone’.
The definition of success is finding the bottom of the laundry bin.
Serving up meals leaves you with flashbacks of the school dinner lady rhythmically plonking one ladleful of food onto plate after another – except now that lady is you.
You can’t go out as a family without inducing the nodding-dog symptom in passers-by. You know, the one where they try to discreetly count you all but nod their heads as they do so.
Your obstetric consultant is on your Christmas card list.
You consider swapping existing children’s first and middle names around in order to create names for the new baby because you’ve used up all the names you like already.
Rather than know you by name, people know you as ‘the ones with all those kids.’
You need to block book an entire hour-long slot at the dentist – and that’s just for the first half of the family.
You need to write down everyone’s order to hand over when you order a takeaway as 1) it would take too long to tell the person taking it, and 2) it’s impossible to remember that much!
You never need to wait for enough whites to build up in the laundry basket to run a full load.
You find yourself admiring newer model minibuses instead of cars.
Making a cup of tea for everybody means boiling the kettle twice.
Your dining table extension needs an extension…
…and you switched individual dining chairs to benches a long time ago.
You are on first name terms with everyone at the ante-natal clinic.
You need two or more family-sized packs of anything because one nowhere near cuts it.
You’re out with the kids and someone comments with ‘You’ve got your hands full!’ only for you to reply, ‘This is only half of them. The rest are at home!’ And you’re not even kidding.
You remember certain events by who you were pregnant with at the time or who had just been born.
These are just a few ways you know you have a large family and we’re sure you can add a whole lot more to the list. Add yours to the comments below!
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The dinner lady one is so true.
I also think you you know you have a large family when you have to make a rota in order to get a turn in the bathroom.
When you book airline tickets and get asked if it’s a school booking because of the ratio of children to adults!!
I get the “you have your hands full” comment all the time when I’m out with the two girls who are just over a year apart, when I say there are 3 more at home the reactions are priceless.
When there is always an empty loo roll!!. and no one ever changes it. Mum of nine.
When you start referring to the minivan as “the little car”.
When you need either 2 refrigerators, or at least a fridge and a deep freezer just to hold a weeks worth of groceries… Or you would love to have a second set of washers and dryers. Like more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your life kind of love to have them.
I got a second tumble dryer for Xmas and hand on heart can say I was more pleased with this than the year I got a designer handbag!! I’m after an industrial six slice toaster next!!!
You go through a gallon or more of milk a day.
You always have spare clothes for a friends kid of any age if the get mucky/have an accident out of the boxes of Inbetween sizes in store for the younger ones to grow into!
When people come round for dinner and state they haven’t seen saucepans that big since they were in school lol
When you buy bananas by the case or find the conveyor belt at the checkout is only a third of the length it needs to be. I recently bought a week or so of veg and fruit in the market and it took two men and a sackcart to shift it to the car, their faces were a picture – I ‘only’ have the 4 as well, although I do stockpile. Well, you never know when you might have unexpected guests with an equally large family drop by!!!
When your oldest is mistaken for the father or mother of your youngest. (I’m the oldest of seven, and this has happened to me on several occasions.)
When rude and ignorant people ask” havnt you got a tv?”. Or “are you Roman Catholic?”or “Are you having more?” when you have only just given birth!!. Unbelievable!!
When you need to book 2 units for holidays as you can no longer squeeze into 1.
Wen you realise that there are enough of you to take advantage of group booking discounts.
When you’ve forgotten what it’s like to put a half packet of something back in the cupboard – pasta, biscuits, cakes, cheese, because you always use a whole packet (or more!) in one go.
When the supermarket checkout person says “ooh, are you stocking up?” and you reply “no, this is my top up shop between online order deliveries”
There’s no such thing as leftovers.
On a flight you need an entire hand luggage sized case just for their drinks and snacks!
When you can’t fill out forms online because they don’t have enough boxes for all your children.
Hotels have less rooms/ beds than you have at home !!!!
When at the supermarket, I pick up the cardboard holder, containing all the jars, boxes, tins of food, rather than select individual items from that holder 😀
……or, if , for example, pasta jars are on offer, you don’t buy 2 or 4 to get a good deal, you actually clear the entire shelf !!! 😉