Life in a big family can only be described as entertaining, terrifying, bizarre, ridiculous, boisterous, humorous, lively, unique, whimsical, frightening, stupefying, magnificent, horrible and wonderful. Most of you here know just what I’m talking about. After all, we live in Boone...where people have really taken that “Be fruitful and multiply” command seriously. Boone is the only place I know of where you can say, ‘Yeah, we ONLY have five kids in our family...”
Do y’all ever feel like the human counterpart for “Make Way for the Ducklings when you take a trip into town?”
Do you have to triple every recipe you make and just the thought of making food for only two people completely is overwhelming because you don’t even know how to go about that?
And of course, you’re never done doing laundry. Ever. Ever. Ever. That used to be my singular birthday wish when blowing out candles as a small, overworked child, “I wish I would never have to fold laundry again!” I think it was opposite day or something when I wished that... ‘cause it sure seemed to backfire on me.
Another big family indicator is you also can’t even count on 4 hands how many accidents and injuries your family has had. OK...well maybe that’s just us... It was always terrifying being the child who was chosen to go tell Mom that one of the kids got hurt. We avoided it as much as possible. Emma and even learned how to put Hannah’s elbow back in socket when she dislocated it when we were only 6 and 8 years old. The real skill was being able to pop it back in before Mom heard all the screaming and came outside. But our very best 7 year old paramedic trick was, “It’s fine, be calm. Shh stop hollering like a dying cow or Mom will hear you and come out!! I’ll just pinch your arm realllyyyy hard then you’ll forget about that huge gash on your foot because your arm hurts worse! Okay??” Even with all of these efforts to keep Mom blissfully ignorant, She still found out about Emma’s broken wrist, Hannah falling out of a two story window, my cracked pinkie, Hannah’s broken clavicle, the deep cut on Ava’s face, my broken rib, Will’s broken nose x2...and I could go on and on. Yeah, we know most of the staff at Watauga Medical center on a first name basis.
Also, living in a big family you learn fast that you have to quickly, loudly and threateningly claim any items that belong to you to prevent them being taken, broken, or eaten. Even then, your personal belongings are not safe. When Will gets up from the table for a minute,
he stands on his chair and proclaims, “EVERYONE! This is my food. I claim it!!! OK? So nobody eat it. Chloe will you make sure nobody eats my food? And nobody hide it somewhere. Um actually, Mom, will you come watch my plate?”
Traveling anywhere is a huge ordeal. Due to time restraints, I won’t even go into the horrors that accompany being crammed in the back of the Suburban... When we go visit Nannie up in the DC area, the neighbors come over and ask if a new family moved in from the looks of all the luggage being unloaded. “Nope, we’re just the crazy Curtis’s from NC, and we’re only here for 2 days...” Actually, just the other day, my Nannie’s neighbor in the townhouse adjacent to hers was moving and came over to say goodbye. He thanked her for being a nice, quiet neighbor. “In fact,” he told her, “I never heard a thing from you. Well....except for when all those kids came to visit a couple times. Then it got a little rowdy...” Of course, “All those little kids” were us.
Food acquisition and production in a larger family is not only an ordeal, but it is also a fine art attempting to make the monthly food bill less than the mortgage. To prevent that from happening, we wake up at before the crack of dawn and travel down to the warmer lands to pick 30 gallons of strawberries for only $4 a gallon, order flour in 50 lb bags, buy milk from the local dairy and visit sketchy produce shacks in odd places with wholesale prices. You know the “Thou shalt not covet” commandment? Most normal people would think about coveting a nice car or something. Nope, not here. If there is any coveting going on, it’s coveting thy neighbor's efficient canning system or super fast-super-quiet wheat berry grinder or the sweet deal the so-and-so family got on apples this year.
As many of you know, hard work is essential to keep any family running smoothly, large or small. One of the biggest compliments we can give each other is, “You were so efficient and productive today!” Mom likes to jokingly tell us, “If you can’t work and think at the same time, then BY ALL MEANS, DON’T THINK!” As soon as we stand still for just a moment, not doing anything, guilt washes over us and we begin to search frantically for something to clean, someone to spank....anything to escape the extreme mortification of being labeled “inefficient.” In Mom’s defense, we do have a lot of fun times together, and she has taught us that hard work can be very rewarding.
Speaking of having fun times, it’s an enigma to me how almost every game we play turns “extreme” very quickly. “Extreme Boggle tournaments” “Extreme go-fish competition 101 with a side game of tackle football and other terrifying elements”...you know what I mean.
Not a day goes by where I’m not thankful for my big-ish, wonderful family. Of course, being the oldest child and getting all the new clothes was nice too...
