A Nice Number

I am not going to try to write blog posts anymore. I started this blog a year ago, but all my entries that I've published so far were written between the hours of 11pm-3am, and I just can't stay up that late. I had my third child in June. I have started at least twenty blog posts and finished none of them. From now on I am going to write bloglets, just one little morsel at a time. I think I can handle that. (We'll see.)

For today, I want to say that I love the Duggar Family. For the very few of you - well maybe more than a few - who don't watch reality television, I'm talking about the family from Arkansas who is famous for their extremely conservative values and the fact that they have 19 children. You won't find me requiring my girls to wear only skirts (since they're 4 and 2, i.e., aspiring princesses, no such rule is necessary at the moment anyway; my problem is I can't get them to wear pants) or prohibiting dancing (couldn't live without it!) But I have taken a page out of the Duggars' book on the matter of discipline. I had been holding back a little too much in that area. Watching their family reminded me that my job is to train my children's character so they can have a successful life.

What I love most about Jim Bob (yes, Jim Bob) and Michelle, though, is they believed what God said about children: that they are a blessing. I'm not saying the Duggars are a perfect family, but they did do that one thing: take God at his word. I want to have lots of children. I come from a big family, and I love the exuberant chaos of having a lot of people around. I'm too old to have 19, I think, (thank God) unless I had a couple sets of quintuplets. But six sounds like a nice number. Or seven. Or eight. Or five. I just know I'm not done yet. I might get a little scared sometimes that I could have one or two too many kids, and that one or more of them might end up feeling unimportant or overlooked. I guess I could stop having children because I'm afraid and call it prudence. Or I could trust the bountiful, juicy, lush extravagance of the God who always gives enough love for whatever He puts in a person's heart to do.