Did you miss the beginning? Start here:

• Big family in a small house, part 1: Bedrooms
• Big family in a small house, part 2: Storage
• Big family in a small house, part 3: the floor plan
• Big family in a small house, part 4: Entertaining Guests
  

Although our living quarters are small, we are not forced to spend our days crowded together.  God has given us plenty of space if we choose to use it.

Outside – We live in the country, so the kids can make all the noise they want outside. They can also enjoy all the silence they want out there.

• One of the girls has hung a hammock under the house (it’s several feet off of the ground) and she enjoys reading down there in the dim cool shade during the summer.
• Another child has a favorite tree that provides a spectacular view.
• Still others love to play in the woods nearby, or jump on the trampoline.
• Perry-Boy likes to “drive” the retired Suburban at the bottom of the driveway.  He once took me to his aunt’s house and back without ever starting the engine. 

Deck – We are blessed to have a rather large deck on the front of our house.  When we have company, or when the children are just restless, I often send them out.  The deck is close enough that I can hear them and keep an eye on them, but they are not underfoot like a pack of hungry puppies.  This is perfect for noisy games and restless children.  It’s also great for cold days when they are not likely to stay out for long.  On muddy or even rainy days, they can play on the deck without getting filthy and bringing the mud back into the house.

Inside – I sometimes let the kids make blanket tents in the house.  If they use heavy comforters, I find that their noise is heavily stifled, and they will enjoy the same sensation from inside their tent.  If you toss some snacks and ideas in every now and then, you might be surprised at how long they stay occupied. “Are you  Eskimos in an igloo?  Have some seal jerkey and a whale-oil lamp, and don’t let the polar bears find you.”  Actually I don’t have to come up with ideas because my children do it all themselves.  Their storylines invariably involve kidnappers.

Flashlights, books, or an old laptop with a DVD drive will keep them busy for longer than you think.  Oops.  Did I say that out loud?

If they use a set of bunkbeds for the base of the tent, you won’t even have a mess in the living room.

If you don’t have these options, you might find that you can improvise.  Do you have a garage that can be used as an alternative play area?  A storage room or closet?  A hallway or empty space behind the sofa?

It’s Tuesday, so I have to think of something I wish I had known back when I was surrounded by nothing but The Little People.

Something encouraging, that is.  I won’t mention the fact that I can’t even sort the clean laundry now because I can’t keep track of what belongs to whom.  At least my kids can.

So  here’s my tip: let the little ones help.  I know it’s not really helpful, but they want to.  I know you’re already tired and you barely have time to do the job yourself, but this is part of mothering.  If you don’t have time to make cookies together, then fold laundry together.  Vacuum together.  Wash dishes together.  Do your best to make it a joy so they will:

1. want to help you,
2. keep wanting to help you, and
3. have warm fuzzy memories of helping you so they’ll enjoy keeping their own house someday.

This time together can be just as precious as camping out on the couch with a pile of picture books.  Working together and training your children will also pay off when you ask your older ones to teach a younger one a new job: you will see much of your own training technique reflected in the way your children interact (ouch).

By all means delegate, but be sure not to delegate all of the younger ones’ training to older sibs.  It’s easy to fall into this, but you don’t want to miss out on this precious time with the second wave of Little People.

This is not something I’ve done consistently or well, but it’s something I strive to do.  And I’m thankful to find, day by day, when I peel my bee-hind out of the computer chair, that it’s never too late to start.

Want more help from Been There, Done That moms?  Visit Ship Full O’ Pirates to see who else is playing along this week.

At church last Sunday, I watched a mother of 4 little girls walk the 3 oldest to the bathroom in the middle of the fellowship meal.  She had left the baby with me and my friend.   It’s been a long time since I was the only one big enough to supervise a potty trip, and as she walked away, I was reminded of those early days of mothering.

Every potty trip for many years required my presence and assistance, and I was glad to give it because it meant that at least somebody was out of diapers.  Anything that got done had to be done by me, and that was a lot.  The days, weeks, months and even years passed in a blur.

When our 3rd daughter was born, our oldest was 3.  I was still holding things together, but I have to admit I was a little nervous about adding a fourth to the mix.  When we had 4 girls like my friend, our oldest was 4.  Now I was panicked at the prospect of a fifth.  When we had 5 girls our oldest was 6.  At the birth of the 6th, our oldest was barely 8.

But it got easier.  We survived life with 4 small children.  I learned that I could not do it all by my own strength.  My house was a mess and my pride was broken, but we survived by God’s grace, and nobody died because I forgot lunch or baths or didn’t mop or change sheets for – well, I won’t say just how long.  I was  busy brushing hair and had to prioritize.

But five children were really no harder than 4, because now I had a 6yo who could not only take care of herself, but really be an asset in helping with her sisters.  Now we were on the downhill slide.  When our 6th was born, we still had 4-children-4-and-under, but we had a 6yo and an 8yo!  Oh, luxury!

Every new skill learned and mastered by a child added a little time to my day and helped that big sister learn to serve others around her.  I found myself greatly encouraged with each new milestone.  Here are 10 significant ones in the order in which they often occur in our house:

1. Getting dressed without help, including choosing clothes, usually around 3yo.
2. Getting a drink of water. Spilled water is no big deal; it dries on its own if necessary, and if we’re lucky the floor will be cleaner.
3. Using the bathroom without help, usually at 3 1/2 or 4yo.  Potty training is not a huge help, because newly trained children need as much help as those in diapers – sometimes more.  But independent potty use is worth celebrating!
4. Ditching the carseat. I appreciate the added safety of a carseat for babies and toddlers, but I also appreciate the added space, flexibility and freedom when they are big enough and old enough to ride without.
5. Making a sandwich or pouring milk on cereal, usually around age 5.  This made an incredible difference in the effect of morning sickness, since being able to stay away from food when I was nauseated was often instrumental in my ability to keep anything down.
6. Changing a wet diaper. Nothing makes a girl feel more grown up than the ability to change a diaper on a real, live baby.   Our girls usually start helping with this around 5 or 6.
7. Helping with dishes. I mean real help – not the kind that actually makes the job take longer, though that’s nice in its own way.  By age 6, children can be a net asset when it comes to dishes.  After so many years of doing dishes alone, having a real helper by my side was welcome relief.
8. Brushing her own hair, usually by age 6 or 7 depending on hair length, texture and thickness.  She may still need help with styling, but just the ability to keep the tangles out is a huge help to Mom.
9. Doing daily chores, preferably without multiple reminders.  Help is nice, but independent work is even more exciting.  Once I didn’t have to do at least half of every chore, my available time was doubled.  Chore duty can start very early, but I find that children can become truly helpful around 6 or 7.
10. Taking a younger sibling to the bathroom.  This was a huge step!  I didn’t enjoy restaurant meals much and I absolutely hated road trips because I spent all of my time in the bathroom and rarely even had the privilege of using it myself.  Even a grocery trip could turn into a logistical nightmare.  Of course the age at which this becomes appropriate depends largely upon the distance, facilities and general locale, but it usually begins around 8-10yo.

start here: Big family in a small house, part 1: bedrooms

part 2: Storage

Closets:

I mentioned in part 1 that we have a closet in each of the 3 bedrooms, approximately 2 feet deep and 5-1/2 feet wide. These each have hanging space for the clothes of the occupants of that bedroom. Most of our outer wear is hung rather than kept in drawers.

The bedroom closets also have shelves, which are used mainly for board games and excess blankets. There is also a wooden chest in the living room to store blankets. We have far too many small personally owned blankets and could easily pare down in this area! We only keep one set of sheets for each bed, so there are not a lot of extra bed linens to store.

We are currently adding a small linen closet in the bathroom. This will add some misc. storage to the house, for cleaning supplies, tools, guest towels, etc. Since our house is still under construction, we keep quite a collection of building supplies and tools in the house.

(Incidentally, the girls and I framed in the wall that you see – it was our first framing job, done with hubby’s instructions but while he was gone. I really enjoyed learning a new skill and was inordinately proud of my handiwork when it was done.)

Cabinets:

I feel it is worth mentioning that we have a fair amount of cabinet space in the kitchen. Not a tremendous amount, but enough to comfortably store all of our food and kitchen tools in the kitchen, a luxury that not every family has.

We also have our new computer counter with 2 small base cabinets and a file cabinet. We plan to add a third cabinet under this soon. This provides some extra storage for computer-related items and materials for our family business, Geneva Bible Pages.

Book Cases:

We recently acquired several more largish bookcases, a necessity for our lifestyle. We choose to live without many extensive possessions, but our books are like children: we can never have too many. When we moved from Ohio to Texas 5 years ago, we brought very little besides our dining room table, clothes, and many, many boxes of books. In our small home we have found space for quite a few bookcases. Without them, we might be less crowded but life would also be duller and homeschooling more difficult.

Under house:

In Texas, we don’t have basements. That may be because we live in the Texas Hill Rock Country, where everything is made of rock and nobody feels like digging an extra 8 feet. Whatever the reason, a common type of building is pole and beam and that’s what we did with our house. Our house stands on the side of a hill with the back of the house 2-4 feet off of the ground and the front of the deck nearly 12 feet off of the ground. This provides some nice storage space underneath.

Down there, we store tools, gas cans, building supplies, and yes: totes of out-of-season clothes. Actually, I think many of these totes are mostly full of girls’ pants which we rarely use and could ditch without ever missing them.

Shed:

Down the hill from the house, we have a small storage shed. Can you see it, small and far away? This is how it looks from the deck. Note how the well-aged siding blends with the Texas caliche and rocks.

This is where we kept most of our possessions while we were building the main structure of our house, before it was finished enough for us to move in.

Now it’s packed with misc. stuff that we really should have gotten rid of years ago since we rarely use it, but it’s also where the space heaters and A/C window units live during their off seasons.

That sums up our storage space and how we use it. In spite of the square footage of our home I think we have a generous amount of storage and feel rather spoiled in that area, especially after putting it all together in a single post. We certainly could get by on less but I think it’s true: no matter how much or how little space you have, you will fill it up, and ours is rather full, just one more evidence of God’s abundant blessings.

cont’d here: Big family in a small house: the floor plan