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...with all those kids?!...


Being a creative person, and a mother of 5 children, I am often asked; “How do you do it with all those kids?”

(I am also often asked “are they all yours?” … more on that one later…)

The truth is that I actually believe I could not / would not do it without having had “all those kids” !!!!!

Having any sized family – but especially a large-ish family means that many distinctively different, creative, and faceted people all need you on so many varying levels. Everyone is constantly bouncing off of each other, and eating, and yelling, and dancing, and laughing, and fighting, and singing (oh…the singing…) together - in one place. These buzzing little lives are intimately woven into your daily world... like a unique and vibrating tapestry.

You need to cook and bake, and plan, and organize, and listen, and correct, and advice, and nudge, and suck it up, and find things, and nag, and wonder, and encourage, and hope, and pray, and cook some more, and listen even more…and be grateful! This whole big (and yet so small) adventure called family life naturally leads to (and I believe necessitates) one to think and perceive things creatively … and why would it not? – these little people in your home are your ultimate creations!

Because of all this steady business, creative-minded women of young busy families often experience an acute creative “pent-up-ness”…

Much like young love that cannot yet be fully expressed…

One cannot simply stop in mid-stream in a house full of toddlers at lunch time, to run off to create a painting, or throw a porcelain pot, or forge a necklace simply because you just received an inspiration at that moment. You just can’t!

Instead, you must be content with eking out little stolen moments of tiny creativity – making a small gift card for a friend (when really you are dying to create a master piece on canvas), arranging the wilted wild flowers your child’s dirty, dimpled, doughy little hands offer you (when really you want to be a floral designer in your own flower shop) ...

Between these tiny bursts of creative expression, the creative brain must satisfy itself by simply “playing” with the bigger ideas of your own form of art over and over again – adjusting it, shifting it, morphing it, owning it... without actually doing it.

And when “that” quiet day finally arrives, (…and it may take 10 years or more…) when you find yourself ALONE in your sun-filled living room one September morning, and the quiet amid cricket sounds almost hurts your ears – you will feel wistful, and a touch of melancholy…but, when you shake yourself out of the echoing nest, you will realize that for many uninterrupted hours, you will be able to focus on whatever material creations you have been playing with internally for so long – and this will create an explosion of sorts...

I believe the waiting is actually fuel to the fire!

All the days, weeks, months or years that you have been working mentally on creations and visions act like an auger drilling a hole in the earth …and when it is time to let it happen - let the waters rush in, it feels as though the well of ideas might just be endless.

…so to all you creative Moms out there – who may be frustrated or discouraged or resentful that you can barely summon the time or energy to create a simple bowl of oatmeal right now… your time WILL come! Just wait! Waiting for all good things is a good thing!

If you give freely now, all that you have – pour as much love and creativity into your young family, home and husband, you will have no regrets, and you will discover a wealth of creativity and energy which only sacrifice, experience, a bubbling life of children, and love can reward you with!

…just wait…


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