Yesterday we fed Thanksgiving Dinner to sixteen people.  That may sound like a lot, but in all actuality, we only hosted three other people outside our clan.  We moved in some extra folding tables and made a large U shaped banquet set up so that we could all dine together.  We pulled out the “good” dishes for everyone, including wine and water goblets, and set the table with cloth napkins and place cards. 

I’ve heard part of what sets a day apart is how it differs from the norm.  In this case, I’m one who loves to make special days memorable with the little touches and added extras.  It was a noisy meal, but in a joyous way, and everyone seemed happy with the large family style arrangement. 

I resisted the urge to do the traditional “go around the table and tell what you are grateful for” game due to the intimate nature of my truths, but I was itchy to ask the question none the less.  Due to the partially closeted nature of our quad status, I would have felt unable to express the candor of my gratitude, which would probably resound with corny sentiments as this Thanksgiving marked the one year anniversary of our blended family’s first real gathering. 

Last year our OSOs arrived late in the night on Thanksgiving Eve after a long and grueling travel, we said our hellos and promptly put all the sleepy children, already clad in pajamas to bed.  Temptress and I spent the entire night talking by firelight on the couch and babysitting the 22 pound bird I’d purchased for the occasion.  Last year our children played happily together getting to know each other and sharing spaces.  Last year we guarded our eyes and controlled our body language so as not to raise suspicions with the younger generation. 

This year my loves were nestled in the bedroom next to ours.  This year all the children were warmly tucked in their own beds, in their own spaces.  This year we spent the day working in conjunction to provide OUR family with a Thanksgiving Feast that marked a significant passing of time.  This year, there were the normal squabbles between siblings, but they still managed to enjoy a fun game of front yard baseball after the plates had been cleared and the dishes loaded.  This year the parents watched each other knowing we’d made it through the first stages of taking two separate families and melding them together to make one amazingly wonderful tribe. 

This year, I am truly grateful for the life that we lead, for the love we share, and the future we anticipate. 

Goddess, 11-24-06

Life with nine siblings is hard. Without our oldest sister it is just a bit easier; but with everyone else it makes trying to stay you even harder.

Sometimes it isn’t easy trying to explain to your friends how you have four parents and nine siblings and there are no divorces between it all. There is and are always times when you just want the bat so you can take care of it all. But I never get the chance.

There is sometimes when you want to cuddle and love them and there are others when you want them all dead. Each one of us kids feels the same. Each one of us thinks I want them all gone; yet I want them all to stay. Sometimes I just want it to be just our original family; other times I want it to be our new clan.

LM19 has it easy she doesn’t have to deal with YM14 and YM12 and everyone else. YM14 is the worst. There are days when we’re all ready to kill him and there’s days when he is a really big suck up and we love him to peaces.

The children make madders worse every time you say something that only big people should say like “crap” they go “oh crap your right I am going to tell mommy.” LM2 makes my life harder some times I wish she was nineteen and out of the house but that would mean that I would be out of the house too.

There are some advantages to having nine siblings and four parents. One, there are more people to bug all day when I am bored. Two, there are more parents so there is always a good chance of finding a parent to help you. Three, there are more people to love and cuddle with.

written by Little Miss, age 12

A few days ago Fix, Temptress, and I sat down to watch “The Village” by M. Night Shaymalan (2004).  I was prepared for a spooker, even though my loves reassured me it was (warning here:  SPOILER) nothing more than an elaborate charade for a cause. 

Now I will confess that I am not one that enjoys much suspense in my films, nor do I care for that adrenaline rush most claim to get from horror flicks.  I am intensely visual, and even though a story line may be intriguing, if there is any graphic or powerful images I have a hard time dismissing those as merely entertainment.  I cannot even watch CSI, regardless of my interest in that type of science, due to the shocking scenes the show uses at times. 

With the creep factor in mind, I snuggled on the couch next to my Temptress and wrapped my favorite quilt around for extra protection.  I would normally suggest watching a movie like this requires daylight, and watching at night was one step in the wrong direction to begin with, but dodging children during the day long enough to get in a “grown up” movie is difficult.  [Humorous side note here…  I was in the tradition of saying “adult movie” until Big pointed out to me, on more than one occasion, that the connotation of such leaned toward the pornographic, so I have begun to use a less scholarly term to convey my meaning.] 

The movie was captivating to me, although slow moving at times, and at its end left me with some mixed feelings that led to more than one discussion about intentional communities, family of choice, life spans of man made Utopias, and the rightness/wrongness of using fear as a controller, if even for admirable intentions. 

I’m a communally minded soul, so the intentional community thing is something I have mulled around in my head for years.  There was this time in college some buddies and I got together one evening considering the ramifications of having a society like this “once we had the resources” to do so and had moved on a bit in our lives.  Alas, the open mindedness of those college years can give way to the pressures of adult living, like mortgages, and budgets, and car payments, and groceries.  To top that off, I happened to fall in love with and subsequently marry an Alex P. Keaton type yuppie who wore a suit and a power tie six days a week.  Say buh-bye to the “all hands on deck” theory of sustenance living. 

(Almost) Twenty years after saying “I do” I found myself seriously wanting more than my nuclear family could supply.  Perhaps it was my penchant for close knit coziness that our extended families just had not provided.  Perhaps it was some rebound from a serious breach of trust.  Perhaps, the “real” ME just didn’t want to stay on the shelf I’d made for her.  But whatever the reason, the idea of having a larger “family” that Big and I hand picked for ourselves was a very comforting thought.  

I’ve done a little research into co-housing communities and they do appeal to me.  But then, of course, you have to deal with the details of who, what, when, and where.  It’s an ideal I enjoy pondering, but hardly realistic for my life at this point.  We have kids enthralled in programs and activities, we are surrounded by family, and we happen to be knee deep in financial obligations. 

Still, I languish in the plausibility of creating my own little world in which I am free to live and love in the manner that pleases me.  Where we can protect the innocence of our children just a little while longer, where we can return to a somewhat simpler way of life, where the concept of a Gregorian way of life is core, and where we are free to follow the spiritual path without the modern day hang ups of organized religion – THOSE are the motivations that draw me into the fantasy of our own village. 

For what it’s worth, I’m essentially happy with the life we lead.  I am engulfed day and night by those people in my life I hold most dear.  I am lucky enough to have not one, but three others who profess their love to me, and I, in turn, feel so content with our little quad and the diversity it affords me.  The children that inhabit our home are a constant reminder that life is not just about me, but in giving something to the next generation; it’s about helping them find (or devise) their Utopia as well. 

The only draw back to modern suburban living is I do not feel free outside my home to respond to those I love in an equal manner.  I am free to act in anyway I choose with Big, but the same responses to Temptress and Fix would do far more damage than raised eyebrows.  I hope one day society will be somewhat more accepting of alternate lifestyles, so we are less concerned about the potential risk of living totally out of the closet.  When that happens, I can give up the silly notion of taking myself and everyone I hold dear and hiding away in some remote and verdant dwelling. 

Goddess, 11-17-06

Most of the time my blog entries are directly related to the poly lifestyle or a situation our quad discovers along the way to understanding this incredible journey we face. But at heart I’m still a mom, and sometimes the kids do or say something that tickles me, or downright confounds me, and this being my blog (or at least one quarter mine), I guess I can use it at my discretion.

Life with a large family is a constant and ongoing challenge. It’s usually quite fun, but even when it’s not a riot, at least it’s never boring. There are a lot of things we do as a large clan that most families never have to consider in their daily lives. We spend lots of energy planning and organizing so we can save time in the long run. We’ve developed schedules and rituals that work for us in the areas of chores, laundry duties, summer and school day agendas, handling money and bills, even meal planning and grocery shopping.

As the Chief Cook/Bottle Washer in our quad, I have enjoyed making the large family meals, but even after ten months, the amount of food these kids can put away astounds me. The other morning I scrambled three dozen (yes, that’s 36) eggs for breakfast. Couple that with the porridge and bacon; and it should have made a hearty breakfast. Granted, we had an extra kid at the breakfast table, but we were down three adults, so I figured no problem. Assumptions are dangerous with 13 in the house. They wiped out the entire meal and were asking for more. I swear it’s like feeding an army.

Interestingly enough, it was one of those rare occasions where I received nothing but positive comments about the meal. Most meals are met with a near 50/50 approval rating. Children who were at one time accepting of nearly everything Temptress or I served, now in coalition feel free to turn up their noses and make disparaging comments.

What I find totally amusing is how nicely they seem to take nods from each other on what is or is not acceptable. If LM12 thinks something is, “the best thing Mommy makes,” then usually LM4 will love it even if it is something I doubt she’d actually eat. Likewise, if LM6 always loved something, she will now refuse to eat it if YM6 doesn’t care for it either.

The menus are drawn up twice a month and posted on the refrigerator closest to the pantry. These children are fully aware of the menu’s location, and at times I can find groups of them huddled about in dialogue. “Thursday breakfast looks good, but ewww… Saturday night is thumbs down. Hmmm, wonder if I can spend the night at Grandma’s that night?”

This is why it exasperates me when these same children will approach me while up to my elbows in meal prep and ask, “Mom, what’s for dinner?” So I stop cold in my tracks, smile lovingly, and say, “Tonight’s fare: Road Kill Casserole and Cod Liver Oil Pudding with Dust Bunny Sprinkles.”

Never push a Mommy on the edge. She’ll fight back. And she plays dirty.

~Goddess, 11-8-06

I had often stated that I was in a closed relationship with the quad because the others requested it. Over the last year as I’ve studied and read about Polyamory and come to understand it more clearly in my own head, I’ve found myself romanticizing the idea of having a totally open relationship. The idea of an ever expanding tribe of others that you are that transparent and open with at first blush sounds really appealing. To not have to limit your relationships based on societies traditional bounds that only allow you to love one person at a time seems very freeing.

The other members of my quad don’t share my enthusiasm. Temptress will tell you right off that she is not so much polyamorous as she is quad-mogamous. As we lay in bed with the sun streaming in the window yesterday morning, Temptress had an offer for me from out of the blue. If I felt that I needed other women in my life to feel complete, she was willing to talk about moving in this direction. Laundry Goddess has on a few occasions mentioned the same thing. Knowing that such a door was opened that I believed to be permanently locked and barred brightened my day. But knowing a door is accessible and choosing to walk through it are two completely different things.

For one, I have a young struggling business that requires a good deal of love, time and devotion right now from me as well as from Temptress. Speaking of love, time, and devotion, two women and nine children at home call for and need all that Fix and I can muster between us. The idea of trying to build a new relationship in addition to these two areas of my life would spread me thinner than I would like. I know at some point the business will take on a life of its own in such a way that I won’t need to dote on it. Similarly, the children continue to grow at breakneck speeds and the little ones that need kisses, cuddles, and playmates (or playthings as I often feel they see me) will want to spread their wings and steer clear of old dad except to borrow the car keys and frisk me for spending money. Life has a way of changing and cycling from one season to the next.

Additionally I still deal with jealousy issues and fears from time to time. Speaking to a friend yesterday, I was asked what it was I feared. What did the jealousy stem from? Most of them center on LG and the kids. I fear losing my fallback position of life with LG alone in a monogamous relationship. I fear that I might lose my place in her heart.

I fear that I might end up alone and will have led my kids down a fruitless path. I fear that others opinion of my choices will take away my effectiveness to lead them (business, church, family, etc). She told me that all these fears are rational. So if that is the case, how do I grow past them? Her answers reminded me of a national speaker and businessman that I considered a friend before he passed. He would say of public speaking that you never get rid of the butterflies in your stomach, you just teach them to fly in formation. You get use to the fact that some things seem uncomfortable, but you make rational decisions about how you will respond to those things, instead of letting them control your emotions. I’m not there yet, but hope and expect to be one day. When I choose to open that door, others will be free to walk through it as well. When I feel compersion for LG being with another of her loves, I’ll feel like I am ready.

The third reason is Temptress herself. For the life of me, I can’t understand why I’m not emotionally in the same place with this wonderful woman that I am with LG. She fills so many of the gaps in my life left by LG that I can’t imagine what else I might need. I want to see how my heart develops with her over the next few years first. I also don’t want her to doubt her place in my life. The family is permanent and so is she, but I imagine her heart tells her otherwise. LG has had nearly 20 years to cement our relationship. My relationship with T shouldn’t be built on sand(or wet cement) when and if this path is considered.

Lots of areas in my life need to mature before I even consider such a door. If all this occurs, I then have the impossible task of finding a woman that I can’t live without that feels the same way about not only me, but the rest of the quad. We’re sort of a package deal and we’re damn quirky. I have to deal with the fact that I might have actually rounded up the only two women in the world that fit this description already. So for now, I think I’ll remove the boards we nailed up on the doorway and just leave the locks bolted. The future is still ours to determine.

~Mr. Big

I never wanted to be one of those needy, whiney females that is incapable of dealing with life on her own.  Unfortunately, I find myself lately in need of more time, more attention, and more affection from all three of my life mates. 

Fix teases me about my playful need for “muscles” or a “big strong guy-type,” but those dependencies were built into me by a single mother in the 70s who liked to use her female attributes to trade nursing skills and culinary talents for household repairs and lawn services.  Granted, every household needs someone who understands its workings and can do repairs and maintenance, but those needs are not the ones to which I refer. 

This is a deep seeded emotional need for presence.  I don’t like to be alone and I have trouble dealing with loneliness.  I see this as a weakness and I’ve fought it all my adult life.  The thing is, when it was just me and Big, I learned how to cope with my feelings.  He went to work.  Period.  I learned to deal.  But now things are different. 

There are 15 of us residing in this house for now.  We expect two to leave us in the coming months (our nanny and her fiancé), but the house is mostly loud, active, and full of life.  I have become intricately aware of its nuances and noises, and I love how it bursts with love and laughter. 

I love how there are round table discussions of the day during dinner.  I love how no matter the issue, there is always someone willing or able to handle said situation.  I love how I’m not solely responsible for the parenting decisions and that other adults are available to step in and back me up when a teenager needs double teaming.  I love the fact that I’m now a homebody by choice, and not because I’m stuck there with a million kids. 

Now there are so many answers for my aloneness, that when I’m suddenly faced with a day of quiet and solitude, I’m not quite certain what to do with myself.  I found myself in that position today.  All nine of the kids in were in school and all five of the other adults working.  I had three hours of time.  I felt totally lost. 

Most people crave time alone.  Most people need quiet every so often.  I frequently hear comments like, “FIVE kids? (or NINE, as the case happens now to be)  I can’t handle the two I have!”  No offense to those of you struggling with two kids, but if you can’t handle two kids it doesn’t say much for your parenting skills.  (The good news is, those skills can be learned, along with a heaping dose of patience.)  I think most people in my situation would cower and tremble at the activity level in our house.  But for me, it’s my fuel, my drive, my passion. 

So what do I do when I feel alone?  Good question, as I rarely have to do it.  Today I took a long, hot bath.  I surfed.  I did some laundry.  I did the dishes.  I blogged.  And somewhere in there I had a nice cathartic cry.  Pretty much what I do when I’m not alone.  (yes, even the tears part)  Because as I age I’ve come to see that I am, as much as I hate to admit it, one of those emotionally charged carbon units commonly referred to as a female.  The people who love me have known it for years, I’m just now grown up enough to admit it to myself. 

~Goddess, 11-2-06

Erratic ContentmentConfusing ThoughtsShifting SandsFoundations CrumbleAvalanche! 

Life is a puzzleThere are no guaranteesThere are no easy pathsTo blindly follow or wisely chooseUtopia Lost! 

Make your own rulesFind your own pathSearch, QuestionStruggle, DecideLIVE! 

Craving ConsistencySeasons CyclePerplexity, UncertaintyDesires, WondermentAround Again! 

Emotions AblazeBurning TearsSizzling FleshFinding AtlantisCrash! 

BreatheBreathe DeeplyBreathe Deeply GaspingBreathe Deeply Gasping HopeBreathe Deeply Gasping Hopeful HeartExhale! 

~The Laundry GoddessNovember 2, 2006