Perspective...

Earlier this week we were out running errands with ALL of the kids when Yvonne and I spontaneously decided to throw caution to the wind and try to go out to a restaurant for dinner. We picked Red Robin's because they are pretty kid friendly (free balloons, crayons, etc.) and their mushroom & swiss burger is to die for. We didn't realize it until we sat down that this was our first outing as a family of SIX. The greeter wisely gave us our own section in the corner of the restaurant and the kids started off great with the balloons and crayons. In the span of the next 20 minutes, we did three diaper changes and one trip to the bathroom. In addition, the balloons had to be rescued from the ceiling, fought over, and tied just right. The crayons went everywhere and the kids seemed to be doing their own version of musical chairs.

Yet, the funny thing was Yvonne and I just sat back, enjoyed our burger and fries, and laughed about how hard we used to think life was when we first had Rachel. I guess the pattern here would seem to indicate that the more kids you have, the easier parenting seems to be....yeah right. The truth of the matter is, I think we've just reached a point where we intuitively know what things are worth stressing over and what things are simply out of our control.

Unfortunately, we forgot to bring a camera to memorialize the event. However, here's a recent photo of our kids playing three-way tug of war with baby Joel: