Affording the Good Stuff

I read this on another blog and I could totally relate to what this mother wrote... awesome!

The other day while painting my daughter’s room, with the little kids safely cordoned off elsewhere, I actually had time to daydream. Mind wandering, I found myself wondering how it would feel to have enough money for a week in Hawaii. A kitchen remodel. A couple weeks in Europe. Or even the freedom to zip off to California for the weekend just for the fun of it. All the stuff that’s hard to fit in the budget while raising eight kids on a single income. For just a moment I wondered about the life we don’t have, the path we didn’t choose. What would be it be like if we had stopped having children after our first two daughters. If we’d chosen that other path, what might we have instead? We’d have a matched bedroom set, but no little kids bouncing on our bed in the mornings. We’d have the latest in video equipment, but no 4 year old pirouetting for the camera. We’d have video of Hawaii beaches, but none of Christmas programs featuring half a dozen of our brood. We’d see the Eiffel tower, but we’d never see 8 ‘stairsteps’ lined up on the beach grinning for a photo. We’d have a cool commercial range, but no pots big enough to properly test it. We’d have new living room carpet, but no rosy-cheeked 8 year olds to wrestle there. We’d have a nice lawn, but no teenagers gleefully chasing toddlers around the yard. We’d have a hot tub, but no little children splashing and squirt-gun-fighting. We’d have nice dinnerware, but the dinner table would be nearly empty. And what about our children if there were only two? They might have gone on a cruise, but they would have missed the eye-opening trip to another country to adopt a sibling. They’d have pictures with made-up Disney princesses, but none with tiny sisters looking adoringly up at them. Their college may have been paid for, but later they’d bear the burden of aging parents alone. They’d have designer jeans, but no mob of siblings to laugh with later in life over childhood memories. The individual present-piles under the Christmas tree would have been bigger, but I don't know how a small crew around the tree each year could compare to the ever-growing mob that comes from a big family, as children become adults and add their own spouses and children to the joy of the season. You know what? I think we’re affording the good stuff after all.