WEBVTT
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Welcome back to We are the Hansens. I'm Maya Hansen,
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and today we're taking you along for a little journey
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into our daily chaos, I mean, our perfectly coordinated routine.
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If you've ever wondered what life with thirteen kids looks like,
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buckle up because it's a wild ride. Let's dive in.
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Let's start at the beginning of our day, because let's
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face it, mornings are where the real battle begins. My
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alarm goes off at six am, but let's be real,
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at the time, I'm already awake because someone had a nightmare,
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someone else needed water, or somebody had to use the bathroom.
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First priority in the morning.
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For us is coffee, and yes I have my own
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special mug. I down that while the house comes alive.
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Picture a symphony, except each instrument is out of tune
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and played at full volume. We've got kids demanding cereal,
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teens scrambling for clean clothes, and my husband calmly watching
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and drinking coffee in the middle of it all like
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he's watching a comedy show while laughing as we're all scrambling.
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He is that guy.
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Sometimes he drives me crazy. This is the type of
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stuff my husband says to me in the morning, when
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there's all this chaos going on and he's sitting there
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watching and drinking his coffee. He'll say things like, we'll
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get through this, honey. It's just like a football play,
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one step at a time. Bless him, he's a very
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brave man. Next, I want to talk about our carpool chronicles.
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This is a disaster every morning. You know, we go
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through the kids and how they are with getting in
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the car and fighting over who gets the front seat.
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It's kind of like this hurting cats with opinions I
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call a shotgun.
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No, I call it first Yeah, it's like that.
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And then you got some of the kids already in
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the car in the back, like the little ones, and
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they're sitting back there enjoying a snack.
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I mean that is kind of like what we do.
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Some of the other stuff, Like in the morning, my
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kids will be arguing and somebody yelling mom, he's in
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my room or she's in my room, or they won't
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get out of the bathroom.
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That's our stuff.
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But if you could sit there and just imagine how
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chaotic it is in the morning at our house, it
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is is craziness. But anyway, our trips in the morning,
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if we have to all pile into the car, the
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kids are always yelling and fighting over who gets the
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front seat, and I'm over here trying to remember if
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I signed a permission slip for today's field trip or
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if I.
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Pack the lunches.
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I mean, that's what goes through my head as I'm
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trying to keep the kids contained, especially in the car,
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because they're fighting over who gets dropped offers or whatnot.
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It's chaotic lunchtime madness for us. After drop offs and errands,
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it's time for us to eat lunch. Feeding this family
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is right like running a diner with no staff, because
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it's usually me. My husband will try and keep the
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kids contained until dinner's ready and I'm trying to get
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everything ready. But then you got them kids. Certain kids
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want different things. One kid wants peanut butter and jelly,
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one kid wants turkey, one kid wants ham. It's never easy.
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And then someone drops their banana on the floor and
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the dog gets it faster than I can say no.
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It is crazy.
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Lunch is also where we sneak in those little life lessons.
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You don't finish your vegetables, guess what you're eating that
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for a snack time. We run a type ship, or
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at least we try to. It's not always tight, but
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we try. We're going to fast forward a little bit
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to a lot of times my kids lose their stuff
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and it is a mess trying to find it.
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It is so chaotic.
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We call or while I call it the Lost and
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Found Olympics, because when you have thirteen kids, you think
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you would have perfected an art of organization.
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No, not at all.
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Mornings always include at least one missing backpack or a shoe,
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or someone asking where's my homework. It's like we're starting
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our own episode of Survivor and you got one kid
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wearing mismatch socks.
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Yes, that is a thing.
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Granted I don't like when my kids are wearing mismatch socks,
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but they do. It seems like when we're scrambling all day,
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the time is going so fast. By the time we
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get all the chaos and everything, you think you're ready
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to just sit down and take a break, and nope,
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something else comes up. So it's not always calm. I
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should say it's not ever cam because there's always something
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that's got to get done. The snacks you got one
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kid when they at home and they're hungry for a snack.
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One kid wants ramen noodles, one kid wants granola bars,
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one kid wants fruit snacks, one kid wants to the lunchible.
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It's always something different. Every child of mine picks different things,
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and you're running like crazy trying to get what each
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one wants, because you know, after school they seem to
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be starving, like they've not ate all day even though
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they had lunch, So that right there is a mess
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in itself. Then getting these kids calmed down enough that
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you can get dinner done, get them fed. By the
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time you get them fed, you're jumping into getting them
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ready for bed. Because there's never a dull moment. We
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are always so busy. It seems like we go from
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dinner and they'll play, maybe for a very short time,
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and then we're getting in the bath and getting ready
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for bed because we try to have our kids in
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bed and asleep by ten pm. Granted, the older ones
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tend to stay up past that, but the younger ones,
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most of the time, they are asleep by ten pm,
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out cold. It does get more peaceful when they're sleeping,
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but then you have the older kids that will be allowed,
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and you're always like, be quiet, be quiet. The little
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ones are sleeping, we don't want them to wake up.
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And the reason we don't want them to wake up
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is because once they fall asleep and they get woke up,
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then they don't want to go back to sleep, and
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then more chaos. So we try to keep that quiet
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time with the bigger kids, even though we know they're
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older and they want to chit chat and have fun
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and joke around with their other siblings, but that we
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try to keep that quiet because otherwise them little ones
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will hear that, they'll be wide awake and they'll be
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wanting to play and stay up all night, and we
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just cannot do that. The evening chaos. For us, dinner
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is like an Olympic event. Imagine passing hot dishes across
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the table while refereeing arguments over who gets the last
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dinner role. We end up most nights with the family
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in the living room after dinner. During dinner, we make
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sure we always pray, but after dinner we end up
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in the living room and we try to chill out
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for a little while before we jump into the showers
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or the baths and get ready for bed, just because
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your belly needs time to take a break. The little ones,
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they don't really like to sit for very long after dinner.
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They like to play, so it's hard.
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I try and get them to watch movies, you know,
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just to relax and mellow out before bed, but it
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doesn't always work, and it's very hard. I can tell
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you that just our normal day is very chaotic. You
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start off in the morning, you're scrambling around, you got
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kids yelling and fighting. When I sit back and look
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at our day, I laugh. I know it's not funny,
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but we really got to look like some crazy people.
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And I was sitting down yesterday with my daughter Madison,
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and we were watching Cheaper by the Dozen, and I
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thought to myself, does my life with my family look
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as chaotic as theirs? Because they have twelve children and
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just seeing how their life is, I'm like, I wonder
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if people think, you know, do we really look like that?
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Because honestly, when I sit back and think about it,
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yes we do.
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We do look crazy like that.
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And people probably think if we had a guest over
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and they spent the night with us and seeing how
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our everyday life goes, they would probably think, oh, my gosh,
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how do these people do it? Because to me, I
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wonder sometimes myself how we do it. It's fun, but
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I think me and my husband are crazy. I honestly
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think we are crazy with having this many kids and
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the stuff that we go through every day, and our
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daily routine is not always the same, not always the
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same at all. Sometimes we got kids going to a
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friend's or sometimes a friend's coming over to our house,
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or one kid's going to work at this time, and
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one kid's got to work at this time. There is
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so much happening, Like I try and schedule, like medicine
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pickups and stuff like that at Walmart, and it doesn't
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always go as planned. So our day, every day day
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is never the same, but the same stuff and chaos
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happens throughout the day from the time we wake up
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until the time we go to bed. If you could
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imagine craziness in the morning, regardless of where everybody's going,
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craziness in the lunchtime, which lunchtime ain't as bad, and
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then you got in between lunch and dinner, and that
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isn't so bad. Really. Most of the time, the older
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kids are gone, so it's just the three girls at
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home and then you got nighttime, and nighttime is when
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all the kids like to come over and visit and
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hang out and eat dinner. But it's okay because we
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enjoy having them in our home and enjoying the conversations
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and laughs, and we literally sit and talk about everyday
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life at our dinner table. We talk about what this
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kid wants to do, or what that kid's gonna do,
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or what type of girls are boys like, or you know,
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different things, and each kid has something to say. One
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kid will be teasing one kid about something, and then
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they all chime in it's just and then they're all laughing.
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It's great, It is great, And we never have a
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dull moment in our life. There's always something going on.
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I can't tell you how many times I laugh a day,
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because there are so many times that I just sit
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and laugh about whether it's something one of the children say,
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whether it's something one of the children do, whether it's
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something one of the kids are picking on the other one.
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For perfect example, Tristan our Son, he works at a
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place that does flooring, and a couple days ago, he
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pinched his finger between a piece of wood and another
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piece of wood, and he came home last night and
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his finger was huge and it had puss on the side,
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and I told him, soak it in some apps and
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salt and.
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Draw that soreness out.
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So he goes and gets the bowl and the apps
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and salt and puts hot water in there and puts
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his hand in there and he's soaking it, soaks it
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for about fifteen minutes, and he says, Mom, it's drying
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my fingers out. And I said, Tristan, it ain't drying
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your fingers out. It's what it's doing is it's pulling
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all that soreness and infection out of your finger. And
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he says, Mom, I just think I need to pop
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it with a pen. And I'm trying to tell him,
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don't pop it because your grandma did that and she
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got MRSA in her finger from popping it. So Tristan
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goes and he decides he's gonna pop it. And his
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brother Keenan's laughing at him because he's like, how in
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the world did you managed to do that?
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You know?
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And Tristan he's just given Tristan the riot Act and
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teasing him about pinching his finger.
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He said, I would never have done that, you know.
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So just listening to them bicker, I call them to
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the old ladies in the house because them, too will
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bicker like two little old ladies all day long. They
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still always hang out together. Even though they bicker, they
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still hang out together all the time. They're almost it's
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almost like two best friends. And it's great to see
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because you know, who doesn't want their kids to be close.
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All of our kids here in Missouri are very close,
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and I love it because there is never a dull
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moment with them, and they can fight and argue and
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bicker and still be close and.
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I love that.
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So at the end of the day, I'm exhausted, but
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my heart is so full. Sure our life is messy
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and loud, but it's also filled with love, laughter and moments.
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I wouldn't trade for anything, and I don't think my
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husband would. So if you are a parent out there,
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just know that no matter how crazy your day get,
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you're not alone. And if you've got any tips for
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getting thirteen kids to bed before midnight, send them my way,
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because I can get the little ones to bed, but
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the older ones not so much. They never fall asleep.
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I can walk in that room a hundred times and
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they'll be laying there watching TV. Even if the TV's off,