Helpful Tips for large families

Marcy made some comments regarding her grocery cart being too small for the amount of items that need to go in it.

Well that got me thinking that Marcy is slowly realizing, just what her older siblings with large families have figured out a very long time ago.  Not that Marcy is a slow learner, it is just that she was last in the line of the 7 siblings.

So I thought I better clue her in on some helpful tips of managing a large family.  I gave some of these tips to Bret and Anne when they joined the club.  Come to think if it......... I have not heard any feedback from them about my wise and wonderful tips I provided them?

Groceries:
This will be one of your biggest expenses.  When your kids get older and move into adolescents they will turn into a human vacuum cleaner.  By the time they reach adolescents you need to come up with a plan.  You will soon figure out, that when you get home from the gorcery store. The food that you just bought has already dissapeared, even before you are able to set the sack down and put the food away.

To cope with this phenomena:
You can try having the food truck unload first at your door before it goes to the gocery store, or
you will need to begin shopping for grocery items that your kids do not really like to eat. 
Now, they will still eat the food they do not like but, by using this method it will slow down the rate and speed in which they will eat it, thus you have food in the house over a longer period of time.

Chores are a good thing,  the younger you get them to do chores the less whining you will have when they get older.  You will still get whining mostly on the front end but it will diminish on the back side since the older siblings soon realize you have become tone deaf to their frequency of whining and they no longer use that noise to try and avoid the manaul labor, plus the chores will become routine for them and they know it needs to be done before they can do anything else.  Take note,  the whining will continue as they get older but it will be for different situations.  Whining is a part of life.


Bathroom use:

First and for most, everyone needs to learn that you flush solids FIRST!  Then flush the paper.  This must be done in two separate or more flush cycles.   Life is not fun, when the little ponies leave their corral,..... if you know what I mean.

Hot water and showers:
Unless you have a hot water heater the size of your city water tower, you will encounter running out of hot water and somebody will be taking a cold water shower.
As they get older, for some reason the hot water goes quicker.

you have multiple options dealing with this issue
Options #1
Always be the first one to take the first shower and there is no need for you to ever worry about this issue.

Option #2
prioritize who gets to take the shower first.  Meaning the person who uses the most hot water goes last. 

Option #3
Rationing......you would be surprised how fast they get done taking a shower when the cold water exits the shower head!

Option #4
buy a larger hot water heater,.............about the size of a city water tower


Sleeping

The sooner you can get them to bed the better, 
It cuts down on the amount of whining you have to listen to. and you have the evenings to yourself

As they get older that free time is reversed.  you lose your evening time but you gain back that time by having more morning and afternoon time to yourself as they tend to sleep in and stay up later.

Whining

throughout the post I have mentioned whining, and being on the receiving end to this noise.  Well as they get older the roles will reverse and soon THEY will be on the receiving end of this high pitched noise reverberation.  "get your school work done"  "pick up your clothes"  "where are you going?"  "Are you planning on sleeping all day"  Now some people may call this nagging, but I like to refer to it as a more mature form of whining.

So listen to their whining and learn from what they do and how they do it, because when they get older you will use it back on them, so you might as well learn from the best.

Marcy I hope this helps.

Posted by Randy