Interview With a Mega Mom: Part 1

My sweet friend, Karla, is a homeschooling mom of eleven children. She has graciously agreed to an interview, which I will be posting in two parts.

What are the ages of your children?

14,12,10,10,6,4,4,4,4,2, and 6 months

A reader sent this question to me and would like to know how you "do things when you only have little children in the house, with no big children to help out. Do you sit the one year old child in a playpen so you can feed the baby? Do you put the children in their cots so you can hang the washing on the line? Basically, how do you make sure that little children stay safe when you can't be watching them or following them around all the time."

It is honestly rare for me to not have at least one big kid with me. When I have been alone with them, I just have them all stay in the room where I am. The quads and my 2 year old will play pretty well together if I am feeding the baby or cooking or whatever.

One of my blogging friends just found out she is pregnant with triplets! What advice can you give her about preparing for life with multiples(7, 7 and under in her case)?

I could, and someday hope to, write a book on this one.

In summary, I would say, one has to be very organized, pray without ceasing and live one day at a time. It can get overwhelming if you think too much.

Please give this friend my E-mail—I have survived those really hard first few years with quadruplets and would love to help encourage her.

I know you use Managers of their homes: A practical guide to daily scheduling for Christian homeschool families and have said that scheduling keeps things running smoothly. What do you do when your schedule goes seriously off track (not that it EVER happens to me, mind you. I'm asking for ... ummm... a friend.)?

Yes, we get off track quite frequently. I used to get really upset, but I have learned not to be so uptight about it. I try to remind myself that my kids are also learning about life and about living together and about how to deal with problems, etc.

When we have to stop school to pick up all the glass from the picture frame that was hurled over the upstairs banister, they are seeing how I handle the situation (an opportunity to model Christian character), how I discipline the culprit (education on child training) and we all work together to clean it up (learning to work as a team).

When we get off, we just pick up where we can when we can. I know when I am putting God first in our home, the education will come. I have to do my best to “get it all done” and trust God to fill in the rest.

Are you yet able to look back on The Season of Duct Taping The Diapers and laugh? Will you recap for us what prompted the duct taping?

Yes, now that is funny.

For those who may not know, when the quads were little, they would take off their diapers at night. On November 1, 2006 (yes, I remember the date), I walked upstairs to the quads’ room and was horrified when I found that two of them had taken off their dirty diapers and had “painted” the walls and carpet with their contents.

I just about lost it that day. It took 3 hours to scrub the walls and 2 more to steam clean the carpet. From that day on, their diapers were duct taped on before bedtime. My husband had always said that duct tape works for everything. (In case you were wondering how we got the diapers off, we would have to cut them off.)

What a memory. Necessity really is the mother of invention.

Do you ever have days when you think, "I JUST don't know if I can do this!"? (Again for the friend) If so, what gets you through?

I definitely have days when I feel like that, but I remind myself that God promised to never give us more than we can handle and that He will get me through anything. I could not do it on my own. God is bigger than any challenge or hardship we may have!

**Be sure to come back tomorrow to read about Karla's fantastic laundry room.

Interview With a Mega Mom: Part 2