No spanking, just a little background!

Just to give you a little bit of background:

I grew up in a very religious, large traditional family showered with a great deal of love.  There were five kids and both my parents. At times we also had others living with us.

 What’s the big deal about that, you say?

The house was an old Victorian in a middle class Irish Catholic neighborhood of a large Midwestern city. We had three bedrooms and one small bathroom.

 I am the eldest in a family of four girls and one boy. My parents had one bedroom, my brother the other, and the rest of us girls slept together in a full size or the king size bed we eventually inherited.

 During times throughout our youth we were often a safe place for others to join the family. We just adjusted, basically moved over and one more slept in the bed. We had scheduled bathroom time each and every morning, charted for the week! We would never have been able to leave the house on time otherwise. Hogging was pretty much eliminated.

We made tents in the back yard played with homemade toys and imagination. We read books to escape the mundane. We watched TV, eating popcorn and homemade fudge. We shared everything!  Responsibility and care for each other, was a natural extension of our love.

Now mind you the rules applied to all who lived in that house, it was a matter of respect. I may have balked at the rules as an adolescent but now I understand my parents’ often protective motivations. I can remember being outraged that my brother, who wasn’t even a full year younger took the bus to pick me up when I worked late.

As an adolescent I often had parties with the approval of my parents. We loved to dance, and we would roll up the carpet and go to town! Yep, still the same me. My younger siblings would cater to the needs of my friends just so they could watch us. Our house was the house everyone congregated at. Everyone was welcome!

 Later on as we each made our way to college and beyond other young adult extended family lived with us. At one time we were basically nine adults, seven of whom were between the ages of 16-23? We laugh a great deal remembering those years!

In spite of how it may sound our house was nice and we never went hungry. There was always room for one more at the table. We entertained, we had all our needs met and then some.

You may say where is she going with this?

We are going away this weekend staying in a large multi dwelling home with my entire family. There will be over 30 people. This is the second year at this location. At other times our attempts to vacation together have been fraught with mishaps and a great deal of humor.

I know all our teens think our family is great… but strange. Not too many of their friends parents enjoy the closeness we have with their own siblings etc. Maybe we are a bit too close, and for an open minded artist I may have needed more freedom; however I am willing to trade on those needs for the great relationships I have now.

I look forward to this weekend, making memories, with love laughter, fights and crazy adaptability!

Thanks for reading,

Minelle