Welcome to Our Zoo! 10 Shocking Facts about Life in Our Five-Family Family
My home is not a zoo. My home isn’t a zoo. It IS The Zoo–a wild and noisy place, often slobbery but always warm, that tests my patience.
Here’s what would happen if you entered unannounced. You might be shocked by these ten facts. Behind the piles, the screaming, and the endless laundry, there is so much more. It’s a family life that is unfiltered, undated, and full of a beautiful mess.
1. Minimum of 110 pairs of Undies
Let’s begin with some numbers that will blow your mind.
- Three-year-old twins insist on changing underwear every time they change costumes or go to the bathroom. Five changes per day is a safe estimate. That’s 70 pairs of undies a week just for them.
- 5 5-year-old big sibling also has the same “fresh underwear only” mentality. Another 20 minutes, give or take.
- Husband: wears 7-10 pairs of socks, but leaves the laundry for “later,” so I added 10 more to the collection.
- Me: cute undies, comfy undies, “mom at home” undies–about 30 total.
This means that at least 110 pairs are in constant circulation. There are fragments of underwear everywhere – on couch cushions, in the laundry basket, and even hidden under the bed. Consider it a miracle if you ever find a pair of clean socks.
2. My Personal Manicure Nightmare
Most days, I feel like an expert paw cutter, caring for ten tiny feet and hands around the clock.
- Three humans x twenty nails equals 60
- I am 20 more
- Add 20 if your husband reluctantly enrolls.
- Our cat’s 28 nails are also included in the mix.
This is roughly 128 nails per week. Multiply them out, and you have an optical/self-inflicted-sleep-deprivation headache mountain. Each session is a negotiation fueled by anxiety: “Sit down! Please, no crying from kitty!
It’s only a matter of time before we master the art and perfect the silent nail trimming under a cover, in dim lighting. If I wanted to maintain the quality of my strategies, I would not reveal them here.
3. Weekly Grocery Bill of $400-500 (and no, it’s not all organic)
It’s not like we order kale juice by the gallon or cook caviar. But feeding five people is a challenge.
- Spend $250 on your weekly shopping: meat, fruits, and pantry staples.
- Top-ups of $100 to $150 per week.
- Spend between $50 and $100 on snacks, juice, diapers, or other last-minute items.
This is $400 to $500 per week, no matter what the weather. This doesn’t even include the children’s wish lists for dinosaur cereal or rainbow bread. Budgeting for groceries has become one of my most important life skills, right up there with “reheating coffee while walking in reverse” and “locating orphaned Lego blocks.”
4. Two Giant Fruit Bowls and 14 Cries For A Snack Every Day
Fresh fruit is great, until it turns into a game of “fruit-snatchers.” Even though I replenish two large bowls of fruit at least twice a week, by the time I go to bed, they are empty. At least 90 pieces of fruit are stolen each week.
They are fruit bats. They come up to me, puppy-eyed, begging, Mummyum, fruit please.” I usually give in. There’s no sugar rush. What I do not want is for them to ask again for fruit five minutes later. In a household of five, snack dynamics are essentially free-market chaos. But the fruit is vitamin-rich, so I let them go.
5. A Dustpan Graveyard 3 Floor Sweeps Daily
Once upon a time, I had a vision of a tidy house. Sweep for ten minutes, done.
Now? I vacuum at least 3 times per day. M&M dust is still on my table. I don’t understand how the crumbs regenerate.
The dustpan in my house is a mess by the end of the day. It’s full of Cheerios and paper pieces, pencil shavings, toys, and even a sock.
I suppose I could spend money on a cleaning company, but truth be told, I would rather spend it on food.
6. Someone is shouting. ALL. THE. TIME.
Three girls of similar age are competing with each other.
Seriously:
- What are the different types of Christmas boxes? Fistfight.
- What if the gifts are identical? Who got the better shade of pink?
- What if there were a broken truck in the sandbox? Screaming battle royale.
- What if a single M&M fell on the floor? Two more rounds of shriekfest.
One day, I heard more decibels at home than in a granite quarry (I checked). We must be hated by the neighbours. We cringe when we hear each other. We shout louder. Then, ten minutes later, the two are hugging as if nothing had happened.
7. One Room for All the Kids (Even though we have extra
Sleep-deprived parents have a tip: communal chaos is better than individual despair.
We tried:
Three bedrooms, three children: chaos at bedtime (one parent x three rooms x three children = meltdown).
Three kids in two rooms: Two-on-one jealousy continues.
Now, all three are in the same room. Yes, still screaming. Was. I can rock in my rocking chairs with headphones in, and rock them down, without sovereign borders protesting on three sides of my house at midnight.
I converted the spare bedrooms into storage and play zones. To avoid the midnight stampedes in my home, I would trade rooms all day.
8. “Sleeping Through the Night”, a Myth in our Home
They might each sleep through, but not all together. We average:
- Two wakeups per week per child
- This is 2 x 3 = 6 disruptions each week for mum and dad
On most nights, at the very least one child stirs jasmine in the middle of he night. We get one or two sleepless nights per week, and my husband & I argue over which night is “the good one.”
All of these things can help. But there’s no magic cure for toddler-teen-turmoiled nights.
9. Working from Home is a Comedy Routine
Working from home can be… entertaining.
- “Muuum! Please click the dinosaur icon !” in a Zoom meeting.
- “Someone has sneezed onto my talking chocolate!” an emergency.
- “Mum, do the urine men ride trains?” I have no idea.
The day can be unpredictable. The coffee is heated so many times that the caffeine has been replaced by foam. My holy grail is 10-minute pockets of child-free time. When it happens, I sprint from room to room with my laptop, in a race for silence.
10. Exhausted Chaos is Also Overflowing with Love
You will have bad days. Oh, yes. The days were filled with tears, screaming, and packing panic packs from hospitals.
But between:
- Pillow-castle sleepovers
- Science-experiments-in-the-backyard
- Children’s craft exhibitions
- Snowflake ccuddlesurprisehigh-fivesivess
I hold three tiny humans in my arms who have grown out of my heart. The chaos, yelling, a nd washing are all fuel for the moments that matter.
Every meltdown ends with a smile. Every confession made by a toddler at bedtime. Every time they tell me, “I love my mama.” This is what makes this crazy life worth it.
Conclusion
If you come into my home and find your socks sticky, that your ears are ringing, and that you see a mountain of laundry, or a crater in the fruit bowl, is it neglect? It’s not a sign of neglect, it’s just life.
We might not act like we have everything together, but we feel each connection. We live in a loud, chaotic, everything-is-in-it-chaos home, but it still feels like sanity wrapped up in hugs.
Here’s to families like ours: here’s a toast to the love-driven, wild, and stretching mess that is raising children. We wouldn’t alter a single thing, even if we slept less and swore more.
