Recently when we were eating out with our kids we we noticed the waitresses looking as if they were preparing themselved to ask us something...when they finally sent a representative we were asked..."Are they all yours???" we replied with a line from my friend who has 8 kids "NO, we left the others at home " and then we smiled.

Lois

http://ParentingTwinsandMore.com

We live in a conservative part of the country and I get almost exclusively warm comments.  Of course, I only have 5 kids.  Recently at the gym a man noticed me going in with my kids and stopped me and said he and his wife had had 5 kids and they were the greatest blessing.  He encouraged me to enjoy my time with them now while they're young. 

Lots of people do say, "My, you have your hands full!"  I always respond to that, "Yes, they keep me busy, but they're lots of fun."  or something to that effect.

We get asked about twins a lot.  Probably because they are all close together in age. 

"Are they all yours?" 

"You don't look old enough to have 9 children." - I smile and say, "I'm not!"

"How many boys/girls do you have?" - Yes, even when they're all with us.

"Don't you know what causes that?"  -  We say, "Yes, God's blessing." and they always pause and then have to agree.

"How do you not go crazy?" - or a variation of that.

We very frequently get the comment, "I've never seen such well behaved children."

We've had people pay for our dinner, buy treats or give gifts to our children, etc.  That's a very funny reaction to me.

Even though we only have 6 at home now, when we go to a restaurant we hear other patrons counting how many children there are and making comments to themselves.  We have seen people in other cars doing a head count of our vehicle when we are stopped at a red light.  One day I had only 3 children with me at Sam's and the check-out clerk commented that I certainly had a lot of children.  I thought to myself, "Did they multiply while we were in here?" and did a head count.  I then told the clerk, "This is not even half of my children!"  I am now getting many comments referring rudely to the Duggar's....  I just tell them that they are very blessed!  And so are we!!

We only have 4 surviving children (so far) and people ask us questions like "Don't you know what's causing that?", "You sure do have your hands full", "Are they all yours?", and "Are you done?".  We get stared at alot too. 

We get a lot of "You sure have your hands full" and a few "It must always be busy at your house", but one of my favorites, in a sad way, is the older people who will come up to me and say "If I could do one thing differently, I would've had more children", it just seems so tender and real, from someone looking back on life and realizing what was really important, their family, their children.  We volunteer in two nursing homes, so I actually get that one a lot...

I would like to thank everyone for their comments.

Oh Ali, we get that one too and it breaks my heart.  It's so hard to know how to respond to that. 

I'm very thankful that this is the path that God has led us down.

I'm pregnant with my 3rd and we're already getting the "you DO know what causes that..." comments.

A sweet one though; one afternoon in the WalMart bathroom I had my 5 year old nephew, my 3 year old daughter, and 1 year old son. Son was in the cart and I was washing daughter's hands and directing nephew into a stall. An elderly lady came up to me on her way to a stall and put her hands on my shoulders and with a sincere smile she said, "I'll bet you love Jesus with all your little ones!" I was really touched and speechless for a minute and then replied with a huge smile that I do so love Jesus and she replied God bless you and then hugged me and it was the highlight of my year. Even though one of my little ones was actually borrowed from my sister that day! Lol!

Mirage,