Large Family Rant | Adorable stuff for Elise

[altarflame]

I am tired of the world being built only for families of 1-(MAYBE)3 children.

Something that irritates me to NO END is the ridiculous maximum occupancy laws this county has...for instance, did you know that we would not legally be allowed to move into a 3 bedroom apartment in Dade County, with 4 kids? A couple of years ago we looked into it. Five people is the maximum for a 3 bedroom apartment. That's not even two per bedroom, and it made no difference to them that I was talking about a bunch of tiny children. We've been living, all 7 of us, in two bedrooms here. We sleep with Jake and Elise, which would have been the case regardless of how much space we had, and then Ananda and Aaron are in bunk beds with Isaac in a toddler bed, in the other room. The idea that it might be ILLEGAL is beyond ridiculous to me. Especially when we have a big living room, an office, a kitchen, a big dining room, this computer area, front porch, back patio, yards, the bathroom, the laundry room is even big - I mean there is a ton of central living area here and I often spend a couple of minutes finding someone! I really think it's just that the world is no longer accustomed to what was common place a generation ago - really, I doubt our grandparents all had 8 bedroom houses for their six kids, you know?

Registration forms for a zoo membership or AWANA or birthdays at the ice cream parlor on your discount card or ANY-DAMN-THING, have 2-3 lines for kids' names. The family forms for nurseries at churches don't even have enough space. Dental insurance apps for Grant's jobs don't have enough room for "all of us".

You can buy tshirts with customized people on them - up to five, including parents!

You can buy new age wood carvings of families - with one or two kids in them.

Nobody at any of the dealerships we've been looking at knows anything about conversion vans, which after all have to be converted because nobody just MANUFACTURES passenger vans to seat 9 or more people.

Stores and companies routinely give away "Family Vacations" good for four people.

I am over it.

You know what I love? I love it when we're at BJ's shopping and they have double-wide carts that have attached bench seating, such that FOUR kids can be in it at once strapped in, being pushed along.

Also, www.litteearthangels.com - which is a Christian, hippie, natural living, attachment parenting website with great service - has shirts that say "I am one of many blessings" and it shows abstract figures - two big ones with their arms around a circle of five small ones.

---

Oh oh - I told you about the Gymboree order. You must want to see pictures of everything I've ordered for Elise, right? I mean...baby girl clothes, come on, who can resist?


Patchwork apron dress made by single sahm on ebay(modeled on her daughter):


One other ebay thing:


From Tiny Birds Organics:
This adorable dress!!!


And one of these dress tops,


But in the purple flowered fabric option.


Cotton Overalls.


The pink one.


pajamas


Also, longies from llamajama:


I love making her longies, but she's currently outgrown all the homemade ones and I have a ton of projects going on at once, yarn-wise - I'm working on a tote bag for my sister, and have grand plans for lots of kid sweaters at Christmastime that I'll need to work on all year until then. And a dress idea for Elise that will take me forever in thin cotton yarn. It just isn't practical to take on right now, she'll be potty trained before I'm done.

She's also getting these squeaky sandals, which I think she will find hilarious - I can already picture it:


And some more of this, which I sorely miss from Isaac and Jake's babyhoods but have not been able to foot the bill for more of since the last bottle broke:


AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaand 6 more of these, to round out my stash of fuzzi bunz and go under those beautiful longies:


Brand new Under the Nile diapers are the softest thing EVER. All the ones we have here already - the ones we HAVEN'T thrown away - are full of holes with the elastic shot and the velcro no longer attached - not even fit to give away. But, they were used for Isaac, Jake and Elise, so I still think they are pretty good quality. Especially for the money, and how absorbent they are.

Comments

[marliah.livejournal.com]

I get irritated that big families are left out too. I have 3 kids so *most* of the time I don't run into it. But it weirds me out when I do because I am like "what the heck, I only have 3 kids!" to me three seems like a small number. I always wanted 6, or at the very least 4....

I actually found a new agey statue with 3 kids and two parents and was amazed. It was in a clearance aisle and I doubt I could ever find another one like it lol.

The clothes are absolutely adorable!! I <3 the patchwork and tiny bird organics dresses! So sweet! And squeaker shoes are TOO much fun. A little girl at church had some and I thought it was just the cutest thing.

And yay for new cloth diapers! those are always a nice treat. :)

[daveandmonika.livejournal.com]

Sometimes they did, but not like today's houses :-p

http://architecture.about.com/library/nbungalowplan-s-125.htm
(Note, this house does not have a bathroom or a dining room, and only one closet, but it does have 6 bedrooms)

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness those longies are KILLING ME!!!

Hey, I have a question for you. I'm trying to convince my sister to try cloth diapering. It needs to be easy and CHEAP. They are really weird about money. I convinced her that in the long run cloth diapering would save her money, but her husband doesn't want to shell out the bucks at the beginning. so it needs to be cheap. Anyway, I think if I could get the baby in cloth diapers and show her how easy it is then she would do it...for the money and for the world.

Anyhoo...what should I buy her? I was thinking about simple prefolds, snappis, and covers but I'm so out of the loop I have no idea what covers to buy. I want good ones that are easy (velcro) and will hold up to a washing machine. Are Bummis still the best for that? Give me some ideas here...

[superflippy.livejournal.com]

Those occupancy laws sound ridiculous. I don't know whether this is an issue in Homestead, but I know that in some towns they pass occupancy laws like that to crack down on illegal immigrants, who often live with large extended families in small apartments. It probably never occurred to the politicians who passed those laws that they weren't being fair to large families. I bet if you wrote a letter to the editor about the topic, you could stir something up. (If you wanted to.)

[armistice.livejournal.com]

The city I live in has occupany ordinances, but they only apply to non-related people. It's a college town, so basically, they're trying to, uh. Make money for landlords? I don't know. I've heard that in Pittsburgh, you can have as many men as you want in a residence, but no more than three unrelated females. Otherwise, it's a brothel, and it's illegal.

The rules in Homestead sound completely unreasonable.

[treading.livejournal.com]

I would be incredibly frustrated with those occupancy laws if I had a big family. I bet superflippy is right about the immigration thing. It was probably a political decision that didn't take into account who else it would affect. I bet it is especially hard on poor families who just can't afford that many bedrooms, period, no matter how they stretch it.

I don't comment often, but I just wanted to say how glad I've been for you! Just paying off all of your debt alone must be such a humongous relief! I'm of course sorry for the reason for this windfall, but very very glad for you that it is going to help all of you so much!

[pikefish.livejournal.com]

omg! adorable!!!!!!!

[claddagh.livejournal.com]

The occupancy laws are sometimes fire code, but really are directed at non-nuclear families.

While I completely sympathize with your situation, I have lived in apartment complexes with large numbers of less related, adult people in the apartments and it really does impact quality of life.

As for the family of 4 stuff, it annoys me too. It has become two children are the max and the third is either an "oops" or your first two kids were the same sex. Kids are great, I don't see why people want to limit themselves to 1 or 2. That said, I only have 1 so far, but I am hoping to start working on a second.

[custard-kisses.livejournal.com]

Ahhh so cute, I love that cross over top in the fourth picture.
I've never really had a problem with the 'the world was build for a family of 4' thing, I mean I have a problem with it but there haven't been many situations that caused us angst. I think the most annoying one would be the family pass thing but that would put out even someone with only 3 or 4 children.

[zulupetalz.livejournal.com]

Those are all going to look so cute on Elise. I've had my eye on that top from Tiny Bird for the longest time. I have to look away from all of this, it is making me want to shop really bad. Must. Avert. Eyes.

[failstoexist.livejournal.com]

I think as long as they'll LET you all on a family membership or something (and don't tell you you have too many people) then it does make sense-i mean, of course they're not going to make too many huge vans if they're not going to sell them...and of course they're not going to send a family of 7 on vacation for free if most families are families of 3-5 who would be happy to get the trip and cost them less in the long run to accomodate.

I agree the bedroom thing could be immigration related as well, which is maybe unfortunate...but having 7 people in one apartment is not easy, as I'm sure you learned in Boston-it can get loud and apartments are not always very kid-friendly, not to mention friendly to families with lots of kids. I understand what you're saying though, and it must feel kind of weird to be constantly reminded how out of the ordinary your family is.

[erinmdmd.livejournal.com]

BUT OMGWTFBBQ, Tina! You'll scar your kids for life if they EVER have to share anything, don't you know?? THINK OF THE CHILDRENNNNNN!!!


Obviously, I grew up warped and disturbed because there were 7 of us in a garage and basement less 1050sf house with three tiny bedrooms and one tiny bathroom. I even shared a room for a few years with two other people o_O

[monkeyscience.livejournal.com]

I am tired of the world being built only for families of 1-(MAYBE)3 children.

Amen, amen, AMEN! Who decided that a family consists of 3-5 people? WHO? It irritated the crap out of me as a kid, and it still irritates me as a (semi) . With little kids, it's zoo memberships and shopping carts. With my family now, it's stupid family plans for cell phones. Only 5 people allowed. WTH? That's not a family! Five completely unrelated people can get a 'family' plan, but 7 -related members of a nuclear family can't? Grrr...

Basically, I feel your pain and irritation. The littleearthangels shirt sounds AWESOME, though. :D

[frogmorest.livejournal.com]

I buy a ton of my hippie clothes from that mom (Phatcatpatch) that you just bought the apron dress from. In fact... the yellow with ladybugs print on the bottom of the dress is the same print used in one of my skirts!!! I just thought I'd share :) We're connected now :)

[rockstargrrrlie.livejournal.com]

Wow, you have great taste in kid's clothes. Especially that tie-dyed dress. So cute. I'm constantly looking at people's longies because they are so cute and I'm nowhere near ready to have kids.


I'm happy to report that the register at my work asks for the kid's birthdays before making a sale (to send them a birthday coupon) and I believe it lists seven spaces. I've never had to use them all, but then again, I think most moms think I can only do one or two at a time.