The Hospital Census

We get asked the question often, "How many kids do you have at home?"  You'd think that would be an easy question for most people to answer, but it's never easy here.

For example, what does the question mean?  Does it mean how many are actually at home at this moment or how many will sleep here tonight?  Does it mean how many are living with us as in calling their home our address?  Or does it mean how many actually sleep there every night?  Or does it mean how many of them don't have another place to live?  And, wait a minute, do you mean kids as defined as people up to age 18 or are you talking about all of the kids who call us parents?  And how do grandkids and grandbabymammas and grandbabydaddies count?

Bart says that our household census is more like a hospital census.  Let me show you what I mean.   Here is the number of people who slept in our home during the month of July

July 1:  6
July 2:  7
July 3:  7
July 4:  5
July 5:  5
July 6:  4
July 7:  7
July 8:  4
July 9:  4
July 10:  4
July 11:  4
July 12:  4
July 13:  4
July 14:  3
July 15:  8
July 16:  8

See?  Nuts, isn't it?  And the people and players change.  The only one who has consistently been here every night (besides Bart and I) has been Dominyk.  It's nuts.

So this morning Bart left too -- leaving me here with six kids and a car that seats 5.  It's going to be a long week.

He went to Florida to cool off.  Ironic huh?  He has his spiritual formation academy which he loves and I wouldn't take it away from him in any way, but not having the van is a huge inconvenience.

One more random thought.  It's John's 22nd birthday.  Sad he's in jail. I think I'll leave that topic alone for no cuz it's time for me to get to work before they all wake up!