Bazinga!

For the first time in about nine months we sat down to a meal with all seven of our kids. I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I am about this. I’m beaming like an idiot.

But it seems one member of our big family is feeling a little overwhelmed.

“Hi, I’m Joshua,” Master8 said to me when I arrived home from work. 

I took his proffered hand and gave it a shake. “Yes, I know,” I told him. “I named you.”

Twice more he reintroduced himself to me before I thought to ask my wife what was going on. She’s better at these sorts of kiddy antics than me.

“I’ve got no idea,” she told me. “He’s been doing it all afternoon.”

I suspect the penny has finally dropped with Master8 – he’s the middle child. I reckon he’s decided he’s in danger of being forgotten or left out or overlooked. And he’s having none of it.

Furthermore, it’s working.

“Hi, I’m Joshua,” Master8 said to the table as he sat down to dinner, and everyone looked at him and laughed.

It might not have the same legs as ‘Bazinga!’ or ‘Did I do that?’ but as a catchcry it’s doing its job – at a table of twelve, he’s the one who’s got our attention.

I put my ‘middle child syndrome’ theory to my wife.

“Maybe,” she said. “But of course the real problem here is we don’t actually have a middle child.”

“We don’t?” I rattled off the kids names with a show of fingers. “He’s in the middle. Smack bang.”

“The problem is we don’t have a middle child,” Tracey reiterated. Then she folded over the first and last of my seven upheld fingers, those representing Master21 and Miss1. “We have five of them.”

Beam me up, Scotty. Please.

 When not typing away over here and checking his stats every two minutes Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his ‘BIG FAMILY little income’  Facebook Page.

 ’raising a family on little more than laughs’