I Like Big [Families] and I Cannot Lie

I come from a large family.  Large in height, large in noise, and large in number.  It's a little crazy coming home to visit - we had fourteen people for Christmas without any extended family at all (granted, I am counting my baby nephew as a person because that makes it seem crazier).

I never liked having a big family while I was growing up.  This trip home both my mum and my little sister brought that up, and for the life of me I couldn't remember WHY I didn't like having a big family; I just didn't like it.  Maybe it was the lack of privacy (ha, my brain said prih-va-see as I typed that - dang Doctor Who), maybe it was the constant noise, or maybe it was just because I was a teenager and I hated everything.  Now that I'm older though, I love my big family.  I can't imagine it any other way.

In a big family you always have friends.  Growing up, my best friend was my older brother.  He and I did everything together, and did so until he left on his mission and I went ahead and got married.  Now I would say my best friends are The Man, my little sister, and that same older brother.  I hang out with them more than any friend from school, work, or church.  We have history together - inside jokes, stories from when we were kids, common interests and ideals...I love the relationship I've got with my siblings.  I'm not saying it's impossible to have sibling best friends in small families; it just seems like the odds are higher when you've got a ton to choose from :P

In a big family you get insight to how different people really are.  I mean, I have the same parents as my siblings, I've lived in the same places, had the same consequences and rewards, attended the same schools and had the same teachers, and yet we all turned out tremendously different.  My family includes a super-intelligent medical student who's always been very motivated and responsible, a super-introverted but secretly funny artist, a teacher, a bleeding heart who loves studying cultures and different lifestyle choices, a super-conservative gun-toting, truck-driving entrepreneur, a nerdy and lovable gamer/engineer/architect, and three more personalities that are just barely starting to emerge.  We are so different, and it's totally true that if you treat us EQUALLY none of us will be treated FAIRLY.  We all have different needs and ideals and it's not fair to treat us the same.

In a big family you learn that nothing is ever going to go perfectly, and you've got to roll with the punches.  Tonight, I really wanted to take my younger siblings to go see "Frozen."  We all got ready, packed into the car, and drove the 45 minutes to the theater only to discover that the show was sold out.  Instead of making it a huge deal, we treated it like an adventure - we got to visit two movie theaters in one night!  We drove over to the dollar theater, got into a movie that had started 20 minutes before (and was a totally different movie from the one we had come down from the cabin to see), and still had a fun time.  Sure, the house isn't always clean and the meals aren't always gourmet and the plans don't always go as we'd like, but we're used to it.  Life isn't about perfection; it's about enjoying the experience.

In a big family you learn to apologize.  As a Mormon, I believe that the family I'm with right now is the one I'm going to be with forever, and forever is a long time to be giving the silent treatment.  The belief that I'm going to be with these people forever helps me get over petty arguments and insensitive comments quite quickly, and that skill has transferred over to my relationships with other people because I've done it so much with my siblings.

In a big family you learn how to have fun without electronics.  It's hard for nine kids to share a Nintendo.  Possible, but hard.  This Christmas break we've played tons of board games, crab-raced, Weeble-Wobble Wrestled (my dad came up with it - you pretty much cross your legs and arms, wobble around on your ischia, and try to knock each other over), played chicken feet with an exercise ball, debated politics, sang together, put on an irreverent nativity play, and much more.  Sure, we've played video games too, but if the power went out we wouldn't have been bored.

I love my big family so much.  We are loud and crazy and active and funny and coming home just gets better and better each time.  It's crazy watching my little siblings become actual people with ideas and thoughts, but I love it.

The Man's always saying that he wants a big family, and I finally get it.  Big families are awesome.

I Think I'm Obsessed with My Hair

So I've discovered something: for me, hair makes all the difference in the world.

This is coming from a girl who's tried on quite a few different hairstyles.

When I was younger I had one hairstyle: a bob.  That's all my mum would let me have because apparently I looked so darn adorable in it.

SO darn adorable.

As I grew older and reached my rebellious stage (that came when I was about 5 and lasted into college), I decided that I had had enough of the bob.  I felt childish and chubby (and let's face it; if that picture above is anything to go off of, I was chubby), and it was time to grow up and grow out (hair, not tummy).  I grew out long, luscious...ok, who am I kidding?  My hair was long and thin and flat.  The end.

Long.  Luscious.

It made me feel more grown-up though.  I could wear pony-tails.  I could braid my hair (didn't know how to).  I could curl my hair (nah, doesn't hold a curl worth crap).  I could...Wear it down.  Every.  Single.  Day.  It got kind of boring.  And when I get bored, I like to change my hair.  So I spent many a year as a redhead.  Then when I was leaving for college I went insane: bangs.

If you're a meme fan, imagine Neil Tyson deGrasse here.
I can't put the accompanying words.

And then, in the prime of my life when I should have wanted to look as attractive as possible, I decided to do this:

My thoughts while taking this picture?
"Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap."

This was my dad's favorite hairstyle on me, because it led to an awkward incident where a cop pulled over my mother for speeding while I was in the car and mistakenly thought we were lesbian partners.  So...that was different.  It ended up being my least favorite hairstyle because it led to every guy I was interested in thinking I was attracted to girls.  Which makes dating difficult.  Plus, I do not have the nose for short hair.  Just no.  I messed with it as it grew out; trying different colors, different textures, different hats...

I used to think I was a Beatles fan.  And a rocker.  Turns out both were incorrect.

It was like puberty all over again.  All awkward-growing-out phase.  All the time.  I always felt unattractive, and I got bored with my hair weekly.  And yet, I miss it from time to time.  I look back at my past with rose-colored glasses and miss that ridiculous hair.  Is this a metaphor?  Maybe.  

No.  No, it's not.

Really though, this is the longest I've had it since 2007.
It's weird.