Welcome To My Crazy Life

Growing up as an only child with my mom, but being one of many cousins when I went to visit my aunts and uncles definitely had a tremendous affect on my personality and development. It could be due to the fact that when I was growing up there were about 25 of us cousins, and anyone with a big family knows that if you don’t want to be overlooked, you have to make yourself heard. We all learned at an early age that you have to stand your ground and speak loud when you want something. Now this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to throw tantrums, because my family definitely doesn’t tolerate that, but you have to speak up. Lately I have been doing a little research and there have been studies, which showed negative correlations between family size and children’s education. Naturally, this concerned me. No one wants to believe that their own family members are disadvantaging the people that they love. So I dug a little deeper and came upon some interesting new information. According to a journal I read by Black, Devereux and Salvanes (2005) it’s not actually the size of the family that effects development. There are number of factors, one of which is the order that the children are born. Now whether or not this connects with my family is something I want to try to observe in this blog. From the time I was 7 up until turning 18, there have been about 20 new additions to my family (there is a set of twins and not all the children belong to one mother). Their ages all range from about 6 months to 11 years old. I see my little cousins and nieces as real characters, they are some of the smartest and funniest little people I have ever had the pleasure to spend time with. I see them everyday and just think to myself how can such tiny people be so, well for lack of a better word, complex. Have you ever looked at the little kids in your family and just though to yourself, "Why doesn't this little boy/girl have their own TV show?" I know I have, and although I can’t put them on TV and share all of their uniqueness with the world, I can show you through pictures and short video clips. I want to share their personalities and developmental growth with you all. Maybe by sharing some of the ways we help the little ones in our family communicate and conquer everyday challenges you will be able to help your little ones as well. Or, maybe you’ll just get a good laugh at some over the top kids. Either way I want you to enjoy this blog because it's main purpose is not only to observe my young family members, but to also provide you with facts and studies about childhood and adolescent development. Anyone is welcome to comment just remember a lot of the things I write will be from personal experiences and my own opinions thus, not to be taken personally. Here's a picture of a few of my bundles of joy. Enjoy! :)