How many daughters do I have?

One of the wonderful aspects of having daughters is that for each one I have, I inherit several more. At times, this can be rather challenging because I can never quite figure out, when asked "Geez, how many daughters do you have?" what I should say. There are always more girls in the house, running around calling, "Hey Mom" than there are girls to whom I have given birth. Then when we run errands, go to the store or on vacation, I always seem to have the Beast (our SUV) loaded with girls. I know the cashier at Walmart today thought I had either lied to her or lost my mind.

Teen Girl #1 runs up to me and says, "Mom, I'll be right back. I'm going to run over and talk to my friend."
Me: Ok hon, but I'm leaving in 5 minutes.
Teen Girl #2: Mom, can I please buy a new hairbrush while I'm here?
Me: Yeah, but get it back over here quickly because I'm leaving in 5 minutes.

Cashier: How many daughters do you have?

Me: Today, just those two. I have 3 other adult daughters who live out of town. (I no more get this out of my mouth before more daughters appear)
Teen Girl #3: Hey Mom, I think I just started my period; I'm going to run to the bathroom, then I'm going home with you, ok?
Teen Girl #4: Hey Mom, I'm going to the bathroom with her, ok?
Teen Girl #5, skipping over from nowhere: MOM!!! Did you see my prom pics?!? What did ya think? Can you make me some scrapbook pages for them?
Teen Girl #1: Mom, I'm back. Will you buy me this new CD?
Teen Girl #6: Hi Mom! Katelyn says you're leaving in 5 minutes; can you drop me off at the house on your way?
Teen Girl #7: MOM! Can I get a ride with you tonight to small groups?
Teen Girl #2: Here's the hairbrush I want.

Cashier: Are you SURE you only have TWO daughters here today?
Me: No, I lied. I have no idea how many daughters I have. I'll know when I get to the vehicle and count them. But looks like, once again, I'm leaving with more than I brought with me. ~sigh~
Cashier: Do you know how many you gave birth to?
Me: No, because it depends on how you define 'gave birth'!

When I left the house for church this morning, I had just one, because one had spent the night with a friend. I had four in the Beast when I arrived home. And when I leave to go back to small groups, I'll have six. If all goes as planned, when I arrive home tonight, I'll be back down to the original two again.

DH called from work a few minutes ago to make sure we got home ok, and asked his typical weekend question,
"So how many girls do we have today?"
Me: At the moment, four; I THINK. But I went to Walmart after church; and as usual, completely lost count before I could get out of the store!

When all the girls are grown, I wonder what we will do? We've lived with all the chaos, hormones, hairbrushes and nail polish for so long that I question whether there is life after all these girls? I guess we'll figure it out later. But for now, I'm counting my many, many blessings and enjoying them all while I can because I wouldn't swap a day of this chaos for nothing in this world! :)

Here's the scrapbook pages I made for daughter number umpteen, (Remember, I lost count! *LOL*) who went to her first prom this year. I used a kit by Kim Liddiard for both, and a template from AmyW for the first one. I hope she likes these. I've emailed them to her and will show them to her when she gets back to the house with my youngest daughter. They all went for a walk to pet the horses down the road.