Jury Duty

I just put eight children down for quiet time here at my house. Yes, eight. It has been one heck of a day so far.

Why are there eight kids here? I have my three and Leah, and then my sweet neighbor Theresa ended up getting jury duty. So . . . she was in a bind, because she has four little ones.

So I have eight kids today.

It actually hasn't been too bad. There are six girls ages 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, and 6 and two boys; ages 17 months and 1 year.

As I'm typing this I'm realizing how crazy it is. I don't know how big families with lots of small kids do it!

I got jury duty about four years ago. When I got to the courthouse I (and all the other people called) was shocked to find out that if we were picked, we would be serving on a grand jury. I wouldn't have known why that was a significant difference then, but I soon learned it was a six-month committment! The good part was the grand jury met only once a week. And luckily for me, we didn't have kids yet, so I didn't have to search for childcare.

The hardest part about being on a grand jury is the the proceedings are secret, and often the cases we heard involved crimes against children. I still think about some of those cases now, years later. The most interesting case involved a prostitution ring. We got to see testimonies of actual "clients" (who were like normal businessmen) and also there was a huge board with all the pictures of the prostitutes posted on it. All I can say about that is . . . we're not talking "Pretty Woman" here.

I better go get some cleaning or reading or something done while I have the chance. :)