Kids are like overgrown gardens...Rather than give up, give in, or give them away, grow them with patience

This, my friends, is what we like to call overcrowding.  Too many good things too close together.  But it's beautiful, no?  To you this may be amazing, wondrous, and lush-as a garden should be.  Many different types of plants carefully selected to complement each other.  Now to ruin the dream for you.  This part of the garden has been seven years in the making, has had multiple varieties of plants in these exact spots, has been scattered with seeds by impatient me, using my front door garden as my plant incubator.  It has seen a giant hole, a flood, multiple dead shrubs due to my lack of inattention, and its very own colony of minion weeds.  And then it happened two years ago.  I let myself go with the garden, rather than against it.  Weeds may grow here for awhile, I'll get to them one of these days (with my ever-handy Roundup sprayer, no doubt).  As for the iris, they are already in need of staking...the hydrangea will need support as well.  The roses have not succumbed to fungus yet, but I am sure with all of the recent rain they will.  Anyone who has spent any amount of time outside in my yard with me can tell you that I always have pruning shears in one hand and an empty bucket in the other to be filled with clippings.  I will tell you all of the wonderful chores that I have planned.........later in the fall........or next spring.......or perhaps after the jungle overtakes me and I have to swing my way out ala Tarzan via a morning glory vine.  My little piece of Earth is a work in progress, and I LIKE it that way.
Hmmm...overcrowding, blooms too big for their stalks, out of control weeds, and 'seedling volunteers' everywhere.  Things where they don't belong, things getting gross from fungus or bugs, some things are, well, just not right!  But it's beautiful to those who don't live it...
Those of you who don't know what it's like to find your silverware in your yard:

....who have never experienced raw egg salad decorating your dining room:

....who have never had to explain to six children why they couldn't go play on their brand new playset on a 70 degree sunny day because of a temporary bee swarm 10 feet away from the monkey bars:

just cannot fathom being a parent of a large family.  But when you see all the kiddies with their hair actually brushed and their shoes on the right feet-which believe me is a rare thing, not to mention clothes right-side-out!- you all say "Awwwwwwwww...They're so cute and well-behaved!"  To you I raise my eyebrow and choke back a snort.  They are evil minion, these children.  This house is overcrowded!  These behinds are too big for their britches!  The attitudes!  The language!  The defiance!  It's almost like they're..........WEEDS!!!! 
Wow.
Makes you cock your head to the side and think, at least it does me.  Weeds?  Kids?  Hmph... But I don't have to yell at the garden, you say.  I don't have to hand out a whoopin' to those dandelions.  And the weeds and plants don't draw on the walls or spill koolaid on the fresh tablecloth or find my keys, sneak into my room and steal the baggie from the hardware store that has cabinet hinges in it!!!  Wait....I'm getting side-tracked now, and I believe I am onto something here, so bear with me.
Perhaps we should grow our children as we grow our garden, with patience and with love (sans the Roundup, of course).  Maybe we are growing something beautiful and have failed to notice.  All the picking, the cleaning, the rearranging, the folding, the transplanting, the mending, the construction, the reconstruction....they have kept us so busy that we have missed the complexity of what is truly happening around us.  Sure as I write this there is raw egg on the dining room floor and on the wadded up tablecloth in the hallway hamper....there's a muddy bulldozer in the middle of my living room...but my children went to bed happy and I KNEW ABOUT IT!  I really did!  I did not yell at them to go to sleep, I hugged each and every one of them and went over highlights of the day with each and every one of them.
And all six smiled.  Well, Nathan made a fishy face and kissed me with his boogery little lips, but that's just as good as a smile, right? 
The garden will always be here, whether it changes its look makes no difference, it will still be my garden.  The children, these half-dozen hoodlums that we have grown will be here as well-though hopefully they will move out and find their own job and apartment when it is time...But as a seedling tree will only become tall and gangly and drop limbs all over your front yard someday, you must still nurture it when it is young.  You must water it and feed it and support its awkward, annoying early years.  Because as a gardener, that is what you do.
So I will love you, my children...evil, filthy, loud demons that you are.  I will forgive you the peanut butter rubbed on the siding and the hamster loose in the kitchen.  I will TRY not to yell and make that vein in my head pulse, because it really takes much too much wine now to make all that stop...And I will enjoy you.  I will enjoy your everchanging, evergrowing, sometimes challenging little minds. And if you happen to overcrowd me too much with all your shenanigans, I shall warn you that I will be giving you away with the spare iris and daylilies!