The Reed Family Baby Challenge: Gen. 2: Do I Even Have Time to Write This?

Raise your hand if you have ever given birth to eight babies.

Raise your hand if you have ever given birth to eight babies, had to scramble to find them cribs, and had a screaming toddler on top of it?

Hmm, party of one I see.

Birthing these babies was time consuming enough, raising them is proving to be much harder.

Poor Lenna damn near starves daily and I just know that any minute social services is going to bust in and take my children...and I might not stop them.

If you ever want to know what it's like to take care of eight babies and a toddler, first set up nine different alarm clocks in three different rooms to go off every fifteen minutes three different times, then when the first one goes off, blow up a balloon and fill it with chocolate pudding, leaving it next to the alarm. Then go to the next one and do the same thing until you get through all nine alarms.

Next, the second alarm on these clocks are probably already going off, so run back to the one that's been beeping the longest and pop the balloon. Clean up the mess it made all the while the other alarms are going off. Do this at every alarm.

By then, the third alarm will be going off, so turn off all the lights in the house, run to the alarm that's been beeping the longest again and try to find the button to make it stop. Do this with all nine clocks, then go back and reset all those bitches.

Do this for a week, sleep only when no alarms are going off, and see how you feel.

I feel sorry for poor Lenna. She was an only child until all these alien babies came to be. I am eternally grateful for the self-learning toys my mom bought for Lenna because if it weren't for those, she would never have learned her skills. I just had to potty train her.

Lenna has my mother's eyes, which makes me miss her. She has her black hair and blue eyes and is a quiet child and rarely demands attention, which let's face it is good because I have no attention to give her.

I literally have not slept in days. I remember what my mom went through raising the quints - it was hard, but at least she had my sister Vickie and some time to sleep. It might have only been two or three hours, but it was some time. I DREAM of two hours of sleep. Honestly one hour would be great. The max amount of sleep I have had ever since these babies were born was fifteen minutes.

...and that was only because I passed out on the floor and I was in such a deep slumber I didn't hear the babies screaming. Thankfully Lenna came in and woke me up.

Amazingly, the babies and I have both survived to the toddler phase. Even though I am glad for that, I am dreading this age. This is where they get mobile and knowing this crowd they might murder me.

The ringleader is Silla. She has the green alien skin and black hair, but she has my eyes. Her ears are also pointy. I guess those alien genes are pretty dominant.

Next up is Rae. She is a sweetheart and much quieter than Silla, which is good because they share a room. She has long black hair and big, weird black alien eyes.

Ezekiel is my first boy and looks like a male version of Rae. He also acts a bit like her, more quiet then the others.

Lucinda is anything but quiet. She is always the first one to start screaming and will not stop screaming until she is absolutely satisfied. She has my blue eyes, but they are shaped slightly different and hair with my purple tips.

Marques has the alien eyes, dark brown skin, and pointy ears. I have no clue where the dark skin came from, but I can only assume it has something to do with alien breeding as everything else does. Marques is my little genius. He is always working on things, which at this stage translates to getting into everything.

If toddlers could be sarcastic, Cash definitely would be. He has slight lighter skin then Marques and my blue eyes and pointy ears. He also always has a look of judgment and a smirk on his face, as if he's ready to start making fun of me any time. This generally means that he spends a lot of time picking on his siblings.

Salina looks the most like me, with the exception of the green skin and black hair. She seems very musical already. If I put a music box in the girls' room, they all go to sleep but her. She spends her time laughing and giggling at it.

Corinna is another genetic phenomenon with her blonde hair and her skin isn't as green as the others. She kind of makes me nervous because I have noticed Aurora Skies seems to be overrun with blonde haired white people.

Either way, Corinna is the most patient of my babies, mostly because she is always the last to be cared for.

Taking care of this brood is ridiculously hard. I get a little more time because they are starting to sleep more frequently, which is good because I can sleep and eat.

"Mama, what's that smell?" Lenna asks me one night.

Well, I can do almost everything. I still haven't had time to take a shower.

Whether this is bad parenting or not, most of the time I just let the babies sleep on the floor. It's a time saver really. They pass out wherever they are and when they wake up the usually just start playing with whatever it was they were playing with the night before. And we're all happy...until they're hungry...or need changing.

Lenna helps when she can, but most of the time it's either occupying them or handing out bottles.

Either way, she does work really hard taking care of her siblings and keeping up with school...not to mention pretty much taking care of herself because I never have time, so when I have enough money together, I work on a surprise for her.

I finish the basement downstairs and give her a bedroom of her own. I make it pink, green, and orange because those are the most girly colors I can possibly think of, and Lenna is definitely a girly girl.

The biggest thing is I actually put a desk with a computer in her bedroom.

And I also finished out the rest of the basement into a family room and put in a TV.

Of course all of this leaves me broke. I haven't really had a whole lot of time for anything since the octuplets were born.

Finally, finally it is time for the kids to age up...and not soon enough! Maybe I can go back to doing something besides cleaning up baby fluids all day!

The Octuplets as children: