I have five children. I don’t know if you realized this, but it is difficult to find decorative things that represent five children. You can buy “family labels” that have either one or two parents and either one, two, or three children. Holiday ornaments show one, two, or three peas in the pod. Personalized Christmas cards have room for up to six family members total. Target pharmacy has 6 different color-codes for different family members.

I’m definitely not complaining: five children is an unusual number to have right now. Expecting mass-produced items to be available for every family type/size is unreasonable. Still, I’m always on the lookout.

Recently a friend sent me a notecard with a picture of a nest on it. The nest had four eggs in it. This gave me an idea: could I maybe find a print of a nest with five eggs? Oh, sure, the biological analogy is shaky, but I like it anyway: maybe my kids weren’t born in a litter, but they all still seem like eggs in the nest.

Almost right away I found this print by James Bolton, at AllPosters.com. It’s called “Antique Bird’s Nest I,” and it’s just what I had in mind.

In fact, there’s an entire category just for nests and another entire category for eggs, which is good news if you’re saying, “Er, yes, very nice, but….do you have that in other family sizes?” Because YES!

I love this 4-egg one so much, I’m a little jealous of those of you with four children.

Really pretty 4-egg photograph by Everett Johnson.

A 3-egg option by Angela Anderson.

A lovely 3-egger photograph by James P. Blair.

Two hummingbird eggs by Deb Collins.

Expecting twins? This would be pretty sweet.

A one-egg option by Susan Friedman.

Many of the other one-egg options are illustrating the nest and the type of egg found in it, so there are a lot of these slightly disturbing levitating-egg types. But perhaps you have a child who has been the levitating-egg type from Day One.

Waiting and hoping? Jan Martin McGuire captured it.

Have five, wish you had a sixth, but not going to get to have a sixth? Then this one by H. Barnard Grey has the kind of extreme symbolic pathos your wallowing heart may enjoy.

I’m planning to buy the very first one I pictured, but it would also have made a great Mother’s Day gift. I like how it’s subtle: it’s not a picture of big-eyed, chubby-cheeked, angelic children looking all THIS IS A PICTURE THAT REPRESENTS MY MOTHERHOOD, and in fact most people would just see a nature picture so it would be great for the office.

Subscribe to blog via RSS