There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn’t have time to paint her toes or shave her legs. She wasn’t really that old (she was 43) but she looked ancient. 

She fed them all chicken nuggets, shaped like dinosaurs, and sent them to bed. But they kept getting up to drink water or look for the cat or punch each other. 

(She wouldn’t have had so many children, but her pastor said they were a blessing and that the third is always a doozy, but after that it’s just one more cheese sandwich on the griddle. Her husband said it was a woman’s calling. Her sister said she was crazy and condoms were a thing and marijuna should be legal.)

She whipped her children soundly—so as not to spare the rod—and she bought an old school bus that broke down routinely (it was impossible to park and required a CDL Class B license).

She made the children hold hands and walk in twos. She dressed them alike so she wouldn’t lose them, for instance at Walmart, and to avoid the gay books, she homeschooled them all. She armed them with Glocks to be safe at the mall. 

And still she had doubts that she’d quite done enough. A dozen, two dozen, should she keep having more? More saints for the kingdom, more soldiers for war?

It was actually the bank that offered an answer. One sixpence for wool and two for the baker (turns out grilled cheese is expensive) and ten thousand dollars for the maternity doctor, because emergency cesareans are even more expensive.

Now the mother of nineteen has to live in a shoe, and she really, truly, doesn’t know what to do.