Six daughters, a wife and a house? Nonetheless I survived. And that being said, I was completely satisfied being a father of six daughters. I was already used to the unexpected as the expected and anesthetized. Each day I would walk through the front door after a day of work and have balls or Barbie doll heads or play dough or whatever thrown at me while hearing giggles. Then magically the seventh child came. It was a boy. I thought to myself, my son would be my ally. But no. When he became to the age of awareness, my son sat on the sidelines and watched. Now it mattered not the age of my daughters, all in turn (two-years separation), were trying to figure out what to do with this new thing called hormones. The phenomenon amazed them. I was just getting use to my wife's and now I had to deal with six more females jostling with each other and bouncing all over the walls. I often felt like an umpire and a catcher all rolled into one at a baseball game. My wife threw the balls … fast, as my daughters tried to hit them, sometimes hitting me in my head or shins while swinging the bat attempting to make contact with the ball. I was not given a catcher's mitt to soften the fast-ball sting. That would have been fine and dandy, however I was given no gear at all! No helmet and no protective body padding, especially for the lower extremities. I can't breathe! At female tug-o-wars, I always stood in the middle with my wife on one side and my six daughters on the other. I looked over at the wife … with this angry look on her face and then back at my daughters … so innocent and with smiles. And quickly looking at the wife again. This time she was a little more steamed … definitely upset about something. Turning slowly looking at my daughters who at this time their cheeks all wet with big crocodile tears … and my son of course sitting on the sidelines. Somewhere in my heart I knew if I chose the girls' point of view I would be spending a week at a cheap hotel with bed bugs somewhere far, far away. Or If I chose the point of view of my wife, there would be "hate signs taped to the walls and rocks and darts thrown at me as I walked through the front door after a long day of work with "hisses and boos" from my daughters … with my son watching from the sidelines of course. Some battles you just can't win. Intermixed with these zany thoughts and life adventures of an old man as he thinks over what a life he has had and even poems of his own. You just might think, laugh or cry … you might.