Hot Wheels

Last night I awoke with a pretty excruciating pain in my back. After tossing and turning to try and make it go away, I felt around and pulled out a Hot Wheels toy car from under the sheets. It wasn't Speed Racer like the one pictured, but it was shaped the same.
My first instinct was to wake and throttle the children until one confessed, and then force the interloper to sleep with the toy car under HIS back for the rest of the night.
That feeling passed. It was 3 a.m., after all, and I'd just have to struggle getting them all back to bed and up again for school.
Then for some reason I thought that, one day, there will be no more Hot Wheels under the sheets. No more Potato Head parts to pick up from the floor. No more Barney / Wiggles / Caillou movies playing endlessly on the TV. No more wiped tears and kissed owies and heads patted. No more major everyday triumphs, like celebrating the first flush, the first step, the first word. (And, if you've never done the pee-pee in the potty dance, can you really say you're a parent?)
Granted, people think we're crazy. When they ask 'How many kids?" I just cringe. No matter how quietly I mumble "Six" the response is always "Six! Six?" like they've never heard the number before, like it's the word in Zimbabwe for the digit between five and seven.
I've always like what Stephen King says about his kids - "They came when they came, and we were glad to have them."
Amen to that.
We had two early, one in the middle, and three late. Not quite cheaper by the dozen. And yes, we know what causes that.
And by the way, I've learned that with three kids aged four and under, you have to play zone. Man - on - man is no longer effective.
Some friends of ours just had twins, which brought them up to six kids. We're going to start getting together and going to the buffet, where they charge kids under twelve so much per year. Between us, that's 9 kids under twelve. It'll be fun to watch the managers run screaming for the exits.
So I told my wife my little story, and I got appropraitely misty in the right places. She said something about grandkids, but I was too busy with my fingers in my ears yelling "La la la la la la la" to hear the rest.