My mom is a sucker for babies. But after four babies of her own, she and my dad decided they were through, and set to work raising my brothers and me.

Then when my youngest brother Patrick was three, she got restless. When she saw an ad asking for foster parents, she knew that was what she wanted to do. After a year of training, interviewing, and licensing, we were a registered Catholic Charities emergency foster family, specializing, at my mother's request, in 0- to 3-year-olds.

Some of the children who come to us stay for a couple of weeks, some for a couple of months. As an emergency foster family, they aren't supposed to stay more than three months, but my mom always says that she isn't going to make a child leave unless the agency has a good home for him or her. So my three biological brothers and I all adjusted to having new brothers and sisters in the house all the time.

This unusual family structure naturally presented some problems. One day my mom got a phone call from the distraught mother of one of Patrick's second grade classmates. When the classmate had told Patrick that there was a new baby in his family, Patrick asked if he knew how long the baby was going to be staying, so the kid had gone home in tears wanting to know why the baby was leaving. My mom, laughing so hard she was crying, had to explain to Patrick that most families have permanent, keeper babies, and not temporary ones like our family.

We all had to adjust to having our foster siblings come and go quickly, and sometimes with very little warning. One day, for example, when I was in eighth grade, I went to school in the morning with four brothers and when I got home I had three brothers and two sisters. We also got used to having babies around all the time—it didn't take long for the social workers to realize that my mom welcomed infants and hard-to-place newborns and once they figured it out they really took advantage of it.

I actually think that every family with teenagers should also have an infant around. When my brothers and I were growing up, we knew how to feed and diaper and care for any baby, even difficult-to-handle crack babies or hyperactive toddlers. We all know what the rooting reflex is (it's the reflex that makes a newborn turn its head when you touch its cheek) and the word "fontanelle" is commonplace in our house (it's the medical term for the soft spot on a baby's head — courtesy of my mom, a former pediatric nurse). We not only know what cradle cap is, we know how to help cure it. We learned what a pain in the butt infants are. It's not hard to take care of them, but it is boring and certainly tiring. I don't think anything would motivate more teenagers to hold off on having babies than spending two days with a newborn.

Some thirty children later, Derwin is our current baby; he is almost eighteen months old and has been around since St. Patrick's Day. Amazing little child. He's adorable, of course, and very smart. It's a riot to watch him learn to talk. Right now Derwin has three words: Mom, Uck, which means "duck" or "truck," depending on the context, and Sha, which means everything else. Sha can mean "recycling truck" (which he loves), "airplane" or "give me a cookie." We're working on increasing his vocabulary bit by bit. He loves to read. He will drag his well-worn board books to you and maneuver himself into your lap and demand that you read. Sometimes he reads along: "Sha sha sha uck! uck! Sha sha..."

Derwin is a very friendly and outgoing little boy. Last year my mom and Derwin came up to help me move out of the dorm, and Derwin ran around my section, making friends. Following the quiet strains of music from one room way down the hall, Derwin toddled down and wandered in the open door. The occupants found him dancing in their common room. He also attached himself to Derek, one of our Lyons football coaches, who is sort of a macho guy, not easily intimidated. Derwin looked straight up and made it clear that he wanted Derek to pick him up. Derek turned white, but picked him up and uttered some seriously immortal words: "Hey, kid." This baby may have terrified him, but he was at least willing to pretend he was at ease for the sake of his girlfriend, who was standing right there watching.

I have learned a lot from Derwin and all the other kids who have passed through my family. Babies are amazingly complicated creatures and watching them grow from newborns into actual little children with personalities is incredible. I also realize how lucky I am to know that next year I will be spending Christmas with the same people I spent this Christmas with. Love and stability do wonders for any child.

And to answer the question that everyone always asks: Of course we get attached to them. But as my mom says, if you don't get attached to them, then you aren't loving them, and then you're missing the point.

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