Energy, love keep family with nine children afloat

Bruce Kellman/MCT

Janine Weber, who runs Little Blessings Child Care from her home, blows bubbles for (from left) Aidan Bartlett, 2; Allie Weber, 4; and Erin Davis, 3.

GIG HARBOR, Wash. — It's Friday morning and Janine Weber's kitchen is a lesson in controlled chaos.

Daughters Alisha, 14, and Anna, 9, along with sons Alexx, 13, and Austin, 9, sit at the kitchen breakfast bar of their home munching cereal. Alexx already has consumed an egg sandwich and is making wisecracks to his siblings as he digs into Frosted Mini-Wheats.

Daughter Gracie, 9, bounds into the room, leading Austin off to play with the baby chicks basking under a warm-up light in a bathtub.

The phone rings and Janine takes the call from her oldest, Adam, 20, who lives on his own.

Think you've met all the Weber kids? Think again. As Austin volunteers with a grin: "We have more upstairs."

Yet to appear at the breakfast table are daughters Allie, 4, and Amy, 11.

And then there's daughter Amanda, 19, who lives in a small cottage next door to the Webers' five-bedroom home.

Yep, Janine is the mother of nine.

When they head out for a family pizza night, she says, "You can see people counting heads, trying to figure it out."

Janine, 42, and her husband Bob, 45, stopped trying to figure it out long ago.

Bob told Janine before they married in 1985 that he was never getting married and never having kids.

After their two oldest children were born, Janine developed health problems that made future births a challenge. The couple decided to adopt, first Alexx, then the others, one by one.

"It was a leap of faith for us," says Janine. "They're all my kids. You don't feel any different whether you gave birth to them or not."

Before the Weber kids leave for school, Janine welcomes more children to her home.

Maddy Davis, 9, joins the family at the breakfast table as her mom drops off her sisters, Erin, 3, and Emma, 5. The young ones usually are there for the day, part of Janine's in-home day care, Little Blessings.

Why does a woman with enough kids to form her own baseball team decide to open a day care?

She started the business when Austin, then the youngest, went off to school.

"I needed something to do," Janine says. "You do what you know."

With breakfast over, leftovers go to Buster and Nana, two Weber dogs. The rest of the menagerie is two horses, a pony, two more dogs, four cats, a chicken, a couple of goldfish and a baby goat the family is bottle feeding. Says Janine: "I think animals are therapeutic."

They also teach the kids, who help feed and care for the animals, responsibility.

"It's not just me," she says. "We work as a team."

Allie was born with myotonic muscular dystrophy, a form of the disease that can affect muscles in the face, neck, legs, arms and elsewhere. Although the Webers knew Allie was a special-needs child, they didn't receive a specific diagnosis until she arrived in their home.

"At first, the adoption agency was pretty nervous," Janine says. "I finally told them I was not going to give her back. You can stop worrying."

Both Janine and Bob believe when it comes to kids, biological or adopted, there are no guarantees.

"You have a child, or you adopt a child, with special needs," she says. "And you deal with it. You can't foresee everything. There are unknowns when you have children and when you adopt children."

She watches Allie hold her therapist's hand, then jump off a bench, landing on both feet.

Janine says her family can afford private therapy for Allie, thanks to their excellent insurance coverage through Bob's maintenance job at the Simpson Tacoma Kraft paper mill.

The couple raise their family on one full-time income. Little Blessings brings in some added cash. Janine notes other ways they economize: "We built our house when property was not so expensive. We don't buy brand-new cars. We don't have much of a savings account."

Family vacations are camping trips. Most of the time, the kids get their haircuts at home.

"Everybody wants to know, how can this house run so smoothly?" asks Bob. The secret: giving the kids structure.

There are expectations: After school, kids get a half-hour or so to get a snack and unwind. Then they have chores. After that, it's homework until dinner is on the table.

A couple of times, Bob says, he wanted to throw in the towel when one of the kids was acting out. But Janine wouldn't let him: "She won't give up on any of them."

Daughter Amanda says if her mom has a flaw, it's that she takes on too many things. "Mom likes to save children and pets. She's a runner," she says. "It would be nice if she just slowed down once in a while."

Neighbor Courtnay Ryan, who sent her two kids to Little Blessings, appreciates the Webers' values.

"I admire them," she says. "They're one of the few families that actually sit down each night at the dinner table and talk about their day. The whole focus in their world is family, putting kids first."