Sometimes it seems like there's a dozen kids here

Probably because there usually is.

And this is after the kids I watch during the day went home (except Brook). When you start with four and add in a friend or two and a couple of cousins, you really are nearly always close to a dozen.

Now if I could only figure out how to make them productive. Since I was about done watching little kids for the day I was going to start folding the laundry I left on the couch. Instead I find kids have clearly arrived home from school: clean socks dumped on the floor, the blankets tossed on the bench, kids tuned into the playstation, movies, computers....big kids and their distractions...