According to CNN.com, the Duggars (from the Discovery Health T.V. series) are expecting their 18^th child. The other children range in age from 20 years old to nine months and are apparently as well-tempered, if not more so, than the Von Trapp kids. According to the family’s Web site, every Duggar child learns to play both violin and piano and the family organizes their household chores by assigning "jurisdictions," so everyone knows exactly what their daily responsibilities are.

On the other side of the behavior spectrum are the eight kids of TLC’s John and Kate Plus 8. With two-year-old sextuplets and six-year-old twins, each episode displays a new bout of sibling squabbles and tantrums.

In your opinion, what is the perfect-size brood? How much does your own birth order play into your opinion? Which reality T.V. family sounds more like your own?

What do you think? Is it OK to lie to kids about their adoption? Did you wait until a certain age before telling your child he or she was adopted? How did you decide? Did your child ask you before you had a chance to figure it out?

• Get advice and share your experience with other parents on the adoption message board
• Show your little one how much you love having him in your life with one of these ideas
• Get more adoption resources

Does your kid sleep?  Did you have a baby that just didn't need sleep?  Go ahead brag if you must.  I love hearing about children who actually sleep.

For more information and repeat airings go to: http://www.sirius.com/laughbreak

Best wishes for a laughter filled Mother's Day my dear readers.  It's been another great year of blogging for iVillage.  I really enjoy your company and all the feedback.  Keep it comin'. 

love (I mean it), your personal Funny Mom, Sherry Davey aka Mama #3

My father actually thought this was a cute idea.  Because I like gardening so much why wouldn't I appreciate a garden gnome that flashes my neighbors??  The kids think it's a riot.  Over the years they've written various things on the tush like:  blow me; suck it; go ahead I'm easy.  Delightful.  Just what I want in my front garden.  We live in the city garden gnomes just don't work here.  Finally, over the winter break this year, somebody smashed it.  Aaawww.  What a shame.  Not. 

Yes, it’s quick and witty, but overall, a really poignant look at the tricky mother-daughter thing (yes, dear reader, I cried). It’ll certainly get you thinking about your relationship with your own mother and/or daughter. I know it did for me. And seeing it with one—or both—of them might be a perfect pre-Mother’s Day outing; that it will spark some interesting conversation is a sure thing. 

The researchers believe that parents punish firstborns more severely as a means of setting an example for their younger children. But the study also found that this might not be all bad news. Firstborns are typically more reliable and conscientious, because for most of their lives they have been held to a higher standard than their younger brothers and sisters.

What do you think? Do you agree with the study's findings? Were they true in your household when you were growing up? What about now? Are you harder on your eldest child? Is your firstborn more responsible? Share your thoughts, and then check out our Birth Order Compatibility Tool.

• Sandwiched In Between: Parenting the Middle Child
• The Oldest Child Is Smarter…So Says the Research

-- Victoria Loustalot, Real-Time Associate Producer

I don't know where you live but here in NY (and NJ) for that matter, family celebrations are huge, expensive events.  I have a friend in Kansas City whose daughter's confirmation barbecue was held in their back yard and attended by only 20 people - and that was enough.  Here, confirmations, communions, sweet sixteens all rival weddings.  Between ordering invitations, planning the menu, buying the dress, I look at these parties as Weddings 101 for parents because they seem to be practising for the big day.

Celebrate Mother's Day Weekend with MAMA'S NIGHT OUT. 

Just wanted to let you know that the hilarious comedy show (if I do say so myself) MAMA'S NIGHT OUT is coming to the Avalon Theatre, Easton, MD this Friday for a special Mother's Day weekend show.  See here for more details. 

MAMA'S NIGHT OUT is comedy by mothers for everyone.

Now you know children are just like monkeys right?:  climbing; swinging in trees; recking your home.  Here's a photo of Lily and her buddies doing what they do best: monkeying around in our tree.

Watch out Jonas Brothers here come the Brooklyn Baboons.

The dialogue is fast, witty, and right on target, and the cast is superb. Not only do the two female leads shine, hysterical performances are given by Steve Martin as Kate’s New Agey, long gray pony-tailed post-hippie boss, Barry (his reward for a job well done is an uninterrupted five minutes of eye contact with his lucky minion), Romany Malco as Oscar the doorman (“You got yourself some baby mama drama,” he announces to Kate when Angie shows up on her doorstep to move in), and Sigourney Weaver as the icky Chaffee Bicknell, owner of the la di da surrogacy agency. Plus, Greg Kinnear is downright adorable as Kate’s love interest, Rob, the lawyer-turned-juice-bar-owner.

The movie skewers the whole contemporary pushy urban parenting scene (only strollers with air bags will do for strolls to the park) to delightful effect. Looking for lots of laughs and a fresh take on 21st century baby mama-hood? Get thee to the multi-plex, pronto!

Ruby-lipped, hair shining, screaming “David pinched me,” and “Rafael’s copying me,” my two little boys want what I want: food, play and the sleep of dreams. And like them, I need to know that despite my mistakes, “I’m still good”—especially at the hardest job I will ever do—the work of mothering.

Yes, there is a Mother’s Day to salute and celebrate moms for their nurturing service to humanity, but like all holidays, it’s just a marker, a token day of thanks. After the breakfast in bed, the bouquet of flowers and the box decorated with bright green noodles have been given, it’s back to setting the alarm clock for another day. When I read in a New York Times article on couples’ counseling last year that one wife felt having kids had turned her into a drudge, I laughed out loud—partly in recognition and fear too that I was becoming her.

Drudge-Buster

There is some drudgery in parenting, let’s face it. But support from other moms can make it feel a lot less lonely. For me, and I suspect for a lot of iVillagers, that support is found on the Internet, at the end of a hard day when the house is finally quiet, in the email message or post that says, “you’re doing fine, in fact, you’re doing great.”

Keeping the balance between who you are as a mother and a person isn’t easy, and it cannot be done without a “momtourage.” These are the people in your life who support you day-to-day. It might include your partner, mother in law, babysitter, cleaning person or the friend, often also a mother, who tells you you’re not crazy, and in fact has her own story to tell.