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Celebrity Dish: Jon and Kate Gosselin

by Rachel Mosteller (Subscribe to Rachel Mosteller's posts) May 9th 2007 11:01AM

Categories: Medical Conditions, Celeb Parenting, Media, That's Entertainment

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There's hardly a quiet moment in the Gosselin household. Like parents the world over, Kate and Jon Gosselin of Pennsylvania keep busy juggling household duties and kids. However, things are a bit different for the Gosselins than most of their parental counterparts.

Jon and Kate are the parents to 2-year-old sextuplets and 6-year-old twins. Or, as they like to say, "Six 2-year-olds and two 6-year-olds." That's eight kids for those of you playing along at home.

If their hands weren't full enough, the family now stars in "Jon and Kate Plus 8," seen on both Discovery Health and TLC. Kate was kind enough to fit in an interview with Parent Dish during nap time, which she was also using as a time to update the family calendar and her checkbook.

In addition to the chaos and lack of personal time that comes with eight kids, they've also become used to criticism, both towards them as a couple and for their fertility treatments.

"[Criticism] is nothing new to us," says Kate, who referred to her pregnancy as completely draining, both physically and mentally. "Prior to the babies being born, we started hearing that. It is fine for people to have opinions. Obviously, they didn't walk in our shoes...You grow a thick skin very fast. You stop reading things where people are criticizing you, you don't pay attention.

Speaking of the pregnancy, the Gosselins used a form of infertility treatment called IUI, otherwise known as intrauterine insemination. That means there were no embryos made or left over from the procedure.

When it comes to living their life in the fishbowl of the public eye, Kate admits that many times, they will be stressed, just due to the constant demands of having twins and sextuplets.

"I know a lot of people are like 'man, she's hard on Jon,' I've heard that my whole life," she says with a slight chuckle, pointing out they get many positive emails regarding their relationship. "That's just the way we do it... I think it's only now that Jon and I are embracing that marriage is not always peachy. With a couple of kids it's really not going to be peachy and with this many, it is definitely going to be difficult."

Any other misconceptions?

"There's a misconception that I clean obsessively and I laugh at that," she says, with kids rousing from naps on the baby monitor. "If my house gets cleaned once a month it's a miracle."

She points out that, yes, she does dry mop the floor around the table three times a day, but eight children dropping food on the floor make that a must. Overall, she feels the portrayal of her family is accurate, though she wishes they could catch more of the hectic moments, such as the days the kids are sick.

"I had pee in my bed, pee on the floor," she says. "I was like the mess lady today. There's a lot of bodily fluids going around in our house. It's those days, the days where the kids are sick. Those are the hairiest days of all."

If you haven't seen the show yet, it plays on Discovery Health at 10pm (E/P) on Tuesdays and the encore plays on TLC at 9pm (E/P) on Monday.

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