BATAVIA – Each time Mark Pepping's wife, Sally, had another baby, he reduced his work week by one day. First, there was Sofia, 8. Then Mason, 6. But when the twins, Matthew and Marisa, 4, came along, that was it.

"I worked four days, then three days and then I could not work any more," said Pepping, 41, of Batavia. "I worked for my father, but he still had a business to run and needed someone to rely on. He said, 'I need you here – or not.' My wife's business grew so much, I decided I needed to be here."

After 17 years of selling insurance, Pepping became a stay-at-home dad. So when their fifth child was born, Arianna, 2, he was already hands-on on the home front.

"It happened by necessity," Pepping said. "It's important to me to raise my kids right, to take them to church every week and to baseball, to take them to restaurants and have a civilized dinner … I'm not mean, I'm strict … I want my children not to be cavemen."

This Sunday is Father's Day, when children honor their fathers with homemade cards and maybe a cookout and a tie. The Peppings will trek to Lake Geneva, Wis., for lunch and boating, just kicking back a while.

"My favorite thing is the satisfaction of seeing when they are happy and they all play together," Pepping said of his children. "It makes me feel rewarded. All this effort is worth it."

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Sally Pepping, 41, is a chiropractor with a busy practice in Glen Ellyn. Her husband not only worked for his father selling insurance, he was also doing payroll and bookkeeping for her business from home.

The decision to have Mark stay home full time, she said, was the right one, as she usually does not come home from work until 9 p.m. or later on the three days a week she works. When she is home, they work as a team – actually a team of three, as they also have help from a nanny.

"Mr. Mom is wonderful – I hear it from everyone," Sally Pepping said. "There is a perfect country and western song about him: 'Everyone Calls You Wonderful, I Just Call You Mine.' "

Sally Pepping said it took six years for the couple to get pregnant the first time. With the help of a fertility doctor, they had Sofia, followed by Mason 12 months later, followed by Matthew and Marisa.

Another attempt at in vitro fertilization did not work and the couple thought they were done.

But then four weeks later, Sally was pregnant with Arianna, without fertility assistance.

"God wanted us to have one more," Sally said.

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Pepping said being a stay-at-home dad can sometimes make for awkward conversation.

"When I meet people in a social setting and they ask, 'What do you do?' I say, I sold insurance for 17 years … and now I'm a stay-at-home dad. One of my neighbors down the street used to be an engineer and his wife's a doctor. They tease him like they tease me, a stay-at-home dad. It's a loose term that makes it sound like a luxury job. It's not. I'm hustling all day long."

Pepping is up at 7 a.m. to get his brood moving. He has charts and rules, even for the 2-year-old. They have chores and routines and they check off when they've completed teeth brushing, bed making, table clearing and putting toys away.

The older kids get money for completing their charts and the younger ones get a special treat, he said.

He does not let them watch much TV, preferring to play music for them.

"Seriously, we have 60 speakers throughout the house and we crank it up loud," Pepping said. "We play a lot of music, various kinds of music for them to be exposed to. We rock the house."

He also built them a stage in the basement where they can put on their own shows and express their creativity.

Their five-bedroom, seven-bathroom home is hard to keep clean, so Pepping's exceptional organizational skills keeps it looking sharp.

"Every day, stuff gets broken. Every day is a clogged toilet," Pepping said. "I've replaced two toilets. They put toys down there, a wooden letter M, a pair of pull-ups … a roll of toilet paper. It's a regular occurrence. I'm like a maintenance man, a house manager, a traffic cop. I make sure there's no biting and no broken bones."

Pepping goes to Sam's Club once a week for two to three hours, buying $500 worth of food for seven people. And he prepares all the meals, except for a couple of dinners out each week.

"We've got seven people eating three meals a day," Pepping said. "It's like a little hotel restaurant."

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The Peppings' nanny is a luxury Pepping readily admits most people do not have. But he said he could not manage without her.

"She stays home to be that anchor person. She helps with the laundry for the kids and that helps a lot," Pepping said. "Anytime I'm out taking care of things, I can't drag a two-year-old and two four-year-olds with me."

Being a stay-at-home dad has given Pepping a new outlook and appreciation for mothers.

"Stay-at-home moms – how do you do it?" Pepping said. "I need help. With a fifth child, there was no way to do it all in our lives. I always wondered how the previous generations did it with these big families. It's a constant battle. You have to have tough skin. I'm not here to make these kids happy every day."

And yet he does.

"I see people coming home from work at 7 p.m. and their kids are already in bed they don't get to do what I do with my kids," Pepping said. "While it's happening, it's very stressful, but at the end of the day, and moments throughout the day, the kids do stuff that melts your heart."