FATAL: Sorry, too many clients already????

I have a server under very light load -- just me doing some work in php.
    I am getting this error often and don't know why:

postgresql max connections Unable to connect to PostgreSQL server:
FATAL: Sorry, too many clients already

my orignal postgresql.conf had:

      max_connections = 8
      shared_buffers = 16

I changed those to 32 and  64 and it is working so far.  But I have  a
bunch of postgresses running now with all of them doing almost nothing:

postgres 11747  0.0  0.0  8612 1904 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
stats buffer process
postgres 11778  0.0  0.0  7620 1928 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
stats collector process
postgres 12950  0.0  0.0  9132 4300 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13152  0.0  0.0  8436 3748 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13216  0.0  0.0  8436 3644 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13410  0.0  0.0  8036 2952 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13474  0.0  0.0  8436 3940 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13664  0.0  0.0  8420 3796 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13824  0.0  0.0  8040 3024 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13890  0.0  0.0  8436 3984 ?        S    00:27   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres  2466  0.0  0.0  8432 3764 ?        S    00:31   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres  2535  0.0  0.0  8568 3960 ?        S    00:31   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 19026  0.0  0.0  8040 2940 ?        S    01:11   0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle

i have tried both pg_connect and pg_pconnect, and this happens either
way.  I don't understand why it keeps starting more processes when there
are others sitting around doing nothing???  Any thoughts?  I am
tired...Maybe I'm missing something obvious....

Thanks

Dan