Monday, October 19, 2009

Before And After

Okay, so this is the entry I really wanted to post but couldn't finish because someone decided he didn't feel like taking a nap, and someone else decide that she didn't want to finish taking her nap after the dog barked his f-ing head off at a cat and woke her up.

So I had to come up with something while listening to a soothing medley of Elsa whining every five seconds to be picked up and Rollie yelling at Elsa to stop whining because he couldn't hear his cheesy Geotrax DVD we got for free in the mail.  Hence the lame-ass list of things Elsa put in her mouth.  Sorry.

And so, this is what was really on my mind....Do I want more kids?

Jeff's stand on the issue is pretty straight-forward and simple: Hell No.  He grew up in a two-kid, one boy, one girl household.  He tends to view his childhood as wonderful, idyllic, happy and relatively squabble-free.  Why would we want to offset the perfect balance we currently have with our darling son and daughter?  The kids we have are the perfect genetic cocktail of Jeff and me, inheriting only the best of both of us (right?).  Do we really want to risk having one that might take after certain members of either family?

Side note: Not that we don't love every family member dearly, and not that we don't believe that all of our siblings are lovely people....but honestly, if I had to actually raise a certain sister of mine, I would have smothered her with her own knock-off Cabbage Patch Kid long ago.


I, however, have found myself vacillating between really wanting anther one and wanting to get my tubes tied like, immediately.

(I wrote the following paragraph while I thought Rollie was sleeping but was in fact emptying his toy box and assembling a sort of still-life of figurines and Matchbox airplanes on his Lego table, and then coming to tell me he'd just pooped in his diaper.)

Today I really do think I want one more.  Because here I sit, eating lunch, working on the computer, both children sleeping peacefully in their darkened rooms, the house only minimally destroyed, the windows wide open, and somewhere beyond them windchimes blowing in the cool autumn air.  And I'm having some kind of zen moment right now, thinking that I want another kid...must be the windchimes.

(Isn't that hilarious?  Because now it's 7:25, both kids are passed out because they were up all afternoon running me absolutely ragged, I've cleaned up their dinner, two rounds of 'Let's-Pee-Anywhere-But-The-Potty,' I bathed them, I haven't eaten my dinner yet, and Jeff's still not home, and the thought of having another kid is right up there with going to WalMart on Black Friday.)

 Seriously though, I still think I want another one, but I'm not exactly in a hurry to get knocked up again.  Maybe I should just enjoy the two I've got and worry about adding another one somewhere down the road.  Although, that was the plan early last year, until Jeff and I went to the Keys, had one too many Rum Runners and ended up with Elsa nine months later....DOH!

4 comments:

  1. Just wait till you have to raise the 16 year old version of me. Just you wait. Auntie Carrie can take over from there....

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  2. As a mom of three, I can tell you that I (now) cannot imagine life without any of them. However, it can be scary when they start to outnumber you :)

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  3. I agree with the "outnumber" comment. With six, we found that everything after two was insanity. Once they outnumber you, all is lost. The good thing is, three is pretty much the same as four which is pretty much the same as five, etc. The only thing is expenses go up. Amazingly, though, expenses aren't too bad. But you get into a lot of hand-me-downs...
    That said, I wouldn't trade anything for ANY of my children. Not even peace of mind ...

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  4. Of course, I have no expertise in this area. But think you should try for another boy and name him Michael. Michael Scott. And maybe someday he'll own his own paper company, and maybe that paper company will actually succeed and expand into printing books, and give us really great deals on printing Rogues books. Of course, by then, I may be too old to even worry about writing books. Good luck with your decision!

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