Preparation Anxiety

It's funny how now that I'm waddling around like an extremely tall and underdressed penguin, I've been getting a lot of those obligatory questions people are compelled to ask any expectant mother:

How are you feeling? Large. Slow. Like I can't possibly get any bigger, even though I have 12 weeks to go. I am also currently mourning the loss of my belly button. We had such a history together.

Do you know what you're having? A baby. Possibly male. Definitely enjoys sitting on my bladder in the middle of the night.

Do you have any names picked out? Yes. Unfortunately Jeff and I are failing to reach an agreement on any of them. This is the problem with being married to a man who went to high school with twenty thousand other people: every name I come up with has a negative association for him. Apparently there was a high concentration of a-holes at Lincoln High.



Do the kids know they're about to have a baby brother/sister? I think so. Elsa asks me every day if she can push the baby in the swing, so I'm pretty sure those first couple months will be fraught with me yelling at Elsa to for the love of God stop pushing the baby swing, are you trying to scramble his brain? And Rollie is finally starting to ask some interesting questions. "Is the baby crawling around in your tummy?" "How is the baby going to come out?" "What will the baby eat?" (which led to some hilarious follow-up questions I will have to blog about soon), and "Can we name the baby Foppy? How about Gloppy? How about Uniqua?"

One of the more thought-provoking questions I've gotten lately has been, Are you ready for three?

This one actually gives me pause. I was most recently asked this at a playdate. I sat there, arms resting on my wiggling belly, watching other people's kids toddle around, eat food from the floor and take things from each other like chubby, pillaging pirates, and thought, Holy crap, am I ready for three?

And then I asked myself, is anyone ever really ready for kids? It's like asking someone if she's ready to have her nipples in a vice, have an eternally messy car and get an average of nine seconds of sleep a night. So when you put it that way, the answer for me is a resounding Hell To The No.

So how does one prepare herself for having three kids? I mean, I'm used to the chaos, the cushionless couches and the toy-strewn floor. I'm expecting errands that take an average person about ten minutes to take me roughly three days, possibly with someone puking in the car en route. I've already accepted the fact that I'm going to have to carry this child around for the first eight months; leaving it anywhere within reach of my children will be like leaving a dead antelope out for a pack of hungry hyenas. And, I'm fully anticipating being visited by not one, not two, but three different little people each night, like my own personal ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas If You Don't Rock Me Back To Sleep Tonight I Will Haunt Your Dreams For All Eternity.

I am having a hard time picturing how much different three kids will be. I know I had a taste of it a few months ago, but I have the feeling babysitting someone else's well-behaved three-year-old is nothing compared to actually being a mother of three. Jeff and I will officially be out-numbered. We will no longer fit neatly in a row of airplane seats, amusement park rides, restaurant booths...we will no longer have enough bedrooms in our house, room in the bathtub or beer in the fridge. We will, in essence, be in biiiiig trouble.

Topless and sporting a black eye only make them more endearing

Sigh. I'm such a sucker.

But you know what? They sure are cute. Especially when they're unconscious. And three sleeping kids is three times as rewarding. So I suppose I'm as ready as I can get.

I'm definitely ready to get my drink on again.