Whenever I was growing up and people would ask, “do you want kids?” I’d shake my head and say, “yeah, I could see myself with like three.”
We’d take up a row and a half on an international flight. We’d fill up the house on the holidays, we’d fill up the ‘garbage time’ with laughter and madness.
Maybe it’s because I’m a middle child and think every family should have one. Maybe it's because since our second, Kate, was a few months old I saw her as the one in the middle.
Two kids are even, orderly, one against one. It feels organized and logical. Three feels like chaos, and adventure and really living. You can pinpoint the families out there with two, we feel like honor role. Families of three feel like recess.
I pull open my journal and go back to February of last year. I find scattered entries, detailing the first few weeks of my daughter's life. Maybe remembering the newborn days will provide some clarity.
I read about the sleepless nights.
I read about the snuggles and the smell of her fresh skin.
I find the entries about the start of breastfeeding: it’s not JUST that my nipples are raw and chapped and the touch of her lips make me gasp, it’s ALSO that it’s just so damn cold when I get out of the covers and EVERY single time I lay back down she cries AGAIN.
I find the entries about my husband: He’s sleeping next to me and I want to punch him. Punch him for doing this to me. Punch him for not being able to READ. MY. MIND. YOU GET UP! You breastfeed this child.
I close my journal and take a more practical approach. I open a spreadsheet and begin to outline.
I make a sheet to consider childcare for a child that doesn’t exist. I make neat and orderly columns in the spreadsheet and input a formula that adds up all the variables– the cost of combined care, the hours, the commute time between different drops off. I add in a column titled ‘year’ that shows Caroline’s age and schooling for the next three years until she heads to Kindergarten. I detail out Kate’s current childcare options. The cost, the hours of care, a column for a nanny that hasn’t taken the job. A nanny that doesn’t yet exist.
I calculate as each month passes adding nine months to the current date. If we get pregnant now that would be March. Not too hot yet, head back to work at the start of summer. Reasonable. I don’t consider that we may not be able to get pregnant right away, or ever again.
I think about how I’d actually prepare this time. I’d watch the YouTube labor breathing exercises ahead of time instead of on the way to the hospital. I’d learn how to wear the Moby wrap correctly. I’d ask for more help.
And then I think I’m being irresponsible. I think I’m too old. I think we can’t afford it. I think an extra plane ticket would make us not go anywhere. I think we already have two healthy kids, why chance it? I hear my sister's voice, “having kids is quite possibly the worst thing you can do for the environment.’ I hear my boss say, ‘I do not know what to do if we have another maternity leave in the office.’ I hear my neighbor say, ‘I can finally read my book at the pool again now that my youngest is five.’
I bring it up with Clayton. I add it to Apple Note agendas that we don’t get to. We chat in the kitchen after bedtime about the obvious reasons – the exhaustion, the logistics, the fun. We shrug and say ‘how will we ever know?’ The question goes unanswered. We leave the kitchen to read, to clean, to get ourselves to bed.
Thank you to
for the call to say, just write it and for pushing me to keep writing this one and having more fun with it. Thank you both!
Love love love this. The unknown.
And this was so shiny in my opinion:
“Families of three feel like recess.”
Love how you ask the question and don’t answer it… at least not yet!