Here's how it is for us.

I find myself drawn to every article and blog post that discusses having lots of kids.  Am I seeking advice?  Comfort?  Reassurance?  All of those, I suspect.  I feel like an anomaly, having this many little ones.  I don't have any close friends with more than 2 kids, therefore few sounding boards.  (Though we do have three neighbors down the block with three older kids, and I see them as hope that, in fact, one can survive all this.

It turns out, though, that 3 kids is not all that uncommon.  According to the U.S. Census, 28% of women have 3 or more kids by the age of 44.  I find this to be pretty shocking, because I often feel we are swimming in children.  It seems that we are the anomaly, having this many children.  Three children.  Who does that?  What I can't seem to figure out is what sort of spacing is common. 3 kids under 5 seems pretty crazy.  2 kids under 2 seems even crazier.

Here are the things that I find so notable about our numbers so far.

1)  The sheer physicality of this time is astounding.  When I sit down at the end of the night, after the kids are in bed and the necessary chores completed, my whole body aches.  I feel I have run a race.  Each and every day.  Much of this is the age of the kids, I know.  I am often having to lug a baby in a carseat in one arm and a squirming toddler in a snowsuit in the other.  Or I am picking up a toddler and putting her in the high chair whilst I am holding a baby in the other arm and giving him a bottle with my chin as my third hand.

2)  I don't necessarily long for the naps to align themselves.  While it is a nice break when it happens, it is a nice break when anybody is sleeping.  If one or two of them are sleeping (the baby and/or the toddler), that gives me a chance to spend some quality time with the big kid.  That's when we spend time reading or chatting.  If all the naps aligned, I would never get alone time with anyone.

3) I am so thankful that I was a hard ass with the girls sleep.  When I found out I was pregnant with Teddy, I decided Greta needed to become a perfect sleeper.  We did cry-it-out, and she is a perfect sleeper now.  I read other blogs where women are getting up with all of their kids, and I just know I couldn't handle that.  I can't be a nice enough person.  Better they cry a little bit and figure out how to sleep, than cry a lot later on because Mom is too tired to be nice to them.

4)  The car seat thing doesn't even phase me anymore.  I used to get annoyed with having to strap one kid into a car seat.  I absolutely dreaded dealing with three kids in car seats.  I care less now than I did with one kid in a car seat.  Because really?  It doesn't matter.  It is what it is, it's not going to change.  If only I could start to feel that way about the messy house.  It still drives me nuts, every single day.

5)  The husband has really stepped up to the plate.  Whereas before he left me to do a lot of the parenting (and parenting prep), he now steps up to help constantly.  It has made a huge difference.  We're lucky if we get an hour to ourselves at the end of the night, and often have to forsake sleep to make it happen.  But at least we're in it together.

6)  When the kids are awake, there is no space in my head for anything other than parenting.  The days go oh-so-quickly, even if we're stuck inside, because every possible moment is filled with some little person's want or need.  For the most part this is fun.  But I also find it's affected my health.  With three plugged ducts, a round of mastitis and a UTI turned kidney infection, I have realized that I don't even make time for my basic needs.  Feeding myself, giving myself water and a bathroom break, are often put off until nap time and bed time.  With my latest infection I realized something has to give.  I now pump a lot less than I was.  And I force myself to drink a lot more water.  So far, it has worked out better.

7)  My poor oldest.  She has always been so independent.  So with the advent of two littler ones, I have relied on her a lot.  She loves it, in some ways.  But I also know that I probably expect more out of her than most 4-year-olds can deliver.  I often forget she's still so little.  It's not until I have a rare outing alone with her that I remember she's still a little kid.  She is not as grown up as she so often seems in the presence of her younger siblings.  I have to remind myself constantly to cut her more slack (and often fail to remember this altogether until the husband reminds me that I'm not being fair to her).  We still have a contentious relationship.  I am reading a book on parenting preschoolers to hopefully remedy that.  It has helped a bit so far, though I have a long way to go.

8) It is fascinating to see even little Greta learn to help.  She has become pretty adept at finding Teddy's pacifier when he's crying.  The fact that everyone is pitching in, without even having to be asked, is something I hadn't expected.

This is life with three, two months in.

Since everyone in the real world can apparently tell...

Big strike out for the daily posts over here.  I guess I increased my post numbers, but failed at my goal.  I think next time I'll aim for every other day, and just not tell y'all.  So if I succeed, I can just say "Hey, look at that!" and if I fail I won't have to draw attention to it.  Maybe December wasn't the best month as well, what with Christmas and all.

Anyway, on to the obligatory-blogger-year-in-review.  And the BIG REVEAL.

Notice anything different?  The hair is notable.  The rest is harder to capture in a picture.  As DH put it, she now gets interested in things.  Last year at this time, she had two primary interests: eating, and running.  Now she will actually sit for (short) periods of time and focus on things. Communication is the other biggie.  We have full conversations, sometimes about abstract concepts like "air" and "boys vs girls".  And she seems to get it. 

As for our year, it's been a big one.  Last year at this time we were debating where to live.  Even as far as what city we wanted to end up in.  We were convinced we would get pregnant any day and need a bigger house (hah!) and started the search.  We are now settled in that house, in a wonderful neighborhood with wonderful neighbors.  DH started his real job, after (only) 12 years of school and training.  I quit my PhD, a very scary move but an ultimately wonderful move.

And we ended the year expecting a new kiddo in August.  Yep.  I've been meaning to tell you all, but just couldn't bring myself to do it.  We've had a few ultrasounds, everything has been measuring well.  The morning sickness has been uncomfortable but not crippling.  We've told many people in our day-to-day lives, but the fear of miscarriage still lingered (and still does, really).  But I'll be 10 weeks in a few days, and was called out at a party last night.

We went to our neighbor's house for New Year's Eve, which turned out to be wonderful.  Although all of our new neighbor's have been wonderful, there is really only one we've gotten to know well (and not the one having the party).  So we didn't know what to expect, but it was perfect.  Lots of little kids for MJ to play with, actual adults to talk to, and just good people. 

At any rate, one of my neighbor's came up and asked "Is there any news that you're thinking about sharing?  About...." then she got a terrified look on her face that perhaps she'd been too presumptuous.  After all, you're never supposed to ask women if they're pregnant.  But, we assuaged her fears, and I came to realize that I am already starting to look pregnant.

Which will be interesting when I show up at my new job, a week from Monday.  The timing is not exactly what we aimed for, but life doesn't like to work according to plans. 

When to have a family: what they don't tell you

We talked a lot about when we wanted to start a family.  We came to absolutely no conclusions, but at least we talked about it.  I take that back, we did come to a conclusion: that the time would never feel right until my ovaries were shriveled little prunes.  So we should just take the plunge, because most good things in our life we hadn't felt ready for. 

So we "stopped trying".  Which makes me laugh, in retrospect.  No one wants to admit that they're "trying" to get pregnant, because that's like admitting "We're trying to grow a watermelon in my uterua, then expel it through an orange-sized hole, and then raise it for 18 years in the prison that will become our life (who are we kidding, it's really 30 years these days.)  Partly because I think stretch marks are very "in" right now, and partially because our life has just been going too swell lately.  So instead we say "We weren't trying, but we weren't trying to prevent it."  Because to admit that we're crazy enough to WANT to turn our life upside down is ... crazy.  But I digress.

So we eventually "stopped trying to prevent". And that was our very half-assed way of making a decision.

But what I never thought about is what sort of family makeup I wanted.  How close in age do I want our kids to be (because an only child was not an option)?  Actually, I did think about it, and knew that I wanted them close in age. 

But you knew what never occurrd to me?  That to have children close in age means having two small children at the same time. It means that, when you are still recovering from the trauma that was growing-a-person-in-your-uterus you have to start thinking about doing it all again.  Except this time you've actually been there.  You know how much day care costs.  You know for a fact that you can't fit two car seats in EITHER of your cars without permanently implanting your knee caps into your molars.  So when your baby hits 3 months old and you realize if you want your children to be a year apart you better get pregnant TODAY and schedule an early c-section, you start to rethink things. 

In case you couldn't tell, I'm not totally speaking hypothetically here.  We've started to have these talks.  And I want my kids to be close in age.  I don't want to have to fight the biological clock.  But the idea of getting pregnant again right now is not appealing.  Some days the idea of having another little one, and additional chaos, makes me feel all fluttery and maternal, but some days it makes me feel stabby.  Right now those days are pretty evenly split.  It seems like the stabby days should be a smaller proportion before we commit.  Furthermore, I'm really enjoying my PhD program right now, I really see reasons I want to stay and finish, and I fear that having a second may make that impossible. I can justify continuing to work and pay for childcare for one child, but for two?  The math requires more credit-default-swaps, or some such creative accounting.  But I could be in this program for a long time yet, so maybe that's not enough justification. 

Ultimately, it doesn't "feel" right.  But when you're staring at 30 and still want to have a few more kids, do you ignore the "doesn't feel right" part and just suck it up?  Didn't we always say that if we wait for it to feel right we'll never find the right time?