It's Not Like Hoarding Cats
What is it about beginning a new stage in your life that makes people immediately ask when you will move onto the next? Your first moments of marital bliss are peppered with paparazzi-style questioning about children. Have you thought about babies? Do you want kids? When do you think you will start your family? Or your feet are in the stirrups for a 38 week check and the gyno asks about your postpartum method of birth control. To this I answered, “Uh, my baby.” My doctor was not amused. I don’t think sarcasm translates well when you’re not wearing pants.
So if you’re me and generally speaking pretty snarky most of the time, when someone asks about baby #2, I respond with:
"I just really want to enjoy every second of my daughter’s childhood without having to think ahead to our next one."
It has just the right amount of bite and you will still be invited over to play. I haven’t trademarked it yet, so please feel free to use it as needed.
The decision to have a second is, in a lot of ways, more real than the decision to have your first. With your first baby there was still a sense of mystery and wonder. When you decide to get pregnant again, you have finally figured out the dance and then someone hands you some flaming ferrets and tells you to juggle. Why do they have to be flaming you ask? You must not have children.
With all of my free time, I started watching 19 Kids and Counting, where they treat having children like hoarding cats. I wanted to look at the extreme end of parenting in the name of market research and they don’t have a show called My Fulfilling Life Without Kids, unless of course you count The Bachelor. I always assumed we would have a big family, but after having 1, I realized they don’t come as a litter for a reason (those with twins & triplets, bless you). Each one is a big decision and I shall treat it according. Not to say I’m ruling anything out, but when you’ve already created the world’s most perfect child, how can you possibly improve upon perfection? We’ll get there someday, but until then, thanks for not asking.
A sibling? I'll have to really think that over.