Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Pros and Cons of Babies
When I was in my early 20s, I couldn't imagine my life with children. I was happily selfish, eating out, travelling, coming and going, taking classes that interested me, just being me. When Scotian and I got married, we had never really discussed when we would have children, only that we knew we would sometime, and we had no idea how many. I grew up in a family of 2 1/2 children - my half-sister is 9 years older than I am and never lived with us, but sometimes came for extended sleepovers and vacations. My brother is nearly three years younger. My mother knew that when my brother was born, she was 'done' having children.
My two best girlfriends come from families of three and four children, respectively. Both are families of three girls, the fourth child being a brother. I always admired their closeness, their support network, and I remember clearly my mother's surprise when, at my wedding shower, someone asked me how many children I might like to have when I replied "three or four".
I now have two, BananaMuffin, who is four, and Spunky, who is nearly two-and-a-half. I won't lie, going from one baby to two was really, really difficult for me. Spunky cried a lot, was fussy, would not allow me to put him down. I now know this was most likely the beginnings of his intolerance to gluten, but I didn't realize it then.
I was at home with them both, having started Nurtured as an online store and working from home. As the company grew, it became quite apparent that for my customers, working from home was not going to work for much longer: I was running out of room, and sharing my home with inventory, and having a hard time structuring the day for my children.
There is also the disparity between what we think being at home with children will be like, and what it is like. I remember talking to a good friend who said, "I thought being at home with kids would be easy - I could sit out in a deck chair and read a book while they played outside and built forts." Before our children are born we don't realize how much of a day THEY consume, let alone trying to plan activities for them, or make a meal, or keeping the house sanitary. Even my grandmother, who raised her own five children and two grandchildren, was defensive when the last grandchild asked why she was never read to before bed. "I didn't have time to read to you kids. Bread had to be baked, meals made, laundry done, I had no time for any of that." Quantity time does not always equal quality time, and although I'm currently working up to six days a week, the time that I do have with my kids is good, and I foresee a day when I'm working a shorter work week, soon.
The cribs are gone, the diapers are almost done, the high chairs have been gifted onward, the kids are sleeping (mostly) through the night. We're happy.
I want to have another baby.
Scotian asks why I must throw the situation into chaos just when things start to get on an even keel. "The kids are sleeping through the night, you're working, they're happy, I'm happy, everyone's happy, can't we just enjoy it for a bit?" he's got a good point. Throwing another baby into the mix right now: the baby brain, the fatigue, the delivery and then a full year, at least, of mind-numbing chaos and sleep deprivation, all while still taking care of two children and trying to run two businesses makes me want to run screaming, but I can't deny what my heart is telling me.
I keep rationalizing: I can bring the baby to work in a sling, breastfeed when I need to, have a bassinet next to my desk. Sure, I could. It would be really, really difficult.
Or Scotian could take the leave, and I could pump and he could be at home with the kids for a year. Sure I could. It would be really, really difficult.
There seems to be no easy way around this, adding a third baby to our family is completely impractical, and I suppose I can only hope it will pass, but what do you do when you feel like there's someone missing from your dinner table at night?
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