And Baby Makes Three

Some have heard and some have not, but soon my burgeoning belly and plump face will be undeniable; I am again with child, in a family way, bun in oven, knocked up, pregnant, expecting, or my favorite that I’ve recently come across that tickles me pinker than I usually find myself these days- “in a fix”. Yes, we are delighted to say that we are in quite a fix and will be welcoming our third little human at the end of August. So, to answer all the usual nosy inquisitiveness, not that it’s anyone’s business but our own, but I guess I don’t mind sharing at the moment (if this post ends up deleted then my brief open moment of sharing has come to a close), but yes, this was not unplanned in any way and we are thrilled probably against our better judgment about having a third child.
Most people these days, especially in this economy if they have children at all, stop at one or two. However, there seems to have been a recent resurgence of families containing three children or even more and according to an article I read in the Washington Post online, it seems that a general consensus on the matter is that families that decide to contribute extra to over populating are just show-offs in a sense; look how many children we can afford? Furthermore, I have read (and I believe it was in one of those magazines at the hair salon, so forgive me for not mentioning it by name) that because of the baby boom in Hollywood, young women have taken to the “fad” of child rearing. In my opinion this grossly ignores the intelligent, informed sector of young women who did not decide to procreate just because Britney Spears and Posh Spice decided to make having babies look easy and fashionable. Because it’s not easy. And no matter how many maternity stores now have clothes that look just like the clothes you were wearing previous to your blessed gift, I don’t see how joining the ranks of motherhood is, in and of itself, particularly fashionable. So, we are far from rich show offs, we are not poor, nor Catholic, nor are we fashionistas swayed by every new, new thing that flies in from the West. We are just us and this is what we want.
I’m not going to lie, though. Having my daughter kept me busy and after I had my son, I did have a slight breakdown the evening we brought him home from the hospital when both the children were crying and I had a moment of panic thinking my life would forever be imprisoned within that moment of exhaustion with a crying infant and two year old. It wasn’t. We worked out our system and busy is busy. And now for the next one. We have all heard (or at least I have) mothers say that once you’ve had one or two children, the rest is just gravy. You already have the stuff. You are already busy. You already have not slept since your third trimester with the first child, so really, what’s another little person to love and care for? It’s funny because in some digging about the number three (3, iii, III), it seems that in early civilizations there were possibly words for describing what amounts to or the quantities of one (1) and two (2), but anything after that is just “many”. It’s as though they started creating a mathematical system, a way of counting, and got to two and said, “Eh. That’s enough. Anything after the second one? It’s just a lot, it’s just more. No need to bother counting, you can all go home now.”
Of course, Baby is still very much easy to handle at the moment as long as I stay fed and get to go to bed at about 8:30, but pretty soon, the precious little one will be here and I am sure I will be singing quite a different tune about children in general and myself for being not as bright as I could have been in the heat of the moment that particular night. I do hope I remember when those nights of endless feedings and the days filled with driving everyone to school and appointments that I did ask for this and I will do my best to be thankful, mostly because I really am!
So, our family is once again growing and we are looking forward to a wonderful year filled with life and love and Baby 3.