In Which I Use My Blog For Personal And Major-Decision-Making Sorting Out In The Absence Of My Husband

For weeks and weeks and months and days and hours we've been considering adding another baby to our brood. Right up front, this post is NOT that I'm pregnant. I'm not. But we thought I could be this month, and we were pleased with the possibility. And we determined that if we were ever going to get out of babyland and into "The kids are transportable and flexible and let's start having fun as a family"land, we'd need to make a decision by August about just what and how we'd go about it all.

And then we went away for the night, got a little tipsy, and decided we should really have FOUR children anyway, nevermind this "one more" business.

And then Trevor left for Chicago, and today was my last day of single parenthood, and it was a doozy. I mean, we had a really great day, the weather was sparkling, Berit had her first day of summer camp and all was well. It was a doozy of a thinking day. For example:

Out for a walk, Marta started in the stroller and Berit was walking Mosey. Then, Berit was done walking Mosey and Marta wanted out of the stroller. Berit wanted to run but Marta needed to stop at every single tent worm on the road, and we have a ton of them right now so we were pretty much going as fast as they were, except Berit was trying to run home and was mad at me so she wasn't listening when I was telling her that at any moment a car could come and she could get hurt really, really badly and that she needed to listen to me, and I was also pushing the stroller and walking Mosey. And I thought, "Now how would I fit a new baby into all of this?" 

This sort of thing happened all day; benign moments where both girls' personalities hit full steam and I realized that I could barely vacuum the house without Berit screaming that she's terrified of everything loud and that she needed to have me listen to a zillion songs first, and without Marta twirling until she literally could not stand up without the momentum of her twirling keeping her in a delicate balance of uprightedness and then smashing her head on every sharp-cornered surface in the room. And Berit wasn't sympathetic for a second, and how, then, would she be helpful with a new baby? 

And while I was vacuuming, I was pondering all of the insecurities I have about my current children. Such as:

Do I give Berit enough undivided attention? Because no matter how long I listen to her singing, no matter how focused I am on her stories, no matter how often I take her picture or videotape her dancing or let her have one more sentence of chatter OKAY ONE MORE SENTENCE AND THAT'S IT, it's never enough for her. She always has to bring up all the other people who do these things for her, and who lay with her while she falls asleep or scratch her back as long as she wants.

And do we do enough to stimulate Marta? The first thing she says to me each morning is, "Go bye-bye? Outside?" And she continues to say this all day long. And no, we don't get to go bye-bye all day long, because it's damn cold here lately and her sister is a hermit who doesn't want anything to do with playing outside most of the time. Yet Marta takes one step into the living room and screams "NOOOOO!" at some point every day, and I sympathize because frankly, I get sick of seeing the same room all day, too. 

And then I started thinking about adding a baby to the family, and I realized that the above qualms would only be sharpened, SIGNIFICANTLY, if we were stuck inside again, with Mommy's hands and attention wrapped around the new person in the house. 

Yet I know I don't want it to be just the two of them. I love having two other siblings, and I would love having three more, too. 

And I know that all of you grandmothers and friends of my mom will say things like, "When it happens you just make it work," and "It's worth it in the long run," and I know all of this. I'm just nervous about it, and I wonder if I'm a good enough mom to in fact make it work, and if I'm organized enough or patient enough or if I can ever, ever give my kids enough time and energy and love.

So I don't know. I don't think I'll ever know, until something happens that makes my decision for me.