Are We Really Doing this Again?!

Have another baby?  We've thought seriously about this.  Our conclusions are best expressed with a little help from Taylor Swift. :-)

The Perfect Size

I have a plan
I ought not tell
But you may know it just as well
To keep them tiny, keep them small
Ensure they will not grow at all

I have a plan, I'll shrink them
Into my pocket blink them

I have a plan
When no one's looking
I'll put them to sleep
In that way they'll keep
Precious little angels dreaming
Night and day I don't stop scheming

I have a plan, I'll mold them
So tightly will I hold them
Safe in the swaddle they will stay
Never will there come a day
When they grow up and go away!

I have a plan, I'll pinch them
I'll tuck them in and inch them
I'll squeeze them tight, I'll cinch them
With all my might, I'll clinch them
Just as they're the perfect size

I have a plan to grow them down
Like plants that creep along the ground
I'll keep their heads and bodies low
Like mini monsters in a row
With blissful faces all aglow

I have a plan to wrangle them
To constantly untangle them
To keep their arms and legs from sprouting
And from their clothes always grow-outing
I'll talk to them, no lies, no shouting

My plan is simple:  Just reverse
This make-believe destroying curse
That makes the doubts and fears grow worse
I'll show them hope instead and pride
I'll fill them full with love inside

And when my plan stops them from climbing
Towards regret and rigid timing
Then I'll turn and let them teach me
With their elfin fingers reach me
In their blessed way beseech me
Not to lament their growing older
Instead I'd better choose the bolder path
The one the seasons blithely take
And know their own is no mistake

Will I Remember?

As soon as my children fall asleep, all I want to do is stare at them.  Their little faces are so sweet.  They are so peaceful and perfect. They are so young, so precious, I feel as if all I want to do is stay with them, love them and keep them safe.  It's as if they've somehow become so much of a priority, that it takes an effort to come up with even a handful of other things that are truly meaningful to me - besides these little people of mine.  Besides my wife, there really doesn't seem to be anything nearly as important.  The feeling is so acute, that I'm fixated on them, and I can hardly stand it.  It happens each night, and I'm sad for them to grow up.  I want to climb into bed with them and just be there.  And I wonder, when they're grown, will I remember this time - and just how much it meant to me?

The Ultrasound Was an Ultra-Surprise!

We sat in the dimly lit office as the ultrasound tech squirted the jelly on my wife's belly and began to slide the monitor around to find that little squirmer.  She deftly located and measured head, heart, bladder, larger bones - as we waited for some kind of explanation of the black and white images as they seemed to morph,  fluid-like,  from one vaguely recognizable shape to another.  She had asked at the beginning if we wanted to know what we were having, to which we'd immediately said "yes!"  As of yet, the legs were closed, so she continued examining the mini-person, organs and other contents of my wife's growing mid-section.

We have two daughters and frankly were expecting another.  We were just waiting for our little one's legs to part long enough for the tech to spot and point out the tell-tale three lines indicating what they call the "hamburger" and confirming the female status of our next child.

We were sitting anxiously, yet quietly, when - without warning -  she said, "You better start adjusting, that's a penis."  What?!  Are you sure?!  We thought we only made girls!  There must be a mistake!  Check again.  Are you sure that's not something else?  Maybe it's a misplaced nose or ear or an extra leg or something, something, something else - right!?  Please check again - are you sure?  Are you 100% positive that's a boy?  "Nothing is 100% with ultrasounds," she replied.  "But that's a penis."

We were stunned.  We had truly not seriously considered the possibility of having a boy.  We knew about girls.  That's what made sense to us.  A baby girl - pink, little dresses, tiny fountain pig tails on top of her little head, fairies and princesses and Strawberry Shortcake...  One simple swiping wipe from front to back to clean you up when we change your diaper... this is what we knew to expect.  We'd had our name for months!  A girl's name for the younger sister of our 2 girls who would share a room and share all their hand-me-down clothes and dress-up clothes and hair ties and hair clips and head bands and cute little frilly...ARE YOU SURE THAT'S A PENIS?!  I mean -  it's just a little dot, the size of an eraser.  It could be anything, right? Right?! Look again - Check again from another angle...  We were expecting a girl and, um...What do we do with a penis?  This is NOT what we've been preparing for!

Somehow the nice ultrasound person didn't seem to sense our smoldering hysteria.  Perhaps it was because the hysteria was largely bottled up inside.  Nonetheless, we felt it so strongly that we hardly said a thing.  If you looked closely at either of us at that moment, you would have clearly noticed the size of our eyeballs, which I'm positive was at least double their normal size.  At this moment, it might have been nice to have our daughters with us, because we were so overwhelmed with this impending boy, that we were stunned speechless.

We walked out of the place clutching each other like zombies.  We drove to a nearby Dunkin Donuts to  decompress and wallow.  Yes, I said wallow.  We lamented all the adorable tiny girl outfits that were folded, categorized by age in months, sitting in a closet - just waiting to be worn by our newest family member.  Alas, it was never to be.  Watery-eyed, we tossed back our iced-coffee and sulked as we ate our donuts.  What about the name - the initials - the bathroom regimen?  Everything had been carefully worked out according to our forgone conclusion of a 3 daughter family.  Now we had suddenly become a 2 daughter and a foreskin family.  How are we supposed to adjust to that?

This day had become something we truly had not bargained for.  And yet - here we were, alone to commiserate.  Of course we were forbidden to share this with anyone.  According to the well-known rules of the We're-just-happy-to-be-having-a-healthy-baby announcement, under no circumstances is one permitted to even utter anything that would imply a lack of gratitude.  People try for years to have children and spend thousands of dollars to no avail.  How dare we suggest disappointment at the gender of  our THIRD child, no less!  How dare we!  But still, we dared.  For the time being, sitting there at DD.  We were not just disappointed, we felt let-down, jipped, dupped, mislead.  We held hands and, somehow, we got through it.

Naturally we began to feel better and better even on the drive home.  After all,  we are going to have a baby again, and there is no denying this impending infusion of joy.  Plus, we'll get to use the phrase "little guy" -  and it really will be our own little guy.  We'll get to cradle his warm body and smell his grapefruit-sized head and marvel at the tininess of his poops.  Seriously how could we not be excited, curious and - yes - very, very happy.   But whenever we need a reminder of how we first felt, we just take a look at our gender-reveal video.  In it, our oldest child clearly and unapologetically shows us exactly how we felt when we first heard the news...

Gender Reveal Video

Little Kids = Gross Stuff in Your Carpet

My daughter likes to show me her boogers, and then keep them.  I'm quick to offer her a tissue or show her the way to the trashcan, sink or toilet.  But she prefers to keep them preserved on the tip of her tiny finger while she wanders around, watches t.v, drinks her juice.  If I ambush her with a tissue and try to grab the offending booger off her finger, she'll quickly try to retract her finger and shrink away.  Then where the mini-boogie ends up is anyone's guess.  It most likely winds up in our carpet along with the multitude of unmentionable items hidden in that dirt trap we call a floor.  I'll spare you the frightful list of potential gross stuff in our carpet.  Suffice it to say that boogers are not the most disgusting things there.  Of course we have a  vacuum cleaner.  It's fairly strong and equally loud.  But let's face it, when you have little kids, you've got stuff in your carpet that's never coming out...

"Upsown, Daddy." (this is my two and a half-year-old asking me to hold her upside down)
"But you don't have any pants on."
"Upsown!!!"
Why can't I see that her 50% nudity could not be more irrelevant?  It is so obvious to her.  Naturally, I hoist her up and lower her down my back, until I'm grasping her ankles and she's dangling happily.  I suppose if I lived with a giant, I would probably take advantage of this simple way to get the blood rushing to my head at a moment's notice.

She does what feels good.  The wisdom is so innate, I don't understand why we doubt it.  We should rename ourselves the "grown-olds," or the "grown-talls,"or perhaps just the "groaners."  But I'm not sure we've earned the title "grown-up" just because we've been around for so damn long.

Some of us grow up, but some grow lazy, some grow cranky, some grow numb.   I've found that looking to my younger ones is almost always likely to open my eyes, my mind and my heart to all that's around me.

Still,  - most of the time - I'm one exhausted fella.

Maybe I ought to spend more time upsown...

There is no Middle

There is no middle of the night.  There is only the time when my children are sleeping and the time when they are awake.  The time when they are awake, I am awake.  The time when they are asleep, I am recovering.  Raising children is uncanny.  It's like having something (very precious) on the stove or in the oven, ...for years.