It's Okay If You Think I'm Crazy

Hannah's school put on a Spring concert last Thursday night. It was immensely delightful to look up at the altar and see all those children assembled there, dressed as expected in their Sunday finery.

Hannah's dress wasn't quite Sunday best: a sleeveless white frock with embroidered flowers, it was slightly stained with some streaks of blue paint I had tried to scrub out, to no avail. But her sandals were brand new acquisitions from Payless, that wonder of a shoe store for those not willing to shell out $45.00 on StrideRite each time the foot grows a half-inch.

She was beautiful. As the kids paraded through the door of the church, making their ways past the audience and up to the altar to sing, Hannah seemed to be both looking for us and trying to avoid our gaze. I loved that.

Some of the kids' lips barely moved, some were singing quietly, some were practically shouting. The waning light of evening filtered through the stained glass windows. Lillian stood and bounced on David's knees, unabashedly singing along, though the words she sang were her mostly her own.

There were families with new babies, families with babies closer to 6 months of age, families with toddlers Lillian's age. And there were pregnant women, women having their third and fourth babies. Even my neighbor friend, who was there to watch her 3-year old -- her 1-year old was home in bed already -- confessed in the pew to me that she was ready to start trying for her third. I was struck by the seemingly constant process of expansion. Every family unit seemed already bigger or on the cusp of getting bigger.

As Lillian shouted out the words to "Mr. Golden Sun" -- her hair uncharacteristically held back with barrettes, her face clean and bright, her dress shifting with each movement -- I found myself melancholy. Between my almost 5-year old who was performing, and my 2-year old who was putting on a show all her own, I wondered if I truly was done having children.

I've gone on about this here before, when that swearing off of babies I did throughout the first six months of Lillian's high-maintenance life started to wear away. I wouldn't even go on the record in any official capacity saying that I, Kelly, want another child. It's not nearly as simple as that. I wish that it were.

I wish that I had decided on becoming a nurse straight out of high school, and that I already had a career and a salary, and that we already had a minivan that could fit 3 small children in it rather than two cars that can only fit two.

And I wish, probably more than the silly-sounding but necessary items I listed above, that I felt I had the constitution to handle a larger family. That somehow, my feeling that handling two children is quite enough, thankyouverymuch, is ridiculous and melodramatic, and that what could be the harm of deciding to add another.

After the kids were in bed the evening of Hannah's recital, I found myself explaining my feelings (yet again) to my patient husband, who incidentally, is fairly convinced that two is enough. "I feel jealous that other people are able to handle it, and not me. What is in their blood that isn't in mine?"

What do they have? I kept up this dance in my brain, telling myself that they probably were swamped, overwhelmed and overworked.

A few weeks ago, during one of our last fires, Dave and I sat in front of the toasty flames drinking. I was drunk on Caravello, Pom and vodka, crying into my ice-cube filled glass. "I just don't want to close the door on it," I cried. "I just want a little window or something. Please, just tell me you haven't completely ruled it out."

Dave, who still had his sobriety, told me gently, "I haven't closed the door completely." As he held on to his beer, he proceeded to tell me all the reasons why it would be good for us to stop. "How many times have you told me how much you're dying to get out of the house, to do something else? And we'd love to travel, take the kids out West. Everything gets pushed back, your plans for school, all the things you want to accomplish. Plus, you kind of hate being pregnant and aren't that fond of newborns." He said this all without a hint of exasperation or lecturing, which, drunk and vulnerable, made me love him even more.

Plans. I'm just getting started on my future. Nursing school is still a futuristic concept. There are the prerequisites I have to fulfill.

And, yes, there is the hatred of heartburn and pelvic pain. And exhaustion. Oy, the exhaustion.

But...

Seeing the girls makes me wonder about who we'd next create. It's a romantic dream, imagining the first meeting and seeing how the genetic rolling of dice all played out. As much as they drive me crazy, they also enchant me, like little boisterous fairies, flitting about and scattering their spells. And I know in my heart that we'd never regret an addition to our family. That we'd make a new reality, tough it out and do our best.

I also know how hard it would be - that, I don't have to imagine. I'd find myself wondering what to do while my two eldest were fighting ferociously over the Casio keyboard and I was tied to the couch, nursing for the 12th time that day. That instead of using the potty, Lillian would most likely decide, in a plea for whatever attention she could get from me, that the floor was a more suitable place to urinate. That Hannah, who stakes her claim to my body by rubbing her nose all over my arm like a cat, would nestle in even harder. That I'd frequently feel out-manned, out-gunned, overwhelmed.

******

Sometimes David and I joke about it. I like this. It makes me feel slightly less crazy.

"I know how I could convince you," I tell my husband one morning, as we sit and sip our coffee. The kids fritter around at our feet, playing with dolls. "I would say, 'Dave, I bet you can't do it. I bet you can't get me pregnant.' And it would be a challenge you just couldn't refuse." And I see, as he laughs, that he's instantly ingested this sentiment, that it appeals to his can-do attitude. He flashes me his best 'you-know-I-can-knock-yo-ass-up' look, and we return to our coffee and to the day ahead.