Baby Brain

Since my little boy Luke turned one, I have been thinking about when we would have our next kid. Not necessarily in an I-can't-wait kind of way, more in a will-we-and-when-will-we. I would say I'm sort of a planner, so it's easy to let my mind wander and think about the day we will have 3 and what would work out best for our family. We have had our 2 kids at the end of football season and it actually worked out wonderfully, but I could have very well given birth to either of them during a fourth-quarter scoring drive, alone. Brooks came at 5 in the morning the day after the football season ended, and Luke came the morning Zac left for a 48 hour trip to Buffalo for an away game. I also had them both within about 45 minutes of arriving at the hospital, so I'm lucky my husband was with me for both as well. I want to have the next one at home but I haven't gotten the Mister on board with that one just yet.

So, if we are lucky enough to have another, a springtime baby would be kinda nice. In these dreams, however, I either forget that I actually have to go through the 10 months of grueling pregnancy, or I look like Angelina Jolie pregnant in them. Let's get one thing straight: I never looked like Angelina Jolie, pregnant, not pregnant, sleeping, anytime. The second I am pregnant, my body swells like the Michellin man and I remain that way for the entire time. I get fat face just thinking about being pregnant. I actually feel my ankles swell a little when I'm even in the presence of pregnant people. And as puffy as I'll be, and as crazy as our 2 current kids make me, I am up for more kids. I guess that makes me actually, literally, crazy. And since my husband took me on a fabulous trip to Italy we actually have a binding contract, made with words, over wine, that I shall bear (bare? my brain is being fried by my children) him another child.

I'm just upset that there aren't more options out there for this whole "how to have a third kid" thing. I mean let's be serious, when you go to the grocery, you can pay with your credit card, pay with debit, write a check, use cash, get cash back....but if I want another baby, I'm either going to have to adopt or just grow the thing myself. This just doesn't seem very fair, and I'll tell you why. I don't want to. I would like for this next child to just show up on my doorstep, say next May? Tuesdays are good for me.

I want to state one thing before I go any further and that is that I'm very aware that I have been lucky enough to have the 2 crazy children I do have, and that God made this world and made women to carry the babies. It's a miracle, it's beautiful, and yes of course I cry every time someone posts one of those videos where the lady gives birth in the tub and the baby comes out and there's Enya playing and the dad is crying and gosh, ya it's beautiful. It's bananas that women can just grow a child. Like, one day you are kissing your husband and then BAM, 10 months later you have a human being that could look exactly like you. 

But you know what those precious videos don't usually show? Any of those 10 months, 40 weeks, 280 days of suffering. The ones where you have to pull on your black compression socks from Wal-Mart, and sleep in them, and nothing else, because your body is swelling quite frankly from the toes up, but you sweat through all your clothes at night. So you're reduced to this sweating mass of a person, carrying another person, sleeping with the blanket over just one leg, because you're somehow hot, cold, sweaty and shivering all at the same time. Ya. The little videos never seem to show that part.

Just once I want someone to post a video where they are muttering curse words into the camera on the first day of the 3rd trimester. If it's anyone like me, they have already gained 30 pounds at this point and know that from this point out they are pretty much staring down the barrel of 2 lbs a week weight gain for the next 12 weeks. I will consider making a video like this myself but then I can really guarantee there will not be anymore children. Because after having recorded video footage of myself waddle after my kids at the park and plopping my sausage feet up on pillows at the end of the day, that will be it for me.

Can you tell I'm just dying to get preggo? I guess the moral of this TMI story is that it just doesn't seem fair. Over the weekend, my absolutely adorable hubby and I had this discussion about how it seems like he's always gets a break. Well that obviously isn't entirely true. He gets up around 5, goes to cross fit on the way to work, has to arrive by 7 for meetings, sometimes earlier, and on the days he is able to get home at 5:45, which is only a few months in the spring, he comes in the door in a great mood and helps me until the last second those little people go to bed. I can't really say that I could ask him to do anything he isn't doing, I just think guys don't always realize the little pockets of luckiness they have throughout the day - that nice bathroom break you got to do alone, without someone hanging on your foot, with a snot bubble coming out of their nose. You got to brush your teeth without someone pulling down your pajama shorts. That time you ate lunch, and there wasn't someone throwing rice and beans at you during your lunch, was that nice? Maybe you even got an adult conversation at lunch, and didn't have to discuss with your 3 year old why there is sometimes corn in his poop. And then have another conversation about how it's really not appropriate to conversate about your poop. LORD DELIVER ME.

Guys just seem to have it lucky in that whole, being alone a lot of the day way. And in that whole, THEY DON'T HAVE TO CARRY THE CHILD WAY. Can I just say, to this day I still don't understand why we don't alternate pregnancies. I guess we would have to sit down and figure out an exit plan for the little person, but beyond that, it seems like it should be an every other thing, AMIRIGHT?

I would like my husband to come home from the hospital and spend 20 minutes looking in the mirror at his postpartum body, and then cry in the corner for 1 hour until his boobs are so full of milk he has to nurse the baby. Actually, I don't really want him to do this, thinking of him doing this whole scenario just made me feel really weird, but it would be nice if he could know how this actually feels. Because when I'm 4 months postpartum and still feel like a doughy blow fish, it really doesn't help when he tells me that the weight will still come off. UMMMM It is off you jerk, it has just displaced itself in very different areas on my body and I look like a stretched out version of my former self. The correct answer was "you have never looked so hot! I got nervous because I thought Heidi Klum broke into our house to use our mirror." I'm going to go take a bath and sob now, because you didn't say the Heidi Klum thing, thankssomuch.

I also feel a little guilty that for this kid, there isn't that excitement that there was before. The first pregnancy is of course, over-the-top, beaming, rainbows and butterflies. YES! We can procreate! We did it! You're stuff works, my stuff works, BOOM, we are doing this thing. The second pregnancy was exciting in a different way - we are giving you a sibling! You're going to have so much fun together! This time around I almost just feel irresponsible - are we really equipped for this? Some days I can barely get the 2 I have dressed and fed. There was a day a couple weeks ago that I'm pretty sure all they ate was a ton of cereal and mandarin oranges. There isn't a spare minute in the day so where is this new baby gonna fit? I feel like if my kids were behaving their typical crazy way at the grocery store and I was also pregnant people would just walk by me and shake their heads. If there were thought bubbles over their heads, they would say, "that lady should probably stop procreating and handle those ones."

If I'm forced to think of some positives I guess I do look forward to the day I eat 6 krispy kreme donuts in one sitting and don't really feel any guilt. Sure, there's a chance that 2 lb kid in there is going to have a killer sugar crash in a few hours but I'll be napping when that happens. There will be lots of chocolate eaten in my bed, and in the bath. You really haven't lived until you have eaten half a bag of caramel doves in the bath tub. That will happen, and it will be fun. So there you have it. The good the bad and the ugly about our preparations and my TMI thoughts to have more children. Thank you Jesus for the ones you have given me, and I pray you bless us with one when the time is right. And if you decide that dropping it in a moses basket like a stork next May is best, then I'm all for that plan.

Question for you to ponder:
If you had to lose your taste or your hearing, which would it be?