Family Planning

No this isn't an announcement. For me what is intersting is my reaction to this and it highights the biggest reason why we are done having kids. I don't want Owen to ever wear this shirt because I want him to be my youngest and not the middle child.

I have found something intersting that for me anyway the question of when to stop having children is almost as difficult as the when to start- how much harder is it for people who aren't even sure they want kids at all- they then have potential 3 difficult decisions to make
1) Kids yes or no
2) If yes when
3 When to stop

See for me I always wanted 3 and my husband always wanted 2. After Kaitlyn was born I wanted 2 and he wanted 1. After Owen was born I think he lays his head down every night saying I am glad that is done and don't we have the perfect family. He is right -we do. But women or at least me don't think like that about any decision. Almost any decision that is more major then what to have for lunch (sometimes I have trouble with that) is met with an endless analysis of all possible solutions. So for me I have been so sure that he is right- we have the perfect family we won the lottery we got exactly what we wanted and having more just doesn't make sense. I could go into all the rationale reasons why.

But once you have kids things become more about them and those reasons are what drives you.

So I never wanted Kaitlyn to be an only child- I wanted her to have the joys and yes the challenges of having a sibling- it was important to me.

But for Owen- I don't want him to be the middle child. I figure he already lost at on all that indiviual attention she got those first 2 1/2 years, he will never be the sole focus of our attention and he will always have to compete with her. That is good for him but it is also sad. For me I am not all that young in the world of pregnancy so if we wanted a 3rd we'd have to start trying like last week. That would mean there would be a possibility for Owen and baby 3 to be merely 16 months apart. While some might love that and speak to the wonder that is a close age gap not only does it sound horrendous to me but it robs him of his babyhood and his specialness in our family. There is only so many hours in the day and so much attention you can give your kids between a demaning newborn and 3 year old poor Owen would lose a lot.

But all in all this is all summed up in my husband's favorite analogy - at our home we prefer to keep a man to man defense instead of moving to a zone.