When The Time Is Right...

It happened in a magical, painfully long yet somehow a whirlwind of an appointment.  I am now driving a Chrysler Town and Country.  Holy crap.
There is so much beautiful, usable, delicious space, I can't even handle it.

With all this space comes the next big question for our family - when is the right time to add another kid to this mix?

I know...  Some of you are thinking, "slow down girl, you just had a baby!"  But this baby is turning one year old in just over a month.  He's starting to cruise along the furniture, feed himself chunks of food and hold his own bottle.  Things that took Little Man so much longer are coming easily to toddler Vegas, and I'm holding on tight to my little guy as he speeds past babyhood.  Each moment he is so little and needy is more fleeting, and I know that before I blink he's going to be racing around the house causing havoc. In fact, I just lost an entire blog post because he thought it was hilarious to yank the cord out of the laptop while I said "No no baby, no no."  You would have loved it, but that's another story.

Look at how big they are!

I absolutely love kids.  I love being a mommy.  I love being a stay-at-home Mommy.  But Hubs and I still spend time here and there on date nights and kid-free evenings.  We are lucky to have moms and a dad that will watch the kids fairly regularly.  Not to mention that my in-laws never hesitate to just pop over to watch them for an hour while I go to the dentist, or if we're running late and need someone to pick up Little Man from the bus stop. With three kids though... that would change a lot.  Asking our parents to watch two kids is tough enough, but handing them three would be asking a very big favor, and something we'd have to ask them for sparingly. Especially as Vegas gets older and is more of a handful.

I know Hubs never really thought a big family was in his future. But there have been quite a few changes in his life since I dropped in, and he always rolls with it.  When I talk about having another baby, he is totally on board.  He doesn't even flinch (anymore) when I mention that four kids might be a great number.  We've talked a lot about when the best time to start trying is, and really there is only one obstacle holding us back at this point.

Me.

Being pregnant is beautiful and lovely, and all that crap.  But it is also 10 whole months of your life. Ten months where you are waffling between misery and elation, exhaustion and excitement.  I'd really call it a full year of your life, because letting your body recover from the train wreck you just endured during delivery is no piece of cake either.  So one year of your life.

And selfishly, I don't know when I'm ready for that year.

I want the baby. I can even do the newborn stage again. But I'm not yet ready to give up my body for a whole year. I'm not ready to feel sluggish and tired and worried, interspersed with all the goopy love stuff you feel.  I like wearing clothes that fit and feeling cute and sometimes even sexy. I like (the idea of) vacations and going out on the town and all the things you really don't feel like doing with a newborn or a giant belly-to-be.

And so I don't know when we will add another one to this crazy household.  Because change is scary and I hate it and I don't know when I'll be ready for it.  Even if at the end of it all, I get a beautiful snuggly little newborn again.  Even then.

But I do like the van.

Fun at my godparent's on the 4th!