In an average week, I am asked if I plan to have a third child at least once, and as many as three or four times. Usually it’s phrased as “so you guys gonna try for a girl?”
Recently, the exchange went like this:
“Are you going to have a third?”
“No, we’re done.”
“Is it your age?”
“Somewhat.”
“The expense?”
“Yeah, that’s a consideration.”
“Are you running out of room in your house?”
“That, too, definitely.”
At this point, I preempted any follow-up questions by saying this:
“More than any of those factors – it comes down to this: my desire to have a daughter is smaller than my desire not to have three children.”
“But why?” petitions the incredulous über-mother.
“Because I am simply not organized enough to be a mother of three.”
How sad is this.
Nature has given me a miraculous baby-making gift and my enthusiasm for it is dampened by the number of Legos on my floors. Don’t get me wrong. My ovaries have a siren call as loud as any. But my organizational Achilles heel simply screams louder.
I am reminded that I’m hanging by a thread every time I open a backpack Monday morning and retrieve Friday’s limp banana. Every time I forget to wash a load on a non-laundry day so that my son’s Little League uniform will be ready. Every time a cross-offed item on my to-do list is resurrected due to some unforeseen annoyance – and it becomes my day’s undoing. If this is my mommy management style, I simply must do what any watchful boss would do: manage my capacity.
This morning, I am reading the paper and notice an item about a missing woman. The police suspect foul play. The paper says there were “signs of a struggle” in her home. I put the paper down and survey the scene in my own kitchen. How on earth does even the most seasoned detective separate a crime scene from a domestic one?
And this morbidly funny observation feels like the perfect punctuation for this week’s declaration of: “no, we’re stopping at two.”
