Jump!

It is a little on the early side to be doing any announcing, but after having gone through two, ones perspective changes quite drastically.  No longer feeling the need for typical protocol, I am breaking with tradition.  After all, I've been told that three is definitely going outside the norm.  D and I are proud to report that I am 7 weeks pregnant!  

Now that we've let the cat out of the bag, we've been bombarded with the inevitable "WHY?".  We have a decent ratio of parents to kids.  Anything happens and each of us grabs one.  With three, we're outnumbered.  (Which way DO you go when they all make a break for it!?)  Now that J is a little older, we have gone back to sleeping the whole night, aside from teething or bouts of illness that is.  Bring in another monkey and we're back to square one and all-night vigils.  (I shudder to think of what happens when we all get sick.)  We even have the two major genders covered.  

So why go for a third?  

I have no doubt that I will not be able to answer this question to everybody's satisfaction, but here goes.  For one, we like big families.  We like the thought of a full (albeit chaotic) home of laughter, love and little bodies snuggling into mom and dad's bed for one last story.  There's something beautiful about watching a big family together.  Secondly, we believe that our kids make us better people.  This one is hard to explain and impossible to understand without prior experience.  I'll leave it to your imagination.  

Another big one: we like to envision the future.  Not 5 years from now, more like 20 years from now.  (D is convinced he's going to die young for some morbid - and frankly hilarious - reason, so we don't usually go beyond 20 years...)  The best advice I was given regarding raising children and life in general was: "This too shall pass."  The sleepless nights, exploding diapers and even teenage hormones will all pass.  Then what?  How do we envision our family, our home and ourselves?  Perhaps after thinking about it this way, some people will be motivated not to have kids period.  Meh.  I guess it kind of depends on each person.  For us, our future looks brighter with three.  :o)  

Oh, and D thinks we can handle more.  (Typical macho answer, eh?  "Bring it on coach, bring it on!")  

I suppose when it comes down to it, we didn't really up and decide "Whoo hoo, let's do this!".  It was definitely more like a hesitant, "okaaaaaaaaaay".  Yes, we may be planning types, but I am beginning to think that for this we just closed our eyes, said a prayer and jumped.  Hopefully we'll land with our feet on the ground... or at least on our knees.