Why Have Three When It's Easier Not To

I understand why some people only want one kid. I get it, and I don’t hold it against them. For two days I had a small glimpse of what daily life is like with three ankle bighters running circles around me, while watching my bro's kids. My boy’s typical 2-3 hour naps have been reduced to thirty minutes each day. I have to pick up the 5 year old from school right in the middle of his nap, and the 3 year old gets him so worked up that actually getting him to sleep earlier is impossible.

I can’t stop to get some coffee for myself without having to get the other kids something. If I don’t they raise hell and I never hear the end of it. From the backseat I hear the 3 year old deciding where to deposit the golden nugget he just mined out of his olfactory system, with his sister offering her advice of ‘rolling it into a ball untill it falls off onto the floor because no one will see it there.’ All the while I’m trying to coordinate a tow truck through aaa to get my broken down Tahoe back to my city 30 miles away to get it fixed. Making a pit stop for gas turns into the two older kids escaping their seat belts and running around the gas station parking lot practicing a Chinese fire drill doing circles around the car. Having their father leave the house for work in the morning turns into a thirty minute battle to keep the 3 year old from crying my sanity away because he doesn’t want ‘daddy to go to work’. And there are two doors to the bathroom in my bro’s house, which I can’t seem to keep closed, enabling my son to dump everything in the toilet, besides his own dumps.

Life is so peaceful with one kid in comparison to, oh…….more kids. So so peaceful.