There’s been a hot  debate in our houshold ever since Lucy came into our lives… siblings? See, I think kids should have brothers and sisters around – you know to put them in their place and fight with and learn to share with and to occassionally pin to the ground and drool in the face – I believe its what makes ‘normal’ people normal. So even though I’m getting older and we live in a house the size of a small shoe I have been presenting the arguement that we really need to have more kids.

My husband on the other hand, who is, as you know much more pracical than I am takes the other side of the arguement and believes that we can raise an only child and she can still end up ‘normal’. He grew up with two cousins who were only children and they turned out  surprisingly well – I , on the other hand am not related to any only children and therefore think his cousins are total anomalies.

He also has developed this theory than since we were blessed the first time with an amazingly good, cute child who can sleep on demand and stay that way for 14 hours if need be – it’s  like we won the baby lottery.  And no one wins that lottery twice ergo our second child would end up being Satan him/herself. I have to admit that this part of his arguement is the only part that makes the least bit of sense to me.

But still we argue because we both believed we were right… and then this weekend happened.

It all began innocently enough when my sister emailed me that she and her husband were going to Gettyburg this weekend and would we mind watching her 4 year old son Sean? Sure, I said – I mean at the time of the email it was way into the future and I figured anything could happen to prevent this from occuring – besides you never know when you, yourself has to take off to Gettyburg and drop your child off for a weekend with her aunt.

But nothing happened – no rampant Philadelphia wildfires or alien invasions and late Friday afternoon Sean was dropped off at our house. Let me pause here and say that Sean is a great kid, a fantastic one actually, he is quiet and respectful and able to entertain himself and put on his own shoes, he’s wonderful but he’s still 4.

He was here exactly 48 hours  and I’m ready stick an ice pick in my eye, I really am not sure why anyone would do this to themselves. My theory is that everyone out there with more than one child never had the opportunity to babysit more than one kid while they were trying to decide to have more.

After everyone was tucked into bed last night Jason & I sat in the livingroom, looked at each other and said “So – thats it then.” A huge wave of both relief and despondency flew through me. We toasted our decision with a 2/3 of a bottle of single malt scotch and I decided our daughter will also be an anomaly, and this way I’ll now have room for lots more shoes…