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2004-11-02

What do I want to write about?

Clay's first playdate?

B's parents' visit?

The fact that 20% of the employees at my office got laid off a couple of weeks ago and I expect that this site will be closed within a year so the urgency with which I seek new employment has ratcheted up a notch?

No, it appears that I want to write about the perennial Second Child topic.

Good friend gave birth to #2 last week in the same hospital where I gave birth to Clay. Walking down the corridor to visit her, I had some deja vu and wondered whether seeing the newborn would pack an emotional wallop and...it didn't. At all. I was completely unmoved. But then, I wasn't terribly moved by Clay as a newborn. (I am a cold woman.)

B is not particularly into it and I'm not enough into it for both of us. I've said this before and this may well be the final word on the matter. However, he's been known to change his mind. You'll recall his original antipathy toward #1.

And I remain ambivalent. One thing I really don't want is to have a baby and then have the family always pair off as me-baby B-Clay. I simmer with resentment just thinking about it. (More than usual, I mean.) But of course I will nurse so that only makes sense much of the time. And of course, Clay can be a pain in the ass but most of the time he's really fun. Babies aren't very fun.

Then there are the practical considerations such as money and space, resouces which aren't exactly in abundance at the moment. Though people with far less of each have second and third and fourth children every day. (Though these people don't get to send their children to private schools if the public options turn out to horrify them.)

I have a persistent attraction to a kind of rich, chaotic family life that's the opposite of my own experience as a child. For better or worse, however, my own experience led me to develop in such a way that I have little tolerance for chaos and commotion and I frequently find the demands of one relatively easy-going child (and three fucking dogs) more than I'm happy to bear. (See resentment comment above.)

And then I think that maybe a second child would be Good For Me, would help me to develop this capacity I lack. B doesn't think this is terribly likely, however, and feels the burden will fall unduly on him and I will be stressed out and constantly at my wit's end (as his own mother was, and not in a fun way). And he's not eager to sign up for that scenario. And who can blame him?

So, I really don't know. I still predict, deep down, that we will have another and I would put some money on that likelihood should anyone want to bet. But I don't quite see how that decision would come to pass. (And it will be a decision--there will be no "accidents" alleged or actual. A little scrap of copper will see to that.)

So, we'll see. I feel fairly peaceful about this, really.

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