Anonymous asks a good question

On my last post, I just got a comment and I was going to reply inline there, but I think it warrants it's own post.  So I'll answer it in my usual long winded way.

Anonymous asks:  

Just out of curiosity and being a snoop (not meaning to be rude) but if you don't like waking up early, the baby phase, and you like having time to "decompress" while the twins are napping...why would you want another one? You wouldn't get anytime for yourself because they'd be on different schedules plus you'd have to go through the baby phase again. I keep getting mixed signals and messages from reading through your posts!

That's actually a really good question and I'm not at all offended that it's been asked.

Usually when I have something to say, it's something that's bothering me and that's what goes into the blog.  When everything is a content, happy equilibrium, I don't have a whole lot to say.  If you look at the history of my writing, you'll see that as the girls came out of the baby phase, my writing slowed down significantly.  Where I was writing once, sometimes several times a day during the miscarriage, IVF, pregnancy, and baby phases, I now go a week or more without posting, and even then it's often just a check in that everything is fine.  There's just not a whole lot of interesting ways to say "another normal day of watching the girls play.  They made me laugh a few times, I got a frustrated a few times, and I'm getting sick of scrambling eggs.  Yup, another day has gone by."

There's also a privacy factor.  When I write, I feel like I'm sharing with other people.  Not just information, but whatever I'm writing about is kind of given away.  When life sucks, I write about it to lighten the load.  Some of the better moments, I want to keep those all for myself.

I'm also acutely aware of the fact that the period of my life in which I'll be spending my entire day looking after children is finite.  It's only a handful of years before they spend the bulk of their day in a classroom and I need to find an additional identity beyond being their mom.  No, I didn't like the first 6 months.  They su-ucked.  But then there's ages 6m-5 years that are so far, pretty darned fun.  I'm enjoying the next stage more and more, but there's that nagging ... I don't know what, where I think "If I were to do this again, I would do blank or not worry so much about blank, and I'd enjoy it a lot more the next time."

I like kids more and more as they get older.  It's a year or two of sacrifice to gestate and raise a baby to the kid stage where they become fun.  Once you get through that difficult time, you have these cool people around you for the rest of your life.  That's awesome.

Then there's the wondering of a single baby would suck a lot less than twin babies.  There were NO breaks with twins.  With a singleton, we could each get 4-5 hour stretches of sleep because there wouldn't be a need for both of us to be dealing with every middle of the night wake up.  If I had that extra sleep, and if I could enjoy the time in which my baby was snuggly and happy, would it be a completely different baby experience?  A large part of me says yes, it would be completely different and I might get to enjoy a lot of those things that other mothers enjoy about their babies that I didn't get to enjoy with my twins.  I could go out and about with one baby strapped in a carrier while the girls walked.  I couldn't safely walk around with two babies in a carrier.  Maybe other twin moms can, but I couldn't figure it out.

As for my desire to sleep in and decompress during nap time - well yeah, who doesn't want that?  I don't sleep well at night, I'm a chronic insomniac.  So by the time I'm asleep, I want to stay that way as long as possible.  The nap decompression is a little different - while I'm waiting for them to fall asleep, I'm sitting here by the monitor in a state of alertness.  I'm very attentively watching to see if one has fallen asleep, if the other one is needing something or just whining and should I go in and check her diaper, if I do will I wake up the other one, will she wake up the other one with her whining, why is she whining, what do I do??????  By the time they are both asleep at the same time, I need to stop biting my nails and chill the hell out.

It's draining to be constantly trying to figure out someones needs when they can't tell you what they are so you're constantly alert and interpreting various signals and clues.  By the time a third got here, the girls and I could communicate with words which would take that particular stress away (and add a whole different one, but I'll complain about that when it gets here).

Last, I'm looking into the future a bit and seeing empty nest syndrome.  First when they start school, and then again when they finish school and launch into the world.  Going from having 2 kids taking up your entire day to a suddenly empty house for a good portion of that day, that's very jarring.  When I get there, am I going to regret not having a third so I can continue to have a kid to care for?  I don't know.

We aren't certain we want a third for all the reasons that make you ask this question.  If I were 28 instead of 38, I probably wouldn't be thinking about it.  But I am 38, K is 44, and we're already feeling a bit too old for all of this.  Very quickly the day is coming that we REALLY are too old for this and our options will be gone.

Yes, there are mixed messages on this blog.  I have yet to meet anyone who isn't full of mixed messages and feelings about things, so I'm in good company.

So, in a nutshell, like most people, I talk most when I have something to complain about, full-time child rearing is very temporary and I'm not sure I'll be ready for it to be over when it is, sleep good, I missed a lot of baby experiences because I had two and a singleton might give the chance to enjoy what I couldn't enjoy with twins, I'd be better at it next time, and I'm getting (I am) old and time to make the decision is running out.