The family and I took a stroll through downtown Chicago yesterday to snap a few photos of my boy’s Flat Stanely for his “what Flat Stanley and I did during Spring Break” homework project. As we’re walking around Millennium Park I notice a family with four kids come strolling by.
My normal response to seeing families with three or more children is to drop to my knees and give big props to the magnificent creature who thought-up the procedure to make a man’s testicles incapable of producing baby-batter ever again.
After completing this feat, I dusted off my knees and continued to watch in amazement to see how this family would deal with four young kids in a tourist-infested area. And what I saw was the wife, slowly, strategically backing away from the family and then disappearing into the crowd. It was absolutely magical.
I so badly wanted to call her out on it…but in a cool way—like offering her a beer to celebrate her efficiency. You know…while the wife and kids continue on and I promise to catch-up later.
The wife and I always wanted kids and knew we wanted them while we were still young so that when we got into our early 40s they would hopefully be moving on to college; or signing their multi-million dollar football deal; or marrying some incredibly rich dude who pays me to never work again so I can hang out, drink with him and make him laugh all day while my daughter makes us meals.
We were amazingly fortunate and able to crank out two little nippers pretty quick and thus the journey began.
I feel there are two majorities of people out there: those who LOVE children and were born to raise them, and those who love children, enjoy raising them, but subconsciously can’t freakin’ wait till they’re 18 years old.
It’s not really something you 100% know about yourself until you have a kid or two of your own. Then it hits you out of the blue and you realize which majority of people you fit into.
A couple months ago the wife and I were riding in the car, alone, when I reached over, grabbed her hand and said, “thank you for letting me pay that nice young doctor fellow to take a knife to my coin purse.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“I love our kids more than anything and you know that. But I can honestly say that I’m way too selfish to ever have more than two kids.”
I cringed because I’d just crossed that line of things you should never say out loud. We clearly already knew we were done after two, but we never revealed to each other why.
A reassuring smile of relief crept across her face as she held her hand up for a high-five and said, “me too!! Waaaayyy too selfish. I love my sleep, my blanket, and my quiet way too much. But I do love the kids…don’t get me wrong. I really really love them!”
“Oh yeah, no…that’s a given. We have stupid love for them…but still…can you imagine more of them?”
“NO…no…I can’t.”
We made love later that night. She made me wear a condom… “just in case.”
