How many kids are enough?

Many people ask this question when they are in the throes of the "baby years".  With the route that technology has taken us, the baby years are now a 20-25 year window.  There are so many questions when the topic of kids is brought up.

Do you want kids?

When are you going to start having kids? (this one comes up as soon as the ink is dried on the marriage license or you hit 30)

How many would you like?

Should you wait to have a significant other before having kids?

Once you have kids, do you want another? When?

No matter what the answers are to any of these questions, they are the answers that suit you and your life. Seth and I have discussed this many times. Our first discussion was before we were even married. Then while on our honeymoon cruise, we were relaxing in the hot tub one night and we started to talk about when we wanted to have kids and how many we wanted. At the time we decided that we wanted 3 kids and that we would start in December. We figured that it may take a few months before anything happened and so that we would have a baby in the fall. To us it wasn’t crazy to start that early. Yes we had just been married, but in the grand scheme of things we had been together for 7 yrs at that point so we had all that alone time. And we also did not think that things would happen as fast as they did- the first month.

Aiden is born and then reality hits. 3 kids ehh? Maybe not. Of course that was just the ‘new parent’ syndrome hitting. Once we had a handle of everything and had a pretty good routine down we started to discuss plans for baby number two. We definitely wanted a second, but a big part of me still wanted a third, but I also wanted a girl. In the end we left it open that if our second was a girl then we were done having kids and if the second was a boy, then it would be open for discussion when the time came. I know that if we did end up going for a third that we would not be guaranteed a girl had our second been a boy. You get what you get unless you have huge boat loads of money, but I can pretty confidently say that we probably would have stopped at just two children no matter what the gender was. For us it’s more manageable. The dynamics of the household just work better. Neither of us wanted our kids to share a bedroom. And while we can afford to have another child, we would not be able to do as much for the kids as we would like. There would be less vacations and activities and events. Maybe the correct word is ‘spoiling’, but we want to be able to properly provide for the kids we have and not have to worry about where very nickel and dime goes. We don’t have everything and I have no plans to try to give them everything lest they grow up to feel entitled.  Plus, *shhh* I might just lose my mind with a third one running around.

Either way, no matter what you decide to do, that is your decision and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.