Not lost

So my friend Annie noticed that two of my posts this week were titled Lost. Very creative, Giselle.

Oh, and the library books are STILL lost. Andrew is not lost anymore. I'm pretty sure I have lost my mind. I have not lost any weight. I like to watch the show Lost.

Okay, now I am not inspired today...not particularly so. So I'll bring up a question someone else asked:

How did you find the transition from 2 to 3 children in terms of finance. I don't need your 1040 form or anything too personal, just a general idea of how it worked with your budget. My kids are 2 and 1...I personally would LOVE to have one more but finances are not in prime condition to say the least. Did you guys feel the pinch financially or were you able to work it out?

Well, let's first point out that Jeff and I didn't plan this 3rd one exactly. So there was no forethought about finances. It is what it is. And so far, we have been lucky...it hasn't impacted us too much. No new childcare costs, since I was already a stay at home mom, I am exclusively breastfeeding, I have lots of hand-me-down clothes, we already had a 4 bedroom house, and we have good insurance, so the birth only cost us $15. But I anticipate quite a bit of budgeting and tightening of the belt as we approach a 3rd set of braces, 3rd set of extracurricular activities, and -gulp-, a 3rd college tuition to help with. But we'll get there someday.

As far as just general difficulty adjusting, I think everyone's experience is different. So so much depends on the personality of the children that you get. For us, I think that the transition from 0 children to 1 has been the most challenging. I had to adjust to not working and being isolated from the rest of the world and the fact that the kid NEVER.GOES.AWAY, and not sleeping in, and trying to plan outings around a child, etc etc etc. For us, the easiest transition was from 1 to 2 kids. We still could do the "man-to-man defense" (not that I know what that means exactly...I've just heard it said before), I was already immersed in the mommy lifestyle, etc. The hardest thing was moving to a new state...having a new baby paled in comparison. The transition from 2 to 3 has been quite difficult. Again, I was already in mommy mode, but suddenly we are outnumbered, and I can't stress enough what an adjustment this was for me. Taking 2 kids out alone is challenging but manageable, 3 children out alone is daunting...although manageable. I imagine that the transition to 4 kids would be easier (just adding to the chaos), but the outings alone must be quite rare. I just can't imagine. And of course the spacing of my first 2 kids versus the second 2 kids contributes to my difficulties.

Of course, all this is different from family to family. Perhaps you worked full-time with the first child, or perhaps you had the 3rd child much much later than the 2nd, or perhaps you had 2 at the same time, or perhaps your 2nd child was colicky and angry...you get the idea. Which is why when people ask me if it is hard to have 3...because they are thinking of having 3...my response is always, "I can't even pretend to know anything about it. You kind of just have to try it and find out." Which is a terrible response.