2007-01-10 - 4:20 p.m.

First off, please see the picture below.

At what point do we worry that Shmuppie may not be in for all that good of an education here in NC? And, I'm not talking about her gluing skills. More the teacher's spelling skills.

JewelrySlut and I each had to stare for quite a while to figure out what exactly it was meant to mean.

Moving on.

So, while Shmuppie was napping, JewelrySlut was doing some cleaning in Shmuppie's playroom. Nothing major; just organizing books and puzzles and weeding out some of the stuff that's "too young" for her. I wandered in and asked what the plan was for all the stuff. JewelrySlut announced that she'd see if the Y wanted the stuff. I mentioned that we may want to save the puzzles...you know...in case.

Which brought us to a discussion we've been having a lot lately.

Do we have another one? Or is 1 enough? We honestly don't know. We're getting close to the "flip a coin" stage.

We can make arguments towards either side, and sometimes think that if we have a pro and con list that we already know the answer.

Pros:
Well...because we can (or so we think. My little soldiers may go bad or something)

We've done it once and could do it again. I mean, it's not hard, there's just a lot to do

We can afford it waaaaay easier than the first time around

We have a lot of stuff (assuming it's a girl and I KNOW it would be because God has a sense of humor like that)

JewelrySlut is home all the time (no daycare)

Cons (and you thought I was a bad person before you read this. Allow me to lower the bar)
We want to go to St John in 2008 and a baby would crimp our style

We're happy with just the 3 of us.

We enjoy the freedom to travel and think we could really show Shmuppie a lot more of the world than either of us ever got to see while growing up

I don't know how we could do it in this house. I think it's too small. JewelrySlut disagrees somewhat. Were we to buy a larger house, we'd be less able to afford it.

We each have siblings and don't get a whole lot from the relationships (This goes towards the argument of "A kid needs a sibling".) Plus, they'd be over 5 years apart and would likely have NOTHING in common (like me and my brother). Or the next one would be a retard like Quasi is.

While I can handle the early baby stuff like not sleeping and being shat upon, I'm not sure I have the patience to do the toddler years again. And, I'm OK saying that. I'm not as patient as I should be with Shmuppie and I'm not exactly happy about that. A lot of it, I think, comes from:

I travel too damn much. I think my job with RedCompany will always involve travel. Not like it was last year, but a week or 2 every month. I look at my pal in PA who has been on the road for 9 years now. His daughter is 13 and he sees her from Friday night until Sunday lunchtime. That's it. Maybe the occasional week or 2 of vacation. I would rather not have another child than not be around to raise her (I'm certain it would be a girl).

JewelrySlut ain't no Spring Chicken. I know, she's only going to be turning 36 in a few weeks, and it's not all that old, but it's old enough. I look down the line and see her almost 60 by the time this new kid is out of the house and am not sure how I feel about that. Since I'll be lucky to hit 65, that leaves us only a few years to enjoy ourselves again. A lot of this is my fault. I was an emotionally immature mess from 1996-2002. I was in no way whatsoever prepared to be a parent. We, according to our logic, got a late start. I don't know...maybe I'm selfish, but I want time on the back end for me and JewelrySlut to enjoy ourselves.

Wow...that's a long list of Cons, ain't it? What does it say? I don't know (although I think I know what it says). Part of me says, "Screw it. Let's do it. It will be fine. St John will be there for ever and we'll figure out the rest."

I don't know. The 3 of us are good together. I want to give my girls as much as I can. Fuck, I'm sending JewelrySlut to Ireland in a few weeks simply to avoid unpacking my parents' new house. I want Shmuppie to be able to go places just for fun. Can I still do that if we have another child? Or, is that all the ranting of an incredibly immature selfish person? I don't know.

I got to go. I may be depressing myself.

Let's lighten the mood.

Poop.