I'm looking at Max lying in the bathtub, lying on his belly, his cute little arse cheeks nipped together like an angry muffin.
"Drink water," he says as he takes a gulp and grins, his upper lip sporting a thick bubble-stash.
"Drink water, drink water..."
He repeats it again and again until I warn, "Now Max, you know you're not supposed to drink the bath water. It's dirty."
He looks at me for a long time, his orange eyebrows entwining to form a question mark. One day soon he will ask: But mom, if the water is dirty, why am I in it?
Touché, little dude, touché.
He is growing so fast. He's the full length of the bathtub. He has a moustache for God sake! Holy crap, it must be time to have another baby.
I feel a sudden ache in my uterus and a burning in my loins. Desire? Hells no. That's just the lifelong repercussion of squeezing a human out of my magic muckle. Oh the horror.
So... It's 2012. A new year. Do I spit out a new youngster or not? I am torn. And oh how I wish that was not a play on words.
This calls for one of the things that my husband dreads more than penis-kabobs: A LIST. Don't worry, honey. It's not a honey-do list... unless it concludes with "do me," in which case I'm confident you'll have no problem following orders. It's a list of pros and cons. To breed or not to breed: that is the question.
PRO: Max gets a brother or a sister.
CON: I have to grow said brother or sister inside my body and get it here via the Va-Jay-Jay Express.
PRO: The Bearded Oyster is already a dive, so why not close shop altogether and go home with a nice souvenir?
CON: I am well-healed and back to my pre-prego weight and pretty pleased with it, despite the extra stomach skin that makes me look like an accordion when I sit down. (Crop tops prohibited.) Why mang all that merchandise up again?
PRO: I get an extra human to produce grandchildren for me.
CON: I have to worry that said human will produce grandchildren at age 13. Coming up next on TLC... 13 and Pregnant! Followed at 10:30 by Nanny Nightmares: My Kid is a Little Tramp.
PRO: We get a baby to love and cuddle.
CON: The baby is a demon who keeps me up all night and ruins my shirts with puke and poop.
PRO: If it's a boy, I get to reuse all Max's perfectly unsoiled clothes.
CON: If it's a girl, I have to buy a bunch of pink clothes so our daughter doesn't look like k.d. lang.
PRO: We get to make another living, breathing masterpiece. Max is way too cute to have just one of him. Exhibit A...
CON: Maybe Max used up all the good DNA and this one is doomed to get the leftovers: big nose, big ears, third nipple, and eye of Cyclops.
CON: Every time I do a jumping jack at the gym, I pee a little.
PRO: Once I'm pregnant, I can eat what I want because I'm going to get fat anyways. My pet saying as a prego? "Quarter Pounder with Cheese Combo, six nuggets on the side and an apple pie, si vous NOWWWW."
CON: My ass will resemble the broad side of a barn for at least six to nine months, with the possibility of permanent barnliness; even the barn will mistake me for one of the livestock.
Need proof? This was a full-size Clydesdale...
CON: Bye-bye, MILF T-shirt. Hello, saddle. My career as a swimsuit model is so over.
PRO: Cha-ching! Another kid, another $1,000 from the Newfoundland and Labrador Government.
CON: Cha-shit! The average cost of raising a child in Canada: $14 zillion. And that's just the Goldfish crackers.
PRO: Wayne and Rosena Murphy get grandbaby number 10 for a nice even number. Shirley Combden gets grandkid number four... maybe a girl this time?
CON: Not gonna happen, sister. The walls of my uterus are painted blue. Last Thursday, I pooped a dump truck decal and a handful of gravel.
PRO: I get a year off.
CON: I get a year trapped in a time warp, relying on EI which doesn't cover shit, not even shit catchers. Yesterday, I noticed the price of diapers has gone up: $41.99 for a box of 100. Shooooooot. Today, Max is wearing a dishcloth.
PRO: Andrew could take paternity leave, so I could go on working.
CON: I may be inclined to strangle Andrew with my rope-like boobs.
CON: Yes, breastfeeding deflated my boobs and now I have to wear a super-duper push-up bra just to keep the suckers out of my pockets. This can only get worse.
PRO: I get to go to mommy and baby movies at Empire Theatres on Thursday mornings.
CON: No I don't, because I have another kid at home ruining my life.
PRO: I can get one of those kickass double strollers.
CON: I need one of these damn double strollers. Can I borrow 20 bucks? How much can I get for this MILF T-shirt?
PRO: Max can use the baby as a pillow in the stroller. Bonus.
CON: Andrew and I will be so busy being parents, we'll forget about being a couple.
PRO: We'll be so busy being parents, we'll forget about our relationship problems.
CON: I set my career back a notch or two. Come on people, you know it's true. One of the reasons there'll never be a female president: We're breeders.
CON: I'll never find the time to write a book. *POUT*
CON: Andrew is not the doting type. So when I start getting fat and uncomfortable, I can look forward to NOT getting my feet massaged.
CON: My dad was sick when I was pregnant. He died when Max was nine months old. So I associate pregnancy with impending doom. Textbook psychiatry. I can diagnose myself because I am a doctor part-time.
CON: First trimester nausea. Once, on my way to work, I threw up in my hat.
CON: Second trimester semi-chubbiness when people aren't sure if you are having a baby or if you just had a big lunch. Awkward.
CON: Third trimester bulbousness when people mistake you for the Penguin from Batman, followed by the awesome sensation of carrying a bowling ball in your underwear.
CON: Vagination Ruination: the Sequel.
CON: The Meat Curtain Massacre, Part Deux.
CON: Hotdogs in Hallways: The Final Poke.
CON: Wow, that's a lot of cons. To top it off, maybe one of my kids will be a con. Max is already terrible at sharing, and goes ape-shit for toys at the store. Just steps away from kleptomania, I reckon.
PRO: Kids keep us young as they see the magic of the world and discover it for the first time. My boobs may sag, but my spirit will soar.
CON: "Whatever, Trevor!" Yours truly, Broken Twat.
PRO: Max will have someone to help pick out my casket.
PRO: Max won't be the only one humiliated by his mother's maniacal musings.
Also on HuffPost: Cutest Baby And Kid Viral Videos Of 2011
Follow Vicki Murphy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/motherbloggery
Adam Wolfberg, M.D.: C-sections and Pre-term Births on the Decline -- Is There a Link?
Kim Stagliano: Will My Second Baby Have Autism, Too?
Helen I. Hwang: Health Care: Why I Had My Second Baby in the UK
Are You Ready For a Second Baby - Things to Consider Before ...
Adjusting Smoothly to a Second Baby - iVillage
Your second baby: tips for surviving | Caring for Toddler | Toddler
Write the book.
As a dad of two, it's nice to be able to do a better job with the second one. You make your mistakes with the first, but with every subsequent child you make better decisions. We had to have a second child to make up for producing what will inevitably be a sociopath with our first. 'Sure, little 3-year-old son, you can stay up to watch Band of Brothers or The Sopranos with daddy, you're too young to absorb any of it.' - was what it was like with the first. Now we know to provide context and character background for the second, and we waited until he was four.
On a final note, I'd desperately love for my wife to have more children, but she says we're happy with two. She has also rebuffed the reasonable suggestion of me fathering children with other women to slake my thirst for more offspring.
That being said, I found one of the cons, "If it's a girl, I have to buy a bunch of pink clothes so our daughter doesn't look like k.d. lang" to be highly offensive. This statement serves to reinforce gender stereotypes (‘girls wear pink’) while implying that little girls who don’t wear pink must be gay (like k.d. lang). Joking or not, this is not an attitude I am comfortable with ANY parent holding, lest it be passed onto their children, who may in turn bully anyone who doesn't fit into this narrow perception of what it means to be a girl. Kindly repeat after me: some girls don't like pink. That is okay. Some girls are gay. That is okay too. Perhaps you should consult this video of a 4-year old girl ranting on the very subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CU040Hqbas - Riley's got it right.
And hey, some of us wore an excess of pink as children and still grew up to be gay. So.
Seriously. I think the "girls wear pink" thing is ridiculous too. Sorry to offend you - for real. I love gays! But this is comedy, baby. If I filter every possible sensitivity, I'm left with an instruction manual for a cardboard box.
Conversely if you include every insensitivity you are left with a piece of hackneyed tripe.
It doesn't seem possible. I have been in an academic setting for so long that I am old enough to be the parent of nearly all my students. And yet it doesn't seem that long ago that they were dating material! How in the world did I grow this old?
Well, my youngest is still 12 years old -- so I have time yet to enjoy my children more and not face and immediate empty nest. But when the nest is empty, I know I will have a tough time dealing with that. I am glad for my children, all of them.
Seriously though, go ahead and have one. I haven't found any reason for women to exist in society except to reproduce and get the mom award. (At least according to what our culture and media says!). Think of all the extra sticker-people you can put on the back window of the SUV, and photos you can put on Facebook.
I'm all for humor. I love a good laugh. That said, this subject is much too important to play... games. But it does prove a point. There are many people in this world who don't even begin to realize the seriousness involved when it comes to making the decision to have a child... or not.
Here's an idea, if "my" opinion bothers "you".... then how about minding your own business.
The woman that wrote this article knew full well what she was doing. She knew people would comment on it when she wrote it and posted it online. If she didn't want or expect feedback she should of considered writing a book instead.
You're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine.
The author of this article knew exactly what she was doing when she posted it online. She knew full well that there was going to be feedback.