Maybe me. Chevette and I have been talking about it. We already have two, but we love being parents and the second one has been spookily easy.

There's apparently a book out there called "The Demon Child." It's about real-life parents who have four well-behaved, well-adjusted kids and who congratulate themselves on their supposed parenting skills. They then have a fifth kid -- the "demon child" -- who exposes their self-satisfied misconceptions.

If we have a third, I fear we'll be in the same boat.

CDF

p.s. I'm amused by those over-35 chart notations. Chevette was over 35 with our second, and the medical staff took her much more seriously b/c she had given birth previously. In particular, there was no b.s. delay about being admitted to the hospital during labor -- unlike the first time around.

the Catholic Board
 

Jesus, haven't you all had enough?????



I guess I should be grateful that your spawn will fund my retirement. Carry on.

Just remember, with a third one, you're outnumbered forever. Parenting is much harder when you have to play a zone defense.

If Martha Stewart can wear an ankle bracelet, so can my kids. It'll have to be capable of administering a mild electric shock.

It occurs to me that we may need to move to a state where this doesn't constitute "bad parenting."

CDF

!!!! I was talking to my admin (this is corporate-speak for secretary) about getting one of these for myself today so that I would stop losing things because I never put them away!!

I suspect that if my sister had been my parents' first child instead of their third, she would have been an only. They did have one more after her, but I think they were playing Russian roullette. Jury's still out on that one.

We want another at some point, but not yet. Our second is pretty easy, but having two 2 and under is still a hell of a lot of work. I don't think I could survive 3 under 3.


Oh, and I have been told that the baby is too fat. I'm not supposed to put him on a diet, but the ped thinks he needs to thin out a bit so I'm to feed him more veggies, less milk. He really is huge - 27lbs at 9mos and not terribly tall. I can't remember what #1 weighed at 9mos, but he was definitely much taller.

Huh. I always thought that was called Roman Roulette.

the Catholic Board
 

Yes.

I wouldn't count on it.

Anklets
 

Apparently, you won't be moving to Massachusetts:

Mom shackles daughter who played hooky
Disciplinary action prompts investigation into whether it was child abuse

BOSTON - Authorities are investigating allegations that a Massachusetts woman shackled her 14-year-old daughter in chains to teach her a lesson for skipping school.

The 37-year-old mother of four, whose name was not released, told police the same chain-and-shackle technique had proved effective with a truant son several years earlier.

“She was saying that more parents should do this because of the problems with kids today,” Blackstone Detective Wayne Mowry said.

Police have not arrested the mother but she is being investigated by state social workers, authorities said Monday.

About two weeks ago the mother bought chain and two padlocks after being told that her daughter had missed school. She tracked the girl to a shopping district, bound her daughter’s ankle to one end of the chain and shackled her own wrist to the other, and then drove to their home in Blackstone, about 35 miles southwest of Boston, police said.

A police officer who pulled the woman’s car over because it did not have a license plate discovered the two chained together but he let them go because he had to respond to a more urgent call, Mowry said.

Police who visited the woman’s home later found the daughter’s ankles chained together as she helped her mother cook dinner, Mowry said.

“The kid was actually upset that we were there,” she said.

“She was sticking up for her mother.”

Link

Maybe I'll put myself in line pretty soon. In all honesty, No. 1 is a delight, and I do fear a "demon child" for no. 2. But I am ashamed to admit that 3-4 months off, paid (so we don't become homeless), is a really, really, really, really attractive idea right now. I am totally burned out, and I'm with my kid an average of 1 1/2 hours a day during the week (during which I'm also trying to get ready for work, clean the house and defrost something for a dinner I won't be home to eat).

T(pouting)M

Quit while you're ahead. Since our first was (and is) the flawless incarnation of living perfection on earth, we decided to stop there.

ETA: You could maybe fake a pregnancy and miscarriage to get the time off and lots of sympathy from your firm, no?

Considered and dismissed already. You don't get the 3 months paid maternity leave without actually giving birth. You get emergency medical leave, which isn't generally paid time off here (you can use vacation days), and which only last anyway so long as you need to physically recover (i.e.: you sort of need a doctor's note). Technically you don't even get bereavement time for a miscarriage.

I found I got more sympathy for having a kid and then coming back full time than anyone here has in living memory for any medical or family emergency.

That's because even though you came back full-time, you've still added a minimum three extra years to the partnership track. And that's assuming you don't have any more "distractions" to keep you from billing.

So quit. Being poor isn't that bad, really.