What Jessica said. I also cheated and spread my kids so far out, I was never taking care of more than one kid in diapers at a time.

Speaking of which, today's is my oldest's birthday. He is 28. Twenty and eight. It's simultaneously pretty cool and freaking me out.

Facebook wants me to friend someone who tortured me throughout grade school. There needs to be a "Hell no!" option.

wrod. sadly, most of mine are family members.

Yeah, DH is carrying a lot of the child care. I wish we could space out more, but we'll likely end up with 2 in diapers at once, since I was already AMA this time around.

If we were even considering having another one, now would be the time with ltc in school 5 days a week. However, the first time around I found it very difficult to carry her to and from the car. So, I wouldn't be able to get ltc to and from school if I had another. It still makes me sad that ltc is going to be an only.

I'm surviving entirely a diet of coffee, whiskey, cheese, and sarcasm.

OK, I don't have kids, but I am intrigued by this lifestyle

sj, being an only isn't the worst thing in the world. She has loving parents, there are more family members around ... she can have a good life.

FWIW, my mother insisted on having a second child, over my father's objections, on the grounds that she'd been an only child and wouldn't wish that on her child(ren). She overlooked the fact that she had a half sister - raised far away, but still visiting - that she loathed. So ... better a happy only than a constant state of sibling rivalry.

I always wanted a sibling, and I worry about her having older parents and no one to share elder care with someday.

Ryan's an only child, of course. I was one of five children, so that's a bit of a difference. We were actually talking about this last night. (We were talking about personality traits, and what he thought his were. We agreed he was best off assessing himself with reference to the other kids at school, because when he's at home it's all adults and that's going to skew things.)

I'd always hoped to have two or three kids, but with the various dramas in my 30s it didn't work out that way. Not that I really mind. My main regret is that I think Ryan would be a pretty awesome big brother.

Thinking back on when I was a kid, I'm realizing just how much my mom did. During the school year, I'd maybe see my dad for a couple minutes in the morning before he left for work, but often he'd leave before I woke up. My mom would get us up and ready, and pack our lunches and drive us to school. My mom would usually serve us dinner around 6, and then my dad would eat the leftovers when he got home at 8 or so. Then he'd usually fall asleep pretty soon after eating dinner. He'd usually read me a story before bed, but I really barely saw my dad on weekdays. And my mom had a double bypass when I was in kindergarten. She badly injured her ankle and had to use a wheelchair for at least several weeks, then crutches for a while after that, when I was in second grade. She had three major surgeries when I was in sixth grade. And for most of those years, she volunteered at pretty much every school thing, was PTA president for at least one year (maybe two?), was on a bunch of committees at the synagogue.

And I can remember a bunch of times when other kids had problems -- like an emergency early dismissal from school and someone's mom couldn't leave work to pick her up, or the kid who lived in the house behind us whose mother had had polio as a kid and was getting really sick around the time we were in fourth grade, or other sorts of "there's a kid who needs a place to be for a while" things, and I'd always feel completely confident telling those kids to come home with me, since she'd always welcome them. (Adults weren't always welcome -- our house was never very neat, and she was embarrassed about letting other adults see the mess, but I guess she figured kids didn't care, or that taking care of kids who needed it was more important than being embarrassed about the state of the house. And the house was, often, by any standards, a total mess. Not dirty or unhygienic, but sometimes getting close to Hoarders territory.)

I just don't know that I'd have the energy to do all of that.