One is the Loneliest Number...

“It’s time to have another one!”

Olive is closing in on her first birthday and I am starting to lose count how many people have said something along those lines to me in the last couple weeks. The conversation goes something like this:

“How old is she?”
“She's almost a year”
Then I get:
“Almost time for a brother or sister!”
“When is she going to have a little playmate?”
“Have you started thinking about another yet?”
“It’s time to have another one!”

These conversations are uncomfortable for me on a number of levels. First, they basically boil down to people -- some of them friends, so family, some co-workers, some complete strangers -- encouraging me to have unprotected sex. “Oh, your daughter is almost one? Perfect time to impregnate your wife. Want to take off early from work today? And don’t you dare use birth control, either.”

Weirds me out.

Also, can I please take some time to celebrate the fact that I have kept my daughter alive and functioning over almost an entire year before I start thinking of running that gauntlet again with another baby? Trust me, the people who know me best are pretty impressed that I have only dropped this one once. My nickname as a child was El Destructo as a celebration of my ability to break things (and apparently my Mexican heritage) – is that a nickname that inspires confidence in my ability to care for two living things? If I had another kid at this point, I would need to 86 some sort of responsibility from my life just to keep up – maybe I just wouldn’t shower.

The other thing that bothers me a bit is that I thought by having a child that Leanne and I put a stop to all the “you should have a kid” nagging. We were married for over five years before we decided to breed, so I understood when people gently nudged us in the direction of parenthood. But I thought producing an actual child into the world would buy me more than a year before all the questions started up again.

To be fair, Leanne and I talk about having a bigger family all the time. We are pretty sure that two would be our upper limit (I mean, I only have two eyes, how would I keep track of more than two kids!) but we haven’t really decided if we want more than one. Each day with Olive though convinces us that another kid just can’t be a bad thing, though. Every day we see her play with one of her cousins or a friend’s son or daughter we think about how much fun she would have with a brother or sister of her own, and how much we would love watching them grow up together.

All I ask for is your patience.