13 Epiphanies About a Third Child

1 Your third child will survive without a daily bath.

2 Being a third child builds resiliency, self advocacy, and problem solving like nothing else.

3 The brain of a third child will grow just as well from playing with a sheet of wax paper as the brain of your first child did playing with a $175.00 light and sound board.

4 A fever of 100 degrees on a third child is considered low grade, not an emergency.

5 Ignore the I told you so advice of “one child per set of hands”. We all became outnumbered at one kid.

6 Throw the ideal of love and affection given equally, out the door. You give with your full heart and there's no need to divide it – no matter if one or three little people claim a piece of it

7 Three kids are the greatest excuse to let the dust bunnies multiply. A third child needs some of your time so clean less, and play more.

8 If you fall apart from being pulled in three different directions, send everyone to bed early. You included.

9 When the noise, chaos, and endless tasks begin to erupt like Vesuvius, cool the flames with water: a shower, a bath, a pool, a lake.

10 A third child doesn't know that you're not doting on them. They only know the way you are with them. Which means you're different with baby #1 than you were with baby #2 and with baby #3 – because you've blazed this parenting trail before not just once but twice.

11 Three are not any harder than two, than one was any harder than zero. It's all mind blowing hard.

12 Two to three is not the hugest leap. THE BIG LEAP is from none to one. I almost lost my mind with one baby, then nearly again with the two, and then came *this close* with the third.

13 If once a day, during the craziest part of your day, you zen-transport yourself out of your existence and LOOK at your children all together, you'll see that it's not long before a smile slowly takes down that storm cloud on your face.

 

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If you came to this post because you're wondering about a third child, but you're scared it will be too much - don't let fear be the reason for your decision. It's all hard, because life is hard. No kids, one kid, two kids, three kids – life is work. He who eats, must work, right? So, whether it's one child, or eleven, we're all in over our heads. No matter how many children we have or don't have.

Sometimes, I like to imagine what our blog posts would have been like in biblical times:

Dear Methuselah:
 

We just found out we're pregnant with twins! I'm 62 and my husband is 114. Though we're over the moon with the news, we'll be going from 76 kids to 78 and I'm scared. What advice can you give me?

Signed,
Pondering #77 and 78

Dear Pondering Another(s):
 

If your heart feels it has the room, fill it. I am as old as the trees, (older, actually) and I've seen a thing or two during my one thousand years on this planet. And one of them is that we parents have been doing what we do best since Noah built the ark.

Hanging on and riding the storm out.

You'll do fine.

Signed,
Methuselah

 

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