Healthy Tipping Point

You have one baby, and the question everyone asks is, “When will you have the next one?”  You have your second, and the question everyone asks you is, “Are you done?”  I would be curious to know what the questions are after #3 or #4 (I’m betting, “Aren’t you done yet?” Hmph).

Before I had kids, I wrote a post called Planning Parenthood.  I asked, “How did you know when you were ready to have kids? Would you do things differently in retrospect?”  Over 575 people responded with the most interesting comments.  (Turns out that I was ready – I got pregnant just a few weeks later!). 

A few months after Henry was born, I wrote a post called The Only Child.  It was all about how I grew up as an only child, liked it as a kid and hate it as an adult.  One funny thing about having a blog is you write how you feel at a particular time and it’s etched there forever – it’s interesting to look back and see how I felt at different times.  In that post, I wrote that we occasionally wavered on the idea of having a second.  I think I was just having trouble adjusting to motherhood because, in retrospect, I can’t remember ever REALLY feeling that way!  I also wrote that, if we did have a second, we’d want some space in between the kids.  I said 3 years (and we ended up deciding we didn’t want that much space between kids; Henry and Claire are 2.5 years apart).

So now, we find ourselves with a 3 year old and a 9 month old, and I can’t help but think, “Are we done?  Like, really done?” And… I think we are.

Reasons I think we’re done having babies:

I don’t feel a wistful twinge of, “Oh, this could be me!” when I hang out with pregnant friends. 

When I think about getting a baby out of my vagina AGAIN, I kind of want to curl up in a fetal position and sob.

Newborns smell really good, but I want to hand them back to their moms after 5 minutes or so.

I added up our ages with the kids’ ages and realized that, God willing, we’ll still be in our 40s when Claire leaves for college.  And that sounds pretty damn awesome!

I saved everything after Henry – but I sell clothes and gear as Claire outgrows them.

We feel “complete.”

I guess that last one is the biggest one – the Husband and I just both feel done.  It’s hard to describe what feeling “done” feels like, but… it’s just something you know, deep in your bones.  We feel like our family is completed by Henry and Claire and no one is missing from it.   And I feel blessed – and am very grateful – that we get to decide we’re done, you know?  But one thing we have learned, of course, is to never really say never – we’re each only 31, and I can think of several situations in which we would have a third child.  And a surprise third is always a possibility because we’re not willing to commit to any more permanent preventive methods.  But it would be a pretty big shift if either of us changed our minds.

So – I’d love to know what you think.  Are you done?  How do you know?  Did you ever think you were done but really weren’t?  Was being done – or not – a choice that wasn’t up to you?

Related Posts:

How Long Did It Take You To Get Over Childbirth?

Things I Learned About Having a Newborn

Claire’s Birth Story

Henry’s Birth Story – Part I and Part II

Pregnancy Posts

My review of the Bradley Method (pre-birth and post-birth with Henry)

Race to the weekend!

Is it Friday yet?  Seriously – I can’t wait for the weekend.  Yay!  Lots of fun things planned.

But until then, I have this yummy granola recipe to tide me over.

This granola is CANDY CANE LANE granola.  Last year, I learned that you can actually bake with herbal tea – yup, you just tear the bag right open and dump it into the sauce, cream, or whatever.  I made Candy Cane Lane Cupcakes that were OUT OF THIS WORLD.  Candy Cane Lane is – by far – my favorite tea.  So when I was up this morning at 5:15 AM thinking of granola recipes (because that is what I do, apparently), this combo came to mind!

So yes – you just dump three bags of Candy Cane Lane tea into the granola while  mixing it up, and then bake it all together.  After cooling, you’ll have a wonderfully sweet mint granola that tastes like the holidays.  YUM.

Candy Cane Lane Granola

Ingredients:

• 2 cups oats
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup raw cashews (unsalted) chopped
• 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Contents of 3 bags of Candy Cane Lane tea (unbrewed)
• 1 egg white

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325. Cover a cookie sheet with tin foil and spray with cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, combine all ingredients.
• Spread granola out on the cookie sheet and pat down.
• Bake for 25 minutes (watch to make sure it doesn’t begin to burn at the end).  Lift foil off the cookie tray so the granola doesn’t continue to cook on the hot tray. Let cool on the counter.
• Store in an air tight container when cool.

See the flakes of tea?  So good.  I may eat granola for the next three meals…

Have a wonderful day!

I’ve been struggling to make it to the gym lately.  I really miss my boot camp classes but can’t seem to make my work schedule and the kids’ sleeping/napping schedules align so I can go to classes.  And when I do work out, I really want to be outside since it’s so lovely out.  So I’ve been trying to get creative with at home strength training – Monday’s workout at Brandi’s house was pretty awesome!

Brandi and her hubby have an awesome garage gym, complete with two benches, a tire for flipping/banging, a bunch of free weights, and other odds and ends.  Their garage opens up right to the backyard, so the boys could play safely in the dirt while I got my strength training on.  I was pretty jealous of the set-up by the end and immediately started plotting ways to do something similar at my house!

I bet if I looked hard enough, I could find something similar to this dumbbell collection on Craigslist, right?  Heck, I probably just need a few 10s and 30s – I’ve already got some 20s.

Claire is at a really great age where I can let her crawl around and look at stuff, but she isn’t fast or curious enough yet to really get into big trouble.  She had lots of fun checking out the garage while I sweated!

Here’s what I did:

Goblet squats with overhead presses

Weighted lunges

Chest presses

Bicep curls with a static squat

Toe touches on the tire

Jumping jacks

Jump rope

A variety of ab moves

No tire flipping, though!  I could flip Brandi’s tire this summer when I was really into boot camp, but I tried to turn the 250-pound thing over this time and couldn’t do it for the life of me.  So sad how fast the strength goes away!

Do you have a home gym?  What’s in it?

It’s funny – you would think we spent the entire summer in our backyard, but we actually avoided the deck and grass at all costs through the months of June, July, August, and most of September.  It was TOO HOT.  But now that it’s cooling off, we’re actually getting back outside as a family.  Hoorah!

Speaking of being outside…

I made Candy Cane Lane iced tea this weekend, and it was THE BOMB.

Anyway… We did a major backyard renovation when we moved into our home three and a half years ago.  But here are the best part of our backyard!

The Hammock

The Husband gave me this hammock for my birthday (I think for #30?  Not sure – the years have started to blend together!).  I love laying in it and looking up at the trees.  It’s also a pretty good kiddo toy.  Hah.

The Large Deck

Our original deck was super small.  The design was so poor – for a decent-sized backyard, a little rectangle where you could hardly fit a few chairs just didn’t make sense.

The first time my mom saw the house, she said, “You should expand this deck out so it touches the top of the hill.”  Kristien and I were like… “You’re a GENIUS!” So that’s exactly what we did.  I love how much room there is now for eating, lounging and playing.

Our Sun Sails are pretty cool, too – they were only $20 each at Costco and create so much shade.

The Sand Box

In the back corner of the yard is our sandbox, which I got on Craiglist for $30 for Henry’s 1st birthday.  It is BY FAR his most loved and used toy.  I love the sandbox because he’ll head outside to the backyard and entertain himself forever – I love that it’s open-ended play.

The Geodome Climber

SO EXCITED about this addition!  I originally saw this product featured on a post by Janet Lansbury about Outdoor Play Spaces and knew I immediately had to buy it. I have been LUSTING for a swing set (things that parents say…) but decided that a geodome climber was much more cost and space efficient.

We get an incredible amount of use out of this thing (BFF Nicole and I even climbed on it the other night!) and it’s so fun to watch Henry learn to navigate it.  I can tell that it will be used for many years by both kids.  And get this… it was only $200 or so!  Also, I put this thing together BY MYSELF (Hubby was at work and I was itching to get it up) with both kids awake… Miracle upon miracles.

Things I Want to Add to the Backyard…

A Mud Kitchen

Rock climber grips along the side of the fence so Henry can climb along the side

A tire swing

A kiddie-sized picnic table

What do you love most about your backyard from a grown-up or kiddo perspective?