Perspective

I was talking with the kids the other day and it occurred to me that they are at the exact ages my siblings were at the year I was born. My brothers were 9 and 11. My sister turned 13 that year.

Now, as the story has always been told to me (though my parents' versions are slightly different), I was not a "whoops" baby. I was the only kid planned, according to my father. I was just a long time in getting here, according to my mother.

Granted, my mom was a bit younger than I am now when I was born, but I look at my kids, so well on their way to complete independence and such completely entertaining/low-hands-on-maintenance housemates, and I have to wonder what on earth my mother was thinking. Starting all over with another baby? No. Way.

Don't get me wrong, I entirely loved motherhood from the very start. But as wonderful as it was when they were babies, it is at least twice that much fun now. I have absolutely no remorse over no more babies in the house. That was for another moment in time, and that time has passed.

Whatever my parents were thinking, I'm glad. Things worked out well for me, even though I spent years wishing I had been just a bit closer in age to my brothers and sister. Or that they'd had two of us tag-alongs rather than just me alone.

And even though my son's eyes lit up, and he suggested that a brother might be a fine idea at this point, I had to let him know that a brother was beyond all possibility, and he would just have to be satisfied being the youngest... always and forever.

That's just the way it goes for some of us.