Page 18 of Unexpectingly Happily Ever After

There’s not enough time in the day to deal with the crying and feeding and putting them into bed…or giving them baths. How am I supposed to bathefivekids? They’d be the most disgustingly dirty children because I wouldn’t be able to clean them on a regular base.

″Are you okay, Case?” J.B. asks as we drive to Emma and Cooper’s. He catches me staring unseeingly out the window as I picture five little Pig-Pens running through the house, each with their own cloud of dirt.

″Fine.”

″You don’t seem fine.”

I glance incredulously at J.B. How can he be so casual about this? He asked me to disrupt my life, turn my body inside outagain. “Were you serious last night?”

He frowns. “What about? Oh. That.”

I glance behind me. It’s quiet, and while that’s usually a bad thing, in this case, Lucy and Ben are watching something on Ben’s mini iPad, while Sophie has headphones attached to her iPod.

The teacher in me hate that children of this generation seem to have developed an addiction to screens, but the mother in me is often grateful for the quiet it provides.

″So you want another baby.”

J.B. shrugs. “I thought we could think about it.”

″Butwhy?”

″Because I love our kids?”

″Do you love them enough to have three more?”

″Seriously, what are the chances of that?” he asks with a roll of his eyes.

I point my thumb towards the backseat. “But what if they don’t love having another one? What if they’re upset and mad and jealous? What if they grow up resenting the fact we threw another baby on them? And what if they start to resentus? What if they hate us for it?”

″They won’t hate us.”

He’s using that tone, the one that suggests that I’m overreacting a tad bit. I dial it back a little. “I like the way things are. More babies would disrupt things.”

″I just thought one–”

“You’ve seen pictures of my body–inside my body! Do you remember that internal ultrasound they made you watch, the one where you almost fainted? My insides are a perfect breeding ground for more than one baby! Look what happened before!”

″It doesn’t mean it’ll happen again. And I didn’t almost faint.”

″Sorry, that was the second one. I forgot.”

I spend the rest of the drive to Emma and Cooper’s going over my defense for not having another baby. There are many to choose from–the expense of more kids, my age, full house–but the truth is that I can’t argue passionately about any of them. And I think J.B. knowsit.

He knows I love kids. It’s been my life’s dream to be a mother, and it turns out I’m pretty good at it. Better than good. Another baby…

It doesn’t mean I want to run out and get knocked up today, but it does mean that I can’t find a good reason not to. I love kids, being pregnant. I love our life.

It scares me sometimes how good things are. I got my happily ever after, as unexpected as it was. Would having another baby put a damper on that?

I don’t waste much time before I ask Cooper about it. J.B. may have known Cooper longer, but he’s my best friend as much as he is J.B.’s. When we got to Cooper and Emma’s, J.B. and Emma take the kids out to the backyard while I stay in the kitchen with Cooper.

″Did you know he wants to have another baby?” I ask Cooper. I can see the kids out the big window over the sink, chasing each other, with J.B. watching them with a smile on his face.

He’s so happy being a dad. But is that a good enough reason to disrupt our life with more?

I’m gratified when Cooper flashes an expression of surprise. “J.B.? He hasn’t said anything to me about a baby.”

″Me neither. He threw it on me last night.” I pluck a juicy strawberry out of the platter on the table. Emma is the perfect hostess. She always has kid-friendly food, as well as more adult fare, a neatly set table ready when we get there and always offers drinks before you need them. If we have people over, they’re lucky if they get a handful of carrots for an appetizer, and I’m always passing out plates for a find-your-own seat type of meal.

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