Consignment

A family organization in our area is holding a consignment sale, an event that has become an unlikely turning point in our lives.

If we aren't going to have any more children anytime soon, we might as well take advantage of this opportunity to clear out our infant equipment. I'll cut the suspense and tell you I spent this morning sorting 0-3 size clothes into the "sell" bin.

When I was pregnant with Pebbles, we agreed that if we were to have a third child, we should do so quickly instead of letting another couple of years pass. I didn't want an entire decade to slip away during my "stay-at-home" period and find myself trying to re-enter the career world at age 40.

But now that we have Pebbles -- as much as I love that little spitfire -- I know I don't want to do it again anytime soon. Some days I just wilt at the prospect of going through toilet training and tantrums again with Pebbles, much less doing all that with a new baby at my breast, and then doing it all yet again with the new baby. For one thing, I have so many things I want to write and already I struggle to figure out how I can squeeze more writing time into my day. For another, I think Epu and I both feel pretty content with our girls and aren't pining away for a son.

I would not rule out having a third child someday. I'm lucky in that we didn't wait until the biological last minute to have our girls, so I have up to 10 breeding years ahead of me.

Although this article in yesterday's Trib gave me pause. As we all know, older mothers have a higher chance of having a Down's baby. And hey, I love the people with Down's that I've met. But how would I like to be changing diapers in my 80s? Not very much, thank you.

Well, if we get too old to feel confident in our breeding abilities, or even if we don't, I have always been open to adopting a child. Epu, not so open. He claims that it's natural for men not to want to raise offspring that don't carry their genes, which I think is ridiculous because, look at all the happy adoptive fathers out there. I'm sure he would come around if it became a real issue in our lives instead of a hypothetical.

Meanwhile, we figured that if another baby comes along, we can easily procure a new bouncy seat, infant bath tub, and dozens more adorable outfits. Better to sell them while they are still relatively new than to let them molder and take up our storage space.

Funny how parenting marries the banal to the momentous. Like, I never realized that deciding what to do with a few pounds of cloth and plastic would lead me to decide on the existence of future people. But, there you go.