ManicDDaily

Many years ago, tomorrow, my beloved second daughter was born.  It was the day of the New York City marathon.  This caused me some consternation (aside from the labor pains) as my hospital and I were on opposite sides of an East River whose bridges were filled with runners.

The wonders of any child (especially this particular daughter) are too many to encapsulate in a blog.  But her birthday has made me think of several generic reasons why it is great to have more than one child, even in the crowded, and very expensive, world of New York City.

Here are some:

1.  Having more than one child allows you to practice your mediation skills.

2.  And exponentially expand your ability to multitask:  yes, you already know how to hold, change, nurse and bathe a baby, now you need to be able to do all these things with one hand.

3.  It saves you trips to Good Will.

4.  And also allows many rich opportunities for genetics research.  (How can two children who are (a) both so wonderful, and (b) so alike, also be (c) so completely different?)

5.  You get to develop your inner policeman/Solomon through enforcement of the rules of (a) democracy, as in whose vote wins this week’s movie choice, (b) boundary lines, as in whose half is whose of the stroller, room, subway seat, mother’s lap, computer, and (c) good fellowship as in who must be dragged along with whom to the soccer game, playdate, doctors’ appointment, chorus concert….

6.   There are twice as many plates of leftover food to inattentively scarf down.  Who said you needed a girlish figure?

7.  Or sleep?

8.  It usually takes a least two children to make a decent Mother’s Day breakfast.  (One to flip the pancakes, the other to arrange flowers on top of the pancakes.)

9.  More importantly, with two kids around, there’s almost always someone around who either (a) needs a hug, or (b) is available to give it.  (This person may be you.)

10.  You are not likely to worry (at least for some years) that you’ve never run a marathon.

Whether you have one child, or more than one, check out 1 Mississippi by Karin Gustafson on Amazon or at link from ManicDDaily home page.

This entry was posted on November 4, 2009 at 10:01 pm and is filed under parenting. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: only children, parenting, parenting in NYC, two-child families, virtues of having more than one child