Maybe me. Chevette and I have been talking about it. We already have two, but we love being parents and the second one has been spookily easy.

There's apparently a book out there called "The Demon Child." It's about real-life parents who have four well-behaved, well-adjusted kids and who congratulate themselves on their supposed parenting skills. They then have a fifth kid -- the "demon child" -- who exposes their self-satisfied misconceptions.

If we have a third, I fear we'll be in the same boat.

CDF

p.s. I'm amused by those over-35 chart notations. Chevette was over 35 with our second, and the medical staff took her much more seriously b/c she had given birth previously. In particular, there was no b.s. delay about being admitted to the hospital during labor -- unlike the first time around.

the Catholic Board
 

Jesus, haven't you all had enough?????



I guess I should be grateful that your spawn will fund my retirement. Carry on.

Just remember, with a third one, you're outnumbered forever. Parenting is much harder when you have to play a zone defense.

If Martha Stewart can wear an ankle bracelet, so can my kids. It'll have to be capable of administering a mild electric shock.

It occurs to me that we may need to move to a state where this doesn't constitute "bad parenting."

CDF

!!!! I was talking to my admin (this is corporate-speak for secretary) about getting one of these for myself today so that I would stop losing things because I never put them away!!

I suspect that if my sister had been my parents' first child instead of their third, she would have been an only. They did have one more after her, but I think they were playing Russian roullette. Jury's still out on that one.

We want another at some point, but not yet. Our second is pretty easy, but having two 2 and under is still a hell of a lot of work. I don't think I could survive 3 under 3.


Oh, and I have been told that the baby is too fat. I'm not supposed to put him on a diet, but the ped thinks he needs to thin out a bit so I'm to feed him more veggies, less milk. He really is huge - 27lbs at 9mos and not terribly tall. I can't remember what #1 weighed at 9mos, but he was definitely much taller.

Huh. I always thought that was called Roman Roulette.

the Catholic Board
 

Yes.

I wouldn't count on it.

Anklets
 

Apparently, you won't be moving to Massachusetts:

Mom shackles daughter who played hooky
Disciplinary action prompts investigation into whether it was child abuse

BOSTON - Authorities are investigating allegations that a Massachusetts woman shackled her 14-year-old daughter in chains to teach her a lesson for skipping school.

The 37-year-old mother of four, whose name was not released, told police the same chain-and-shackle technique had proved effective with a truant son several years earlier.

“She was saying that more parents should do this because of the problems with kids today,” Blackstone Detective Wayne Mowry said.

Police have not arrested the mother but she is being investigated by state social workers, authorities said Monday.

About two weeks ago the mother bought chain and two padlocks after being told that her daughter had missed school. She tracked the girl to a shopping district, bound her daughter’s ankle to one end of the chain and shackled her own wrist to the other, and then drove to their home in Blackstone, about 35 miles southwest of Boston, police said.

A police officer who pulled the woman’s car over because it did not have a license plate discovered the two chained together but he let them go because he had to respond to a more urgent call, Mowry said.

Police who visited the woman’s home later found the daughter’s ankles chained together as she helped her mother cook dinner, Mowry said.

“The kid was actually upset that we were there,” she said.

“She was sticking up for her mother.”

Link

Maybe I'll put myself in line pretty soon. In all honesty, No. 1 is a delight, and I do fear a "demon child" for no. 2. But I am ashamed to admit that 3-4 months off, paid (so we don't become homeless), is a really, really, really, really attractive idea right now. I am totally burned out, and I'm with my kid an average of 1 1/2 hours a day during the week (during which I'm also trying to get ready for work, clean the house and defrost something for a dinner I won't be home to eat).

T(pouting)M

Quit while you're ahead. Since our first was (and is) the flawless incarnation of living perfection on earth, we decided to stop there.

ETA: You could maybe fake a pregnancy and miscarriage to get the time off and lots of sympathy from your firm, no?

Considered and dismissed already. You don't get the 3 months paid maternity leave without actually giving birth. You get emergency medical leave, which isn't generally paid time off here (you can use vacation days), and which only last anyway so long as you need to physically recover (i.e.: you sort of need a doctor's note). Technically you don't even get bereavement time for a miscarriage.

I found I got more sympathy for having a kid and then coming back full time than anyone here has in living memory for any medical or family emergency.

That's because even though you came back full-time, you've still added a minimum three extra years to the partnership track. And that's assuming you don't have any more "distractions" to keep you from billing.

So quit. Being poor isn't that bad, really.

As well you should. I have no idea how I worked full time with children for eight years, and got everything done at home that needed doing. God, that sucked.

Domestic staff?

Good lord, woman. That is what help is for.

OK, this is sad. Our family dog has cancer and is not long for this world. Any suggestions about how to explain this, etc., to the five-year-old?

Depends. Did you want to lie or tell the truth?

"Okay, Junior. We'll want to be really gentle. You need to get really close. You don't want something to go wrong and put him in more pain. Now, we're just going to slide the barrel up here to under his ear and sloooowly pull the trigger..."

No? How about:

"We had to take Rusty to the farm. He's got lots of grass and tress to run around in. He was playing with the cows when I left. He's very happy."

Isn't a good first lesson that everything dies?

Tell him that the dog is very, very sick and he's going to die soon and go to heaven where he won't be sick and won't be in pain any more.

Children are far more able to deal with the concept of death than we think they are. For one thing, they have no sense of their own mortality, so they really don't process it the way we do.

How to Raise a Vegetarian
 

Sometimes it's good to understand the "circle of life".

Show him the Lion King, then take the dog off to the fields, and let the boy see the vultures the next day.

He'll always remember the lesson.

Agreed. Except to add that you should be sure to explain that it isn't the kind of sick that could be cured by a trip to the pediatrician, or by the application of yucky purple medicine.

True. That helped a lot -- but I still have help for lots of stuff, but don't know how I got everything done (MY jobs) working full time.

"first"?

There's no question about whether to tell him. I guess I was stumbling over whether to tell him before or after.

And "good"? Bite me.

I guess the question is whether or not it will be more or less painful for him to be able to say goodbye.

I was a little older, maybe nine or ten, when my frist childhood dog died, and my parents had him put to sleep before they told me and my siblings. I don't think I came out too scarred.

But then I ate at least one pet without it having too much of an impact on me, so I may be a monster.

Another consideration is how much easier will it be on you if your kid is part of the saying goodbye process. I'm going to be a wreck for at least a month when it's time for the DD to go. I'm not sure I'd be able to keep up a brave face for the kids before then.

________

Tell him the truth. Kids are waaay brighter than we give them credit for..e.g...

#1 - Mommy, what's wrong with jack (the goldfish)

ML- hmmm (noticing that jack is indeed dead) I think jack is sleeping

#1 - Well, I think he's dead. Looking closer, Yep, Mom, he's dead.

Ml - Oh, well how about we get another fish and we can call him Jack Jr.?

#1 - Nah, let's just get another fish and call him Jack!


(interaction with my 4 yr old last week about his dead fish. What he didn't know was that this WAS Jack #2, and spared him the death of the previous one....)


ML

Oh my god. You mean Ricky didn't actually go to a farm? Mommy LIED?

Pets play different roles in different families. We did not humanize our animals, and though attached to them, we understood what it meant to send one to the slaughter house and we understood that a dog in agony was likely to be quickly put down, not brought to the vet where a several hundred dollar bill might be incurred. And putting an animal out of its misery at the appropriate time was considered part of growing up and taking on responsibility - probably wouldn't participate at 5, but certainly at 8 or 9.

So, on a serious note, you may not interact with animals like this, and may humanize them more. If you do, your son is likely to deal with this like the death of a friend, and I'd say honesty and solemnity are good things. For me and my kids, it would be more matter of fact, but, then, it has been all along - my five year old has asked if he'll ever get to eat his rabbit (he won't).

no it's not good that your dog is dying, and it's not good that some people go hungry and it's not good that you're so pissy.

But he sees the dog dies, and he learns in a real way that animals, and by extension, people in his life won't be there forever, and he should appreciate his time with them. It is a "good" example because it is something that was close to him.

I mostly agree with this, having only experienced it once with kids. My last dog died when my oldest was eight or nine. It was pretty obvious, at least to me, that he wasn't "right" for about two weeks or so before he died -- just sort of laying around and, I don't know how else to explain it, but he just had a real sadness about him every time you looked at him.

One night, shortly after everybody had gone to bed, I walked into the bedroom, and tripped over him, since he was laying at the foot of the bed. The weird thing was, he never laid at the end of the bed when he did sleep in the room, and when I tripped over him, he didn't move at first. He managed to make his way down the hall and down to the foot of the stairs, and then laid there. I tried to see if I could get him to stand up, and he did, for a minute, before his legs just kind of collapsed under him. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to take him to the animal hospital that night. Before I took him, I woke up my oldest, since she had basically grown up with the dog, and told her that I had to take him to the vet, because he wasn't doing well, and that there was a very good chance that I would not be bringing him back with me, so she should say goodbye and let him know how she felt about him in case he didn't. I made sure to allow her as much time to do so as I could, given the dog's condition.

I basically had to carry him to the car, and I set him in the back, with his head between the front seats. I wasn't sure if he was even able to stand up at this point. As I'm driving along, I've got one hand on the wheel, and I'm petting him and talking to him. About a block away from the vet's office, he stands up, in the moving car, and puts his head in my lap while I'm driving.

When we get to the vet's office, he basically slumped down onto the floor of the car again. When I lift him out of the car, he had wet the carpet. I take him into the vet's office, and a while later, they come out and tell me that he has a cancerous tumor in his spleen, and there's nothing they can do for him, other than put him down.

They told me that I didn't have to hang around for it if I didn't want to, but after 12 years, I didn't want to leave him in there by himself without anybody that he knew, so I stayed with him while he was put to sleep. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

I was a complete wreck afterwards, but I still think I did the right thing by letting the oldest one say goodbye to him. I saw no need to wake the four-year-old, and I told her the next morning -- leaving out all but the most essential details.

Since then, the oldest has told me that she was glad that she had that chance and would have been upset if she hadn't.

Sorry about your dog, Ty. I certainly don't envy you.

This same sort of thing totally fucked up Tony Soprano, you know. . .

You shot Old Yeller?

Shooting old yeller never bothered me. He was old. You'd put down Hank, wouldn't you?

Sending a frisky young animal I'd fed milk in the kitchen to the slaughterhouse always seemed more problematic. Yet I'll bet you're going to happily slice into a nice hunk of meat tonight with no qualms.

I, like most other anonymous internet-chat-board posters, put Hank down regularly.

True that. I don't share my house with cows, pigs, or chickens.

He wasn't old, he had hydrophobia. I'd shoot Hank if he had hydrophobia, though. Come to think if it, how do we know he doesn't?

Sorry about your doggie, Ty. I would definitely tell him and give him a chance to say goodbye. If you are having him put down, I might let Junior believe the dog died of his own accord, though. My parents put down a pet when I was a kid and the fact that they had anything to do with it didn't go over well. If you have to you can say he died of natural causes at the vet's office.

I'm kinda thinking that for a five y.o., it's a little much to tell him before the fact. It just seems like a bit much for him.

five seems early to know details. but I don't think we had a pet die between when I became aware of stuff and age 9 or so.