a brief period of time

we've had a slew of friends recently announce they're pregnant, and most with their third. i can hardly wrap my brain around having three children -- and, ironically enough, i am one of three children. when chris and i first started discussing our off-in-the-distant-future family plans more than a decade ago, we both agreed that two was the number for us, probably more based on a law of averages (he's an only child) than for any specific reason. but we've never questioned our choice, which is a good thing since we kind of sealed the deal in that regard a few years ago and there's no going back now. but the topic of conversation came up the other night as i shared the news with him of our latest friends to bite the #3 bullet. "can you imagine having another?" i asked. of course, my female brain was mulling over the logistics: our SUV cannot accommodate three car seats, and after paying it off last year, we have no interest in buying another anytime soon. we'd have to convert the guest room to a nursery, and then i'd have no idea where any visitors would sleep. we can't fit more than four chairs around our kitchen table, and while i suppose we could stick a high chair in the corner for a while, what happens after that? and so on. but chris's male brain had a different perspective. "having a baby would be crazy," he said. "i mean, the kids are now just so easy." my first instinct was to laugh. did you not just witness liam's colossal meltdown when he lost at chutes & ladders? i thought. or susanna spilling her juice all over the newly-mopped floor after we forgot to put the lid on her sippy cup? but once i thought about it, he was right. and the more i thought about it, the more i realized that we're smack in the middle of a fairly easy period of our lives as parents. a period that might not be repeated again until liam and susanna are off to college. we started rattling off the ways that our children are, in fact, relatively easy. they're potty-trained. they sleep through the night. they're past the annoying stage of naps that you have to schedule your life around if you desire any peace, but they're quite amenable to an hour of Quiet Time in their rooms each afternoon so i can get a break. i can still pick out their outfits without any opposition, and then they can dress themselves. they're not growing so rapidly to necessitate a new wardrobe every few months. susanna still loves her sweet hairbows, and is not yet waging battles over the hoochie-mama tank tops or airbrushed hannah montana jackets that i see in every store window at the mall. they play well together, and aren't yet bickering and fighting and pulling each other's hair out. they're old enough to engage in real conversations with us, but young enough to take what we say at face value and not question whether or not we have any idea what we're talking about. the threat of "time out" is still an effective deterrent to most misbehavior that might be coming our way. they're small enough to fit into a grocery cart if i need them to, but can also walk next to me as we pick up a few things at the store. they love to go to preschool in the mornings, but we're not yet dealing with serious academics and homework. they get excited about even the most mundane of activities (let's go get our hair cut! let's go to the ATM!) if i make it sound interesting enough. they're loving, they're affectionate ... and they don't sigh loudly, talk back, or roll their eyes. yes, we both agreed, we're in this funny window of time when we're past the frustrations of toddler-dom, and not yet embroiled in the angst of adolescence. to all of my readers who have recently taken the pregnancy plunge, i promise that i do not write this as a thinly-veiled "are you crazy?" commentary. and i don't even write this as self-affirmation that chris and i have made the right decision. no, this post is purely for my own future reference. for we acknowledge that we are in a temporary state of parental bliss, and that more difficult days are ahead. we're readying ourselves for the inevitable acts of defiance and "i hate you!"s and days when nothing we say or do will be right by our children. so this post is for our future selves. tangible proof that life with our children, for a brief period of time, was relatively simple. it's as simple as that.