To snip or not to snip

Less than an hour before the events that transpired in my previous post, I received a call from her.

She asked me if I was sitting down. Then she asked if I'd left for the "snip" appointment yet. I replied that I hadn't. Then she told me that she was pregnant.

I couldn't believe it! I closed my office door, sat back and laughed-out-loud at how brilliant the timing was. If I hadn't have laughed, I'd surely have sat there and cried. What did this mean? My head was swimming. I had to make some decisions.

As I understand it, the stork doesn't take returns - at least not in our house… So the first decision was an easy one to make.

The next decision; whether or not to go through with the snip was more difficult. I was happy that we were going to have another peanut. So did that mean that I wanted a forth peanut? I had to weigh up the pros and cons.

- Poo. From the very first black tar diaper, poo is never too far removed from babies. With the other two, I'd had numerous close encounters of the poo kind. I'd been in the tub when the first brown destroyer floated up from the depths. Evacuate! I'd also been on clean-up duty after I'd decided that Jake was old enough to go potty by himself. *shudder* It was on the walls!

- Sex and sleep. Sex is not that big an issue really. I can live without sex for a day or so… but sleep? Hell no! Sleep in our house is worth more than diamonds, money, sports cars, food and even sex!

- Questions. Very occasionally kids' questions and observations are insightful. More often than not, they sound like the musings of a mad man. Let's take yesterday as an example. Jake asked me "why do frogs like humans that walk on their toes and always roll their eyes?" A day later and I'm still thinking about it. I admit it. He's stumped me! Why didn't he ask why the sky is blue again? I was ready for that one. I'd already Google'd it.

- Paranoia. Kids have a death wish. It's my job to see that their wishes are never granted. The other night I watched a Giraffe being born on TV. It popped out, rolled around for a couple of seconds then got up and walked off. Luke is 5. Five years on and he's still often minutes away from certain death. Riding backwards down the driveway? Death wish. Picking on his brother? Death wish. Clogging the toilet the second time in one day? Death wish. Smack-talking his Mom? Death wish. See?

+ Get-out-of-jail-free card. This "news" meant that I didn't have to go through with it. I could use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card. I can't say that I was thrilled at the thought of getting my balls sliced open with a machete, knife, "scalpel" or whatever you call it… It didn't matter that the incision would be tiny and the actual cutting was on something thinner than spaghetti. It was my nuggets!

In the end I chose to at least go to the first appointment. What could it hurt? How wrong could I be?