Birth control.

I still toy with the idea of five children. I've not closed that door, though it's safe to say we are leaning heavily toward quitting while we're ahead. Every once in a while, like this morning at Anna's 3rd grade holiday music program, I spy a sweet little baby girl and am reminded of the baby phase with a wee bit of longing. Babies bring so much joy.

Other days I get whiffs of that phase that take me in another direction. Like when I decided to brave the post office this past Monday with a stack of boxes and cards and two little kids in tow. At lunchtime, no less. They held up pretty well, actually. That is, until it was finally our turn and the two decided that scaling the counter and running circles around the work island made a whole lot of sense. Combine that with the noise they generated in screams and giggles and protests as they tackled one another and we gave a whole lot of line-waiters a bit of bang for their buck. Those times remind me that I used to tackle such tasks with not two, not three, but four kids age 5 and under.

Add to that the fact that I've been up in the middle of the night every night this week nursing some ailment (or figment of someone's imagination). And I wonder if I could still be called sane if I wanted to hit the reset button.

Ah, maybe.