When I think about the No More Babies Decision of 2008, the things that come immediately to mind are the sad things, or the things that won’t now go as I was thinking they’d go, or the things I won’t get to look forward to. These are not helpful thoughts to have.

I was so grateful for all the great and comforting comments I got on that post. One of the many I’ve thought of again and again was Giselle‘s: she pointed out what her mother had pointed out to her (and what her grandmother pointed out to her mother): that there will always be a Last Baby, no matter how many you have.

This helped me separate out “sadness over no more babies” from “sadness over no sixth baby.” In my Sad List, many items are sixth-child specific, but many others are things I’d be just as sad about after a sixth baby, or after a seventh, or after an eighth. And as we math geniuses know, if something is present on both sides of an equation, you can strike it out. If something is the same whether we DO or DON’T have another child, then it is…well, irrelevant, in a sense. Irrelevant, at least, to the decision of whether or not to have another child.

I choose not to apply this math when I think of things that make me feel better: even if they’d be just as comforting after a sixth baby as after a fifth, I’ll take them now.

1. No more pregnancy nausea. It’s like having the stomach flu for three months. I’m not sorry to kiss it goodbye, and in fact I’m not going to kiss it.

2. No more OB appointments. It’s a 35-minute drive, a 20-minute wait, a 5-minute “wham, bam, measure you ma’am,” and then another 35-minute drive—and the babysitting arrangements get more challenging each time.

3. I can get rid of clothes as Henry/Elizabeth outgrow them. Those clothes take up a LOT of space in the basement.

4. Our city is doing a fundraiser, the kind where you can have whatever you want engraved on a brick that then is used in a public walkway. I wanted to get all our names on it, but it seemed sad to do that if we might later have another child whose name wouldn’t be on the brick. Now I can go ahead and order the brick. (Shut up. I am TRYING here.)

5. I don’t have to worry anymore about miscarriage, Down Syndrome, toxoplasmosis, Fifth Disease, placental abruption, uterine rupture, or any of the other things I worry about during pregnancy.

6. I can see the caboose: as we pass through each of the less-pleasant stages with Henry (the mobile-but-brainless early toddler stage, the potty-training stage), I can wave goodbye to them. See you later, stages. Bye, stages. Soon we won’t have to have a baby gate, or outlet covers, or car seats, or strollers, or…okay, I’m getting sad again, let’s move on.

7. I can move on to the next stage of life. I may be sorry to leave this one, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also look forward to the next one. I can start thinking about what job I might get after the kids are in school, and how nice it will be to have that second income for braces and glasses and sports equipment and college and all the other expenses of older children. I can start thinking about what interesting projects I might divert my Baby Energy to. I can start thinking, as some of you mentioned, about grandchildren. (OMG.)

8. I can better appreciate the children I already have: if I’m not looking ahead to the next baby, I have more attention to focus on the babies there already are.

9. I don’t have to worry that if I complain to Paul or act overwhelmed, he’ll use it as evidence in the court of whether or not to have more children. If the household dips briefly into chaos/squalor, as it so often does, I don’t have to panic that Paul is RIGHT THIS SECOND deciding “That’s IT! NO MORE!”

10. Paul can talk more freely about how cute the children are or how happy he is to have them, without worrying I might use it as evidence in the court of whether or not to have more children.

11. I can take medicines and supplements and vodkas and so forth, without thinking about how someone else’s body will be affected.

12. I can buy myself treats and little gifties, and I can buy cute little baby outfits for my soon-due niece, justifying the purchases as bandages and ointment for my sad heart.

I had an Emergency/Survival Packing dream last night. Do you have these? I have regular packing dreams, too, the kind where I’m going on vacation and forgot to pack so I’m trying to cram things into a suitcase, but I also have a more stressful variety where I’m packing because we’re about to have to hide out in the woods for awhile. That’s the kind I had last night. Furthermore, we were babysitting someone else’s little girl and I knew I’d need to take care of her, too. I set out a backpack for each child, and I was trying to decide which things were most important/essential. Flashlights? Bug spray? Canned/dried food? Change of socks? Blankets?—knowing that each child could only carry a small amount, and not knowing how much time I had to think this over before we’d have to flee our house.

I woke up still planning. A small shovel would be useful. Matches? Vitamins? Flashlights? Spare glasses? Sunscreen? We sure don’t have much survival gear at our house: no tent, one sleeping bag, no camp stove, no emergency radio. Most of the stuff we DO have would be worthless as soon as the batteries wore out. If we actually had to hoof it into the woods, we’d spend our entire day just trying to find enough food—and I don’t think we’d manage it. We could probably keep warm enough at night as long as it was the hottest part of summer.

Anyway, it was a really bad dream. All day today I’ve felt SO LUCKY. We don’t have to choose the few things we can take with us in a backpack: we have a whole house to put things in. We don’t have to forage for food: we can go to the grocery store. We don’t have to wash our only clothes in a murky river: we have bureaus, and so many clothes I can’t always get the drawers closed. There’s no one chasing us. There’s no one trying to kill us. We only need bug spray for when we go out to play. We can bitch about c-section rates instead of worrying about maternal mortality. We can bitch about breastfeeding/formula instead of worrying our babies will starve. We can worry about not having enough money to make the rent instead of not having any shelter at all. Even the very poorest people in this country don’t get expired food or holey clothing, even though we’d be knifing each other for those things after a week of genuine need.

Preachy much? I know—but that’s not how it seemed when I was saying it to myself in my head, instead of saying it here to other people. Same with how it’s totally different to advise oneself to have a little perspective, or to calm down, or to see things from the other person’s point of view, or to ask one’s own self to consider whether one might be wrong—versus telling someone else the same thing.

Anyway, instead of feeling preached to when I said those things to myself, I felt so much relief. To be worrying about whether I need psychiatric medication to feel happy, instead of worrying that I might not be able to keep the children alive. So relieved to be driving to the store to buy things, rather than digging in a garbage can and worrying about being hurt or killed by other starving people. I know those are exaggerated ideas, but everything feels so precarious: just as most of us would be in serious financial trouble within a month or so of losing income, most of us would be in serious STAYING ALIVE trouble within a short time of losing the electricity and grocery stores.

This doesn’t say anything BAD about us: of course we are adapted to our environment. It’s a waste of time and energy to learn/know unnecessary skills, so no one should give anyone else any grief for not knowing how to can food or darn socks or kill a squirrel with their bare hands and cook it over a campfire. We can’t all learn to do everything.

[This was published in January 2009. Then I opened it in February 2013 to check something, and somehow it unpublished and lost all the comments. SIGH.]

Oh, hi! It’s 2009! And I keep writing it 2006, except for just now in this sentence when I meant to write “2006” but instead first typed “2009.” Dear, dear.

I had to stay up to see midnight because Rob and William wanted to stay up. I made us chocolate chip cookies, which was a terrible mistake because then the children were sleepy + sugared, which = giddy. Anyway, it turned to 2009, and was that really, really awkward to have Taylor Swift standing there with the Jonas Brothers? No, I mean, WAS it awkward? I seem to remember a bad break-up recently between one of them and her—and goodness, I hope that wasn’t the new girlfriend standing with the Jonas Brothers. And also, is “Taylor Swift” really Taylor Swift’s name? Because it looks odd when I type it out. Also-also, it looked like everyone was really, really cold.

I did my usual New Year’s Eve activity, which is transferring things from the old calendar (when I bought it I thought it was vintage cafe signs, but it turned out there were hidden “inspirational” messages on the signs that had me barfing/snorting the whole year) to the new calendar (want to be calendar twins? I got Better Homes and Gardens Vintage Covers). And I did my new New Year’s Eve tradition, which is to try to make it to midnight without snapping at the giddy, giddy children. (Fail.)

This morning I am tired, although at least unlike the past four years I’m not nursing or pregnant, so I can chuck back the stimulants without worrying about flippers/naplessness. First I tried the righteous way and had nutritious, wholesome baked oatmeal for breakfast, with skim milk. Then about half an hour later I thought “This isn’t working” and had a Dove bar chaser from my stocking. I’m thinking next I’ll have an iron pill and a B-complex washed down with a cup of heavily-sweet-creamered coffee. Awwwww yeah.

Oh! Resolutions! Okay, I’m on it!

1. I resolve not to press down so hard with my pen. The Sharpie Ultra Fine markers are great until I’ve used them about three times. Then they’re too mashed to be considered Ultra Fine.

2. I resolve to use the pretty new Swistle-colored stationery my brother and sister-in-law bought me for Christmas. I will use it in care packages!

3. I resolve to consider buying myself the Bath & Body Works lavender-vanilla conditioner, because it’s been languishing on my wish list for three years, and now it’s been discontinued so I’ll have to buy it on stupid eBay.

4. I resolve to learn how to spell “lavender” and “calendar.” (I always write “lavendar” and “calender.”)

There! That’s my year’s work cut out for me!

Pardon my sour-cream-and-onion breath: I’m eating Pringles. NO it is not even nine o’clock in the morning, WHAT OF IT. Also, the tube concept is basically a failure: after a finger’s-length of the stack has been removed, the rest of the chips are inaccessible unless there is Tipping and Shaking. Also-also, there is a typo on my can, because it says there are 7 servings in here.

I had a good holiday, did you? I didn’t get the child-safe tranq-dart gun I asked Santa for, but apparently the elves can’t make sophisticated stuff like that, or anyway that’s what I heard about the eyebrow piercing I wanted in high school.

Do I seem a little STRUNG OUT to you, and is “strung out” the expression I want? Maybe I mean “stir-crazy.” I have been in this house with five children for….well, I don’t know how long it’s been and perhaps I should start making chalk marks on the walls. During some of this time, a child has been barfing, and then another child was barfing. The barfing has stopped for now, but who knows which mole will pop up with it next?

I have been just DYING to SHOP, and I was SO dying to shop, I took all five kids with me to Target on Monday. It was not a total fail, but it was not a relaxing opportunity to acquire comforting consumer products, either. Instead we bought diapers and….I don’t remember what else. Nothing fun. Oh: more laundry soap, because of all the barfing.

And my parents babysat one evening so Paul and I could escape the drudgery of our lives go out for my annual calendar-shopping trip. (That link will take you to a Milk and Cookies post about which calendar I ended up buying, and I do hope you’ll leave a comment over there telling me which one you have this year. I don’t know why I find calendars so interesting, but I just DO.) Other than that, I’ve been trapped trapped TRAPPED!

Can we do a little post-holiday survey?

1. When do you take down your holiday decorations? My tree seems to mock me with what once looked glorious and celebratory and now looks tacky and pointless.

2. Do you get “post-holiday blues”? If so, how blue do they get, and how long do they last?

3. Do you buy holiday stuff on clearance for the next year? I love getting gift wrap at 90% off, but I have to use some self-control this year, as I already have lots of paper bought at 90% off (why no one else wanted the glittery purple wrapping paper I’ll NEVER KNOW). Last year I risked some fabric ribbon at 90% off, and it is so gorgeous I’m definitely going to try to get more of it this year.

4. When do you incorporate all the new stuff into the household? We still have boxes and laundry baskets all over the place, each containing a person’s new possessions. I half-heartedly started to put away my new stuff, but then I accidentally “put away” (IN MY MOWF) a Lindt Santa and there went my motivation. I’d like to avoid what happened last year: when I was cleaning for my mother-in-law’s autumn visit, I found the children’s stocking bags still sitting in their rooms. That was in October.

I was so busy today. So busy! And when Paul got home from work I kept trying to impress him with stories of how busy I was today, but he kept not acting impressed.

Do you remember that episode of The Simpsons where Apu says he once worked so many hours in a row at the Kwik-E-Mart, he thought he was a hummingbird of some sort? And then they show the Kwik-E-Mart security tape, and first it’s just showing empty/silent store, and then Apu reeeeeeuwwwws by on his tiptoes with his elbows up like hummingbird wings, and then it’s empty/silent store again, and then Apu reeeuwws past again from the other direction? That’s how I was today. Reeeeeeuuwwww! Reeeeeuwww! The children could barely find me, I was such a blur!

First thing in the morning I made muffins, and that was really just showing off foolish, because the children could easily have had cereal, and I had a TON of other stuff to get done. But the bananas had turned and were at the perfect mashing moment, and there was a footie-sleepered, plump-tummed, morning-haired baby saying “Fuffins! Fuffins!” and so I made fuffins. Which no one except Mr. Fuffins liked because we didn’t have quite enough banana so I topped it off with a little teeny bit of whole-berry cranberry sauce. There was, like, one cranberry per muffin, and everyone except Henry picked apart their muffin suspiciously, saying, “What is this BERRY thing here?”

Then I made a bunch of stuff I just realized I can’t tell you about because it’s for gifts, and in fact I’ve said too much already. Well, trust me that I made TONS of stuff. Like, FOUR recipes, that kind of tons. And wrapped and sorted and ribboned, and put out a treat bag for the mail carrier.

Meanwhile, I had the washer and dryer going. I know! But I’d realized that I’d once again neglected to plan ahead, so all the kids’ red and/or green shirts were in the laundry from being worn earlier in the week.

Then I spent a couple of hours….oh, shoot, that’s secret too. Not even INTERESTING secret, in fact BORING secret, but I guess I can’t tell about that either. Suffice it to say it was a long and boring chore-like activity.

And I wrapped a couple of presents! And tidied up a little! And made dinner for the children! Very busy!

Man, no wonder Paul was kind of dropping off.

Well, the upshot is that it was a busy, busy day, with a happy buzzingly productive feeling of “It’s Christmas Eve!” running through it, and only a little bit of “OMG EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN AND LET ME WORK ON THE JOY OF GOR-DURNED CHRISTMAS!!”

I hope you all have an excellent holiday, and that you will also have a pleasant and reeeuwwwwy 2009, which I have GOT to stop writing as 2006 or people are going to worry.

Dear William,

You left an unopened container of chocolate milk in your lunch box all weekend. Probably I should have checked, since you are only in second grade. But do you smell that smell? That is why you have a paper lunch bag today.

Love, Mommy

Dear Rollover Ad,

I did not roll over you. Stop pretending like you think I did. That is so annoying, I am already boycotting your maker.

Love, Swistle

Dear “Recipe-Ready” Chopped Pecans,

You call that chopped? Think again, friends.

Love, Swistle

Dear Mean Anonymous Commenters,

That is not going to look good on your permanent record. Also: sometimes you don’t notice you’ve been automatically logged in.

Love, Swistle

Dear Paul’s Sister,

Sweetheart, Christmas is a completely predictable holiday. It doesn’t get SPRUNG on us: it’s on the calendar from Day 1, and it’s not until Day 359, so there’s plenty of warning. When you mail the kids’ presents too late to arrive for Christmas, and you do it EVERY YEAR, and you KNOW they arrive too late, and you write to say you hope they won’t arrive too late even though you mailed them parcel post on December 23rd…well, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but doesn’t any alternate plan suggest itself to you?

Love, Swistle-in-Law

Dear Biological Clock,

OMG SHUT IT. Haven’t I done enough for you? We were a good team, but it is OVER. Retire to Arizona or something.

Love, Swistle

Dear Paul,

Me and my biological clock, we are waiting for diamonds. Or maybe a puppy. Or, I don’t know. SOMETHING.

Love, Swistle

Dear Rob,

Think about what you want to say before you start saying it. I am trying to be a patient, listening, here-for-you kind of mother, but it is hard for me to focus on The Moment when you are saying, “Hey, Mommy. Um…when I….um….I mean, when YOU….um…. thing. Um, the other day, when YOU said that WE….um.” Think it out first, cupcake.

Love, Mommy

Dear Coffee,

The idea is that you’re supposed to get me through the day, and then punch the time clock. If your shift starts at 7:00 a.m., I don’t need you here at 11:00 p.m. No overtime will be granted. Kthanx for your understanding.

Love, Swistle

Dear Snow,

You prevented my friend’s 40th birthday present from getting to her on time. Birthdays are always important, but especially decade birthdays. You and I are no longer on speaking terms.

Love, Swistle

Dear Dr. Seuss,

If you have to totally make up words in order to make your books have rhythm and rhyme, maybe you should try a different writing style. Not everyone has the same talents, and that’s okay.

Love, Swistle

Today I saw this Fossil handbag, in “Stripe” as shown here, for $30 (down from $88) at T. J. Maxx. I did not buy it, even though I need a new purse and was in fact shopping for a purse, and I had three reasons:

1. I have never spent $30 on a purse. I’ve always bought them at, like, 75% off at Target for less than $10. And right at the expensive holiday season didn’t seem like the right time to grow as a person in this area.

2. I worried it wasn’t….Swistleish.

3. I wasn’t sure if I LIKED IT liked it, or if I just felt I SHOULD like it.

The question is: Did I make a mistake? Should I go back for it?