Babies Schmabies

I know the rules. Taking a month and a half between blog posts isn't ideal, but it happens. Oops. Life is busy. So, let's try this again ...

Last weekend we went to Colorado to see our new (first) baby niece. She is Ava and she is tiny and expressive and beautiful. And that led to the inevitable - the baby fevah. We've sort of been thinking about it for a while now - this summer was always when we planned to start trying. After all, we have a house, have been together for six years, have good family support, have stable jobs, etc.

But I'm SUCH a neurotic planner, and it's getting me into trouble. I spent all week working and reworking the finances, trying to fit what I think a baby will cost into the spreadsheet. We have a unique problem in that we have a basement apartment in our house, the rent from which covers about half the mortgage payment. But with a baby, we just can't fit on one level of the house like we do now (barely). So we'd lose a big chunk of income and gain a wrinkly little expenditure. We could do it, but barely. And that's scares the shit out of me. Because in my head and on my spreadsheets, I have the best-case scenario as us barely scraping by. So what if something isn't best-case? What if the baby has special needs? What if the water heater explodes? What if we have triplets? There are a thousand things I can't control, and I want to be able to provide for the thousand things I can, relatively comfortably.

But maybe that's part of it. Maybe kids can be so rewarding because it's SO scary. I always thought it was the loss of youth that gave first-time parents cold feet - no more partying, no more indulging, no more bad decisions. But I'm beginning to think it's bigger than that. It's truly the first time, at least for me, that I will be an adult. Really, truly. There's no bail-out for this. Because you become someone else's bailiff, for better or worse.

I guess all that's left is to take the leap, and hope for the best.