Ahhhh...

We (Miss Sunshine and I) went shopping with my grandmother this morning. I think she needed something to keep her mind occupied so she wouldn't worry about my great-aunt, who had to have extensive surgery to repair her badly broken leg (from a VERY bad car accident a few weeks ago) this afternoon. (I have not had any updates about how surgery went as of yet.) So Miss Sunshine and I obliged her.

I needed to get some new uniform pants for Monster Boy for school, since sometime in the last week or so he decided to outgrow all but two pairs of his current uniform pants. I still need to pick up another pair since they only had one pair in his size at the store we went to, but at least he has more than two pairs of pants now.

Anyways, I digress. While we were there we found an oh.so.cute dress for Miss Sunshine for Christmas (my grandmother always buys the unmarried grandchildren a Christmas outfit for Mass on Christmas). I picked up an 18 month size, which is what she is wearing right now, and looking at it, it just looked small to me. I worried aloud that it would be TOO small by Christmas. My grandmother handed me a 24 month size and it looked just huge next to that 18 month dress. After some debate, we decided the best approach would be to try the 24 month dress on her to see how much too big it was - if it was really very large on her, we'd go with the 18 month because we wouldn't want her to be in a dress that was just too big. So off to the dressing rooms we went (fortuitous because she also needed a diaper change) and I put her in the 24 month dress. And it fit! It's a little long in the sleeves, and a bit loose around, but I can tighten the sash and it's just fine. The length is darn near perfect. The 18 month dress would likely have been too small! *Sigh* My baby is growing up too fast. (Yes, I am aware that she is actually almost 21 months old and most children her age are already in 24 month clothing - but the point is that she is not! Or, at least, wasn't.)

I seem to remember posting some time back about how I was D.O.N.E. having children - that I had no desire for another child, that I didn't want to go through pregnancy again, that my fears of having another child with cleft were outweighing any extremely small desire I might have to expand our family - even though Daddy Mac really wanted another baby. Um, yes, recently I have been having second thoughts about that. And today, baby fever officially set in. I WANT another baby. I don't know where that came from, but I do. Oh, how I do. I want to get to have the breastfeeding relationship I didn't get to have with Miss Sunshine. I want to smell newborn baby hair, and hold a small, wiggly little baby in my arms. I want to cloth diaper a newborn (yeah, I know a lot of you might think I'm nuts for that) and fold up teeny tiny little clothes. Oh my goodness, how I suddenly want another baby!

You will be happy to know we are certainly NOT trying to have another baby right now, however. We know we have many things we need to resolve before we can even consider expanding our family - catching up from all of our trials earlier this year being foremost at that. We are slowly digging out of that snow pile, but it just isn't melting as fast as I had hoped it would. We are hopeful that perhaps late next summer we will be in a better position to consider having another baby - which is really perfect timing anyways. I have a thing about symmetry - and we have December and February babies - which means that we need an April baby now! Actually if you want to get really particular, the kids' birthdays are roughly 6 weeks apart, so REALLY we need a late March baby - but I would be afraid of duplicating Daddy Mac's birthday there, and I have a thing about everyone needing their OWN birthday and not sharing with other family members. (Which is pretty hard to do in a family where your father is one of nine children, all but one of whom are married with at least two, if not more, children of their own, plus some of THOSE children - that would be me! as well as another cousin - having children of THEIR own.... did you follow that yet?) Anyways, there I go again. So likely sometime around May or June of next year we will open negotiations for a new baby if things are caught up, and probably start actively trying to get pregnant again in July or August. We shall see....

In the meantime, I'll enjoy what little babyhood I have left of Miss Sunshine's - because she is certainly becoming a little girl, rather than a baby, much more quickly than I would like.