Woah nelly, this was too long of a break. I’m sorry about that, Easter snuck up on me.
Angie, my wife, wants to get pregnant as soon as Ema, our daughter, has her first birthday. Other than making for an awkward birthday party, I’ve found a serious flaw in this idea.
If we had another child so close in age to Ema, it means there will be two teenagers in the house at the same time. And this is a horrible idea. I know it is, because Angie and I are babysitting Ashlee, her fifteen-year-old niece, and Taco*, her friend. They are both teenagers, and they are impossibly chaotic.
God made a promise on Mount Ararat that He would never again destroy the world with water. I believe that’s because he saw one of Noah’s snot-nosed sons giving his dad so much grief about not understanding him, wishing Noah’d left him off the boat, never being asked to feed chickens, things like that, that He decided, well, He couldn’t do any worse.
Not that our two training teenagers were bad; they’re actually nice, polite people. Which scares me because, if the good ones are as destructive as they are, what if we raise bad teenagers?
Ashlee and Taco each brought one small bag, no bigger than a bread bag. These two have mastered time and space, because the inventory of two clothing stores and one makeup boutique spontaneously littered the floor as they opened their bags. Ashlee needs enough socks to outfit every major soccer league, just for one week of vacation. It doesn’t get that cold here in Louisiana. I’m not sure it gets that cold on Pluto.
I spent my teenage years thinking that teenage girls were very prim, proper, light eaters. Whoever perpetuated this lie is a hell-bound fiend of a man who deserves a swift kick to the kneecaps. I’ve been grocery shopping twice in the past two days. We are out of every major staple except crackers and baking soda, and I’m pretty sure the crackers will be gone by this afternoon. I made a large casserole dish of chicken Parmesan last night, and it was clean before I sat down to eat.
I’m pretty sure that teenagers are thermodynamic miracles. Somehow, they transform all of the energy they consume directly into waste heat. It’s a form of super-entropy that, if properly contained, could raze entire countries. Buildings would be upended, farms laid bare, mountains buried underneath a sea of pastel socks and lip gloss. There will be the gnashing of teeth, the lamentations of women, Old Testament pain and suffering the likes of which mankind has only recently seen in dentists’ offices or in theaters during a Paris Hilton** movie.
I’ll write a grant for this research. But first, I’ve gotta buy a few sides of beef.
* Yes, her nickname is Taco. No, she’s not Hispanic.
** Yes, Paris Hilton is one of my running jokes.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
So your plan is to wait ten years before your next child? I’m not sure how you are going to get past the “no multiple teenagers” rule otherwise. Of course, one side effect of doubling the teenagers is that you get the sum total
teenage years to a minimum. Think of it. For one child you have ten years
total teen. So if you wait 10 years to spread out the teen misery you are now
looking at a decade of constant teen time. That’s almost 1/3 of a standard
lifetime of spending the GNP of Estonia on groceries every week. However,
following Angie’s plan, you can truncate that time to a paltry 11 years. That’s like 9 years probabtion. The difference between armed robbery and murder one.
You’ll escape, if not with the spring of youth, a well deserved sense of having survived something senseless.
I’ve heard it said that having children 3-4 years apart is optimal. If they’re too close together in age, they’re rivals. If they’re too far apart, they’re distant.
My ex and I did not plan either of our 2 kids and ended up with daughter just 361 days older than our son. The fact that our marriage broke down when they were 15 and 14 years respectively may have something to do with this?
dave