So as we have begun preparing for and thinking about having this third baby, I've realized that becoming a family of five sort of demands expansion. Suddenly, our sedan seems a little small to hold three car seats, our two-bedroom home seems even tighter than before, and there's no question about it, our dining table with four chairs will eventually need to be switched out for a larger one that fits more people.
I don't know why I didn't see this coming. A year ago, I read an financial article that claimed that wealthy parents have begun having three children instead of two to show their wealth and status. The thinking is that having three children shows that you are well off financially, because you have to upgrade to larger things to accommodate your large family. I didn't give much thought to it, until I realized that having three kids is kind of the tipping point for lots of big time purchases that a family makes - car, house, college, even vacations and hotel rooms, (with three kids, you at least need to get a roll away bed with a standard hotel room).
Fortunately for us, I pulled out the old infant car seat and it fits, albeit with little wiggle room, right between our other two carseats in my car. So at this point, we don't have to buy a new car, though we may decide to anyway. And the bedroom that the girls share is big and babies come pretty small, so we can put all three kids into the one bedroom (our ancestors certainly wouldn't think anything of it). And it will be a while before baby three is sitting at the table with the family so we can put off the table purchase.
But still, it's kind of crazy that we are at this tipping point. No wonder I heard two moms (both of whom had at least four children) say once "after having three children, it doesn't even matter." Well, there you go.
5 comments:
You're lucky it will all fit! Our little car wouldn't fit three car seats, so we had to upgrade. Not complaining. I like our SUV.
Now, with four, we had the baby sleeping in a big storage closet up until yesterday. We wanted her sleeping through the night before we put her in with a sister :).
I'm intrigued by the storage closet, what did it look like, where did you have it?
Lol. I enjoyed reading your blog. Haven't checked for a while so congrats on baby number 3! Good luck putting 3 together in the same room though. I put ours in the Master bedroom closet. It sounds wrong but our closet is as big as Reena's first room so it works.
Wow, we are having all the same issues. We do have to get rid of my car and We'll probably get a van. (I may have my own midlife crises.) Jeff's car may still work if we put the two kids in booster seats. We are also moving cuz our condo was too small. Fun times! I've noticed the same thing though, the third one is bringing lots of changes with him.
We had three boys together in one room in Cambridge and it worked so well that when we moved to a 3-bedroom here, the boys opted to stay all together and use the 3rd bedroom as a playroom instead.
But for us it was baby #4 that has forced us to finally get a minivan. We'll probably have to breakdown and split up the boys in a few months, too, once the baby's out of his bassinet. Ah well. Just think how posh we look now that we have four kids! : )
Post a Comment