A third? Maybe I'm mad.

So, it's been a while. It's been a rough, misery-filled, relentless couple of months. Peggy's first birthday, an occasion I hoped to celebrate with great joy and the type of fun that my funny girls deserves, was instead full of vomit and tears and fevers and trips to the hospital. Peggy was well (then), but Otis was dreadfully ill, lethargic and quiet and too pink and completelt un-Otis like. He threw up for 14 hours straight, and then on and off for another 3 days. Eventually, upon our third presentation in Emergency, he was admitted for dehydration, and much later that same day, was re-fuelled via a nasty, invasive drip that he absolutely hated but which did the trick and got him back to health.

And then Peggy had it. Not so severely though... She's a tough little bird, determined and sure, and Otis is so sensitive. I wonder whether their emotional attributes somehow equate with the way their bodies process viruses. He gets hit hard, she battles on. Both need me so desperately when sick though, and of course I'm always there, but I can't say it was easy this time around. You see, they were also battling colds, Peggy actually had a throat infection and was on antibiotics and at first I thought the medication was the source of the runny nappies...

Phil was sick too, and one no good very bad day he hurt his back, all three of them cried and moaned and needed, needed, needed me all day long, and I faltered. I yelled, there was some throwing of things - nothing too scary, just a dummy or two - and I cried and, yep, I needed my Mum.

Now, they are reasonably well. They take a multivitamin every day - they love it, a little fruit flavoured, fish shaped "burstlet" - and I feel fairly confident that no family would suffer from gastro four times in a single year, so hopefully we won't have any more vomiting again this side of Christmas. But Peggy does have a rattly cough and sleeps... Well, like a baby, a tiny baby, not like a person who walks and talks should. I am tired but I have been to hell and know what it looks like and this isn't it. Things are "good". Not perfect, but I've come to realise that perfect moments are just that, moments, and parenting is made up of mostly very imperfect moments. But they still make me grin, and make my heart feel full.

And so, yes, we're looking at having another. Soon. Seems insane, I know. But I want to one day have some semblance of a career, so I don't think that prolonging the baby stage would be wise.

We debated the merits of going ahead with number three for a while there. Phil wasn't convinced, he talked about finances and houses and how lucky we are to have what we've got. Yes, the old "pigeon pair" thing came up too, which was silly on his part as that's never been the focus for me.

I get where he's coming from. We aren't rich, not even close, and I am sure that two would make more sense financially. But the reason to have another trumps all of his arguments. My babies deserve to have more than one sibling each. I want them to feel surrounded by people who love them and get them and accept them. That's what siblings do. They have a secret language, a shared past, they can communicate without words. I have four, and my childhood was so full as a result. Two simply doesn't seem enough. For Phil and I, yes, maybe it would be. But I don't think it would be for them, and they are the ones who motivate my choices these days.

Otis asks me constantly for another baby. He'd be happy with a boy or a girl, but if it's a boy he'd like it to be called "Otis". And while I like the idea of another him, because he's an angel and I can't get enough of him, I know enough now to know that every child is frighteningly unique. Who knows who we will end up with?