Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
If you’d asked me when I was, say 25, how many kids I thought I might have, I feel like I would have said two, but definitely not three. Four sounded foreign to me. Forget about it. I grew up in a household with four kids, and while it never seemed that chaotic to me (which I’ve since discovered was purely because of how self-centered children are), two seemed like an ideal number, especially as I got older and realized just how much work even one child could be early on.
Well, as they say, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. I am the proud parent of four children (now) aged 14, 8, 7 and 3. My youngest just turned 3 years old and that, of course, is a time for reflection. Some of those reflections are more in-depth than others. For instance, I can’t remember exactly when it happened (though it was well before now) but at some point, my wife and I started getting full nights of sleep again. The bigger kids have all been sleeping all night long and in their own beds for years, and the baby, well, he definitely sleeps all night long but he does it ONLY when he’s in our bed. But, over time, he’s taken to sleeping longer and longer in his own bed, and before I knew it, I was able to sleep the whole night and wake up to my youngest still in his bed, sleeping comfortably and happily.
The biggest reflection is one that also comes with a new, yet already-experienced sense of trepidation: We’re getting closer and closer to my youngest going to daycare, or as we have in Washington, D.C., Pre-K. As difficult as it is to work with a toddler in my sight and lap all the time, the idea that soon, and very soon, my house will be empty for most of the day as my wife and I work from various spaces has me in my feelings a…
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