#79

I'm gonna let you in on a secret: People with two kids think of having only one kid as "a nice hobby".

This is, of course, horse-shit, but when you go through that second infancy, everything before kid #2 starts to look like an extended sunday afternoon seen through a gauzy filter. People with three kids are in an entirely different class than me. I have heard legends of people having MORE THAN THREE. Furtive whispers in the dark, rumors, even a few sightings in the wilds of suburbia. If you are wealthy and can afford staff members, I suppose you could squeeze out kids until they give you a reality special, but if you are a middle-class urbanite, sooner or later you're going to run out of room for extra murphy beds.

So two it is. I have no desire to weep from exhaustion yet again, I've only got two hands to hold while crossing the road, and I'm not going to leave the city until I have a chance to be one of those ancient urban dwellers that can always get a seat on the subway. Jack seems to be with me on this. He and Isaac helped mom work her shift in the childcare room of the food co-op the other day. Apparently they had a pretty small baby in there for most of the shift. As I walked the boys home, Jack looked up at me, one eye squinting in the sun.

"Y'know, dad? It doesn't take THREE babies to make trouble for a four-year-old and a five-and-a-half-year-old."

"Oh, yeah? How many does it take?"

"It takes ONE, dad." There is a smile on his face, but it is an ironic smile.

" It just. Takes. One."