Now she's complete. NOT.

Finally one of my little friends swims up river and arrives successfully at his intended destination. Kid number 2 is on the way. I figure, now she's complete. Not. The house is too small she says. Hmmm. She never wanted to have kids and never wanted to live in the suburbs, now we can't breed fast enough, we're gonna live in Leave it to Beaver Land forever and we need a bigger house. She was happy, I wasn't.

Where do you want to move to I said? Nowhere, let's add onto our house she said. That's too much hassle, I'd rather move I said. No, I want to add on to our house she said. That's a great idea, that's exactly what I was thinking I said. I learned a long time ago, if you're gonna lose, lose quick.

I've created a monster

Child birth. It was the most drastic and rapid personality transformation I have ever seen. She went from a tough, no one is gonna mess with me attitude to a drool covered, diaper changing, baby loving mom. Life was perfect I thought. Not. One day she comes home and says, I don't feel complete. No sweat I said, take a pottery course. "No, I need more", she says.

So back at it we went but it wasn't working this time. We tried everything, standing on our heads, jumping up and down, wearing boxers instead of briefs, cutting out alcohol, coffee and stress. None of it worked and lead to more stress and the need to drink more alcohol and coffee.

The last straw was when I had to put a sample in a jar, put it in my shirt pocket to keep it warm and rush it to the lab for testing where I waited in line for 20 minutes to see the receptionist. Once I reached the front of the line I passed the receptionist my requisition form and was about to reach into my pocket for the jar when the receptionist says (in a loud voice that boomed throughout the crowded waiting room) "sir, do you have your sperm sample"? I broke into a cold sweat and thought I was going to faint. I didn't think life could get any worse. I was wrong. Two days later the lab phoned to say they had lost my sample and could I bring another over right away.

Honey, let's meet the neighbours.

Being the type of people that never wanted to meet anyone we didn't already know, we had lived in our home for 4 years and hardly knew our neighbours. That all changed when our first child was born. We started taking the baby for walks through the hood. Up until this time, whenever we ventured out we would wait till dark, make a dash for our car, roll up the windows and drive through stop signs and red lights until we were safely beyond the borders of Leave it to Beaver Land. On one of our baby strolls we walked about 10 houses south from ours and realized there was a park overlooking the Bluffs with a view of the lake that was full of happy, chatty people with kids of their own. That was like living in your house for 4 years and never opening that one closet door and one day opening it and realizing you have an indoor pool and there's a party going on with a bunch of strangers.

It's funny how if you're walking a baby in a stroller or dragging a hunk of fur on a leash, it's like automatic membership into the club. It's a great ice breaker and you share a common bond of suffering. Whether it's a baby human or a baby pet, you can spend hours with other club members discussing what and when to feed them and then try to figure out how to train them where and when to go number 2.

And to think I wasted the first 36 years of my life being irresponsible, self indulgent, narrow minded, happy, fullfilled and child free.

And then there were three

For years I wanted to have a kid and she didn't. After many failed attempts (this is the only process I can think of where failure can be so enjoyable) it worked. I was happy, she wasn't. I figured this was better than both of us being unhappy.

I still have the first ultrasound picture of Skeletor our bony bundle of joy.

The minute Skeletor was born, aliens kidnapped my wife and replaced her with a baby loving human that could only speak Googoogagaese. Noone was allowed to touch or look at the baby. This was her toy and she wasn't going to share it, not only that, now she wanted more.