THE other day, I arrived at the swimming pool with the three little pets, who were hyper, as they always are when we go swimming. The woman coming held the door open. "You've got your hands full," she said. Then my wife comes lumbering up, eight months pregnant and looking about 18 months pregnant. "Oh Jesus," said the woman. "They're about to get a whole lot 'effin fuller," I said under my breath.
At some point over the past year, the notion of having another child came up. We argued it back and forth, but each time, we decided no, it was crazy. There wasn't any point in drawing up a list of pros and cons. It was completely illogical, irrational -- nuts, basically.
So we did it anyway. The one thing I've discovered is you can't apply reason to these decisions. It's like the existence of God. Either you think He's there or you don't. Either you're having another baby or you're not. We are.
The other night in bed, I said to this enormous person who used to be my wife: "How the hell are we going to cope?" "I know, I know," she said. "No, no, it's not a rhetorical question. Tell me how we are going to cope."
So she calmly explained to me how we'd cope, which is a special power she has. And it seemed plausible enough at the time. So I went to sleep. And then had to get up two or three times in the night to cope with the various ailments of my existing children.
"Do you realise," I said, when I got back into bed after dealing with Mike's headache, which he insisted was in his foot, "that in a couple of weeks' time, we'll have all this plus a newborn.""I know, I know," she said, climbing wearily from the bed to go to the bathroom for the 15th time that night.
Preparing the ground for this new arrival has been more difficult than we thought. I got a book in the library all about new babies, and have read it endlessly to Conor. He's two and regards himself as the head of the household -- a belief that is only partially false. So far, he has refused to believe that there's a new baby on the way. When we ask him "where's the new baby?" he shakes his head violently. "No baby!"
If we ask him what's in his mammy's tummy, he says "puds" -- meaning spuds. When I read that book to him, he points to various things -- the baby's bath, the baby's cot, and says "Conor's bath! Conor's cot!" But Conor isn't the only worry. For the past two weeks, Mike has been reacting badly to school. Someone finally suggested that maybe he was anxious about the impending arrival. Since then we've been getting all kinds of stories about kids of all ages reacting badly to new babies.
I guess this new arrival is different to the others in that we're a unit now. The kids are at an age where they're aware of the size and feel of their family. A new member? Just like that? And we don't get a say? Hardly seems fair, does it?