The Perfect Gap

Dalin and I have been thinking. Well, let's be honest--I've been thinking. Thinking about our family. Now that I'm a stay-at-home mom, I have very different priorities. Feeding the baby comes before everything--seriously, everything. Even before eating myself. I'm so busy taking care of Tenley half the time that I forget to eat. One night, it was almost midnight and I was in bed when all of a sudden I realized I hadn't had breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Just lots to drink (which I realize is something I constantly want since I'm nursing) and a few snacks. I hadn't even felt hungry, I was so distracted. Anyway, my priorities have changed which is what one would naturally expect when having a baby, but I didn't realize how much of my day would be filled with taking care of that baby. Only during her many brief naps do I get the chance to try and get schoolwork done, wash dishes, pick up the apartment, or gather laundry together. I'm lucky if I can sneak in a shower somewhere in my day. And more often than not, the only things that I get accomplished some days are feeding and changing Tenley.

As a stay-at-home mom, I consider this my job. It truly is a job, much more than I thought it would be. Not that it's really particularly hard, but it certainly is time-consuming. Instead of working 40 hours a week, I now work 24 hours a day. I work the night shift and the day shift, and am basically on-call 100% of the time. In addition, I am the maid, maintenance, interior decorator, planner, chef, and driver. With all these jobs, the payments I receive are joy, satisfaction, and eternal rewards, which is more than enough for me; however I do think some financial reimbursement would be nice especially considering that I am now one of the (rare) few women that stay home with their children and ensure that they are being cared for adequately and being taught to have faith, morals, and values, but unfortunately the world isn't really at a place where it rewards people for those things. Apparently they aren't that important to mankind anymore. I didn't mean to sound bitter in this post (though I was mostly just being sarcastic) so let me get back on track.

If you know me at all, you know I have always wanted a big family. Twelve used to be the magic number because I wanted to have a "Cheaper by the Dozen" family (the book version mostly--though the movie version is still fun). I thought that having that many siblings would be a blast and family reunions would be even more fun. I still think a family of twelve would be awesome, but over the years I eventually settled on seven children. Seven would be the perfect number. Yeah, for the world today, seven is still a lot. But I want my own version of the Weasley family (Harry Potter reference) and I always thought six boys and one girl would be a blast. At this rate, I am doubting whether I will get my six boys I originally wanted, but I love having a daughter so much now that I'm fine with that. The big question is, when should we have our next child? I'm truthfully on board for sooner rather than later. That's why I discussed my being a stay-at-home mom above. That is now my job and I'm going to do my best to succeed at it. So why wait? If that's what I am doing, then I may as well have my other children here, too. Maybe that reasoning is weird, but I have had so much joy with Tenley already that I cannot even wait to meet my other children. Anyhow, I'm not talking about having a baby nine months from now, but I am wondering what the "ideal" age gap is between children. I loved being a year apart from Payson (not that I want something that close) but what do you think? One year? One and a half? Two? Four? We probably will be praying for this answer on our own, but I am truly curious about what you think.

So help me out. What do *you* think the perfect age gap is between children?

Love watching her snuggle with her dad. She loves him so much already!