I figure I've got 3.5 seconds before Gianna would like a word with me. She is six weeks old tomorrow! Wow. That was quick. She sleeps pretty well, but she seems to seriously want time with Daddy when he gets home, which is 11 pm. A bit late, but I'm happy to hand her over and go to sleep til she gets hungry or he gives her back. I think it's hilarious. Not really. But an odd trend for one so young.
Today is the end of a decade. The last time that happened, I was on my way north from LA, with my husband, about three months along with our oldest. We were driving a Saturn SC2 with a cat in it. Said cat is still alive, and now belongs to my sister. SC2 is long gone. Sadly.
This year was quite a year. Really quite a year. Some things I probably should not say too much about, yet strangely enough those were some of the biggest things. Probably the biggest thing, to sum up, was that we got out of debt. All of it. Except the mortgage. Wow. In fact, I just got a letter from HSBC that my dinky little $300 credit card has been cancelled due to lack of use. I was going to do that myself, but oh well, too late now. Grr.... Our credit cards were paid off last year almost to the dollar by our tax refund. We have not touched them since. I've also been such a good girl that my new debit card allows me to withdraw enough in one swoop to fix the car when it breaks. Last time I had to write a check.
Why? Because of Dave Ramsey. We LOVE Dave Ramsey. If he was Catholic, he should be a saint.
The other big thing this year is that we had baby #5. Gianna is doing great, and we are happy to have her. She is just beautiful. All the kids adore her. Daddy adores her. It's funny, because at the start of this decade, I was totally panicked about just one, because we had no money. Now, I have five. What happened? A lot. Much of it spiritual, much of it circumstance, but as Obi-Wan Kenobi says in the Star Wars movies, "There is no such thing as coincidence." Coincidence is my personal reason for believing in God. Just the way He speaks to me, I guess.
Will I be having five more children this decade? While physically possible, I don't really think so. But I can't really rule it out, either. I am in my early 30's after all. A new house and van will have to happen, though. Seriously getting tight around here.
Gianna says my time is up. Have a blessed new year, new decade, and get busy turning over a new leaf. It's exciting!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
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Hopefully you'll stop at 5 kids. If everyone does what you've done, our natural resources won't support the coming generations. It is arrogant and selfish to add so many to the already over-burdened planet we all live in.
ReplyDeleteActually, it's more efficient for just 20% of the population to have 10 kids per couple while everyone else has no kids, than for 100% of the population to have 2 kids per couple. The rate of growth would be the same - less than replacement, due to some children dying before adulthood - but each individual family with children would likely be far more efficient in their resource usage. More speculatively, it also seems likely that the grown-up children would carry some of those resource-efficient habits into adulthood, even those in the 80% without children.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, whoever said replacement population or less had to be done by each couple having two and exactly two kids was an idiot. There are lots of people choosing not to have children at all these days, and lots just having one child per couple. The US specifically is pretty close to replacement population, and is likely to follow most of Europe into being under replacement population in the near future. It's mainly the third-world countries that are still experiencing significant population growth, and even there the rate of growth is slowing. Population growth is actually expected to peak partway through this century and then to start to decline.
So . . . which is arrogant and selfish? Raising a very resource-efficient family and helping to maintain the replacement level of population for a generation that will be paying taxes into the social programs that will likely help support you in your old age (assuming you are in the US), or anonymously trolling people who are doing the right thing for the environment and society so that you can feel self-righteous?
And annaberri, yes, you may flame me for feeding the trolls :-) I just get irritated with people who can't think for themselves or manage basic mathematics, research, or logic. Even if this person is just trolling and doesn't take this seriously, there are lots of people who actually buy into the two-child maximum nonsense.
And who may you be, anonymous? Don't worry, no one is interested in big families anymore. Silly people.
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