prevention... of a sort.

Hola, I’m Stephanie. (Hey, I just got done listening to Diego drone on about baby jaguar. Cut me some slack.) I’m one of Pamela’s IRL friends and fellow bloggers. When Pamela sent me an e-mail about guest-posting here at the Dayton Time, I deleted it. Really. I mean come on, have you read my blog, Pamela? There’s no way I can run with the big dogs on your blog. First of all, I’m way too much of a conservative. And I’m not all that funny. 

And as the days go on and I read your guests’ wonderful posts, I’m more and more convinced of my lack of talent. But then I thought, hey, what’s better for a blog than a little diversity, right?

So… shall we commence today’s topic. One that, amazingly, hasn’t been covered yet by Pamela’s awesome line-up of guest-posters. And I’ll try my best to bring my A-game.

Drumroll, please…

Things For Pamela To Read (and read again) In Case She Ever Starts Thinking She Wants To Have Baby #5. Or in case she ever starts thinking about a little unprotected roll in the hay with The Mister. (I call it prevention… of a sort.)

We all know that shortly post-baby, you forget all the nasty things about being pregnant and especially you forget the capital F.U.N. that is labor and delivery. So I thought I’d try to counteract that baby amnesia, if it is at all possible. Here goes:

• Re-read your own pregnancy post, Pamela. It’s one of my favorites. 
• Baby #5. Need I say more? That’s 5, think slowly about it, fffiiivvveee, children. Do you think your bed can hold seven people in it comfortably? I think you’d end up with more than one child sleeping on your face.
• Speaking of which, sex with little people around (four of them now, to be exact, in the Dayton household) kind of loses its charm, doesn’t it? Do you have a lock on the bedroom door, over there? Or is it kind of like college sex… hide under the covers and try to be as quiet as possible. (Bring out the Boone’s, by the way. Or maybe that’s just me. Oops, I may have said too much.)
• There are lots of great reasons not to have sex now, besides the aforementioned general busyness in the bedroom. You could sing all the reasons, like a weird rendition of “My Favorite Things”. Fatigue, feeling like if someone else needs something from you, you’re going to drop-kick them (definitely not have a quickie), leaking milk, babies crying, did I mention being bone-tired?, headaches from wrangling kids all day, not being able to see the bed because of all the laundry on it waiting to be folded… these are a few of my favorite things. Catchy, isn’t it? 
• Try to visualize hours and hours of pain. Real pain. Not the “ouch, the sticky adhesive on my pad caught a little hair down there” kind of pain. The “oh my goodness I think I’m going to die” kind of pain. Remember that? Do you really want to do that again?
• Less time for you to be on the computer, blogging. I mean, more time for you to be spending breaking up fights, taking a stand against little knee-kickers, and dealing with kindergarten teachers.
• I’m sure you don’t want a repeat of someone ordering, ahem, asking you, in your last week of pregnancy to make them some baked oatmeal. Really, who has that kind of nerve??
• Having 5 kids… the college fund would definitely use up your discretionary income. Could you imagine having to choose between college or coffee? College. Or. Coffee. You tell me what would win out.
• Let’s think about this logically. Right now you’ve got things covered. Two parents, four kids. One kid for each parent’s arm. Unless you plan on growing more arms, another kid would totally throw off that symmetry.You'd be well on your way to your own Jon & Pamela Plus Eight (hmmmm, not as catchy, is it?) 

Okay, I’m sure there are more things to consider before embarking upon another pregnancy. But I’ll leave those up to your own wild imagination, Pamela.

And in all truth, I think more Daytons would be a blessing to the world. Welcome, little Elliott!