Keeping up with the Tanakas

Mina and Sam have a new cousin. We went to go visit mom and baby, both doing well, at the hospital. Seeing him reminded me of how fitting the word for baby is in Japanese. "Akachan" is kind of like saying "little red one," and yes his face is so red and cute and everything, but that is not really the reason I am writing. I am writing because I was positively bowled over by the feelings seeing him brought on in me. I was completely drunk with the desire to have another baby. I can feel it in my entire body. I yearn for it from the depths of my soul. I ache for another baby with all my heart. Thank goodness my head is still in the game! I am shocked by these feelings, though. I cannot believe how instinctual they seem, how deeply programed my female body is to react to a newborn baby this way. My emotions were so persistent and intense that I brought it up with Toshi. He said, "hoshi, kedo . . ." meaning, "I want another, but . . ." That didn't help me much. I expected him to say "muri." "Impossible." Then I wouldn't have to think about it anymore, but think about it is all I have been able to do for the past week. I keep imagining what our family of five would be like. I started wondering about the details, like how many years apart the kids would be in school and where would we all sleep. I remembered holding a friend's 7 month old daughter and grinning like a fool, cooing at her to coax out those precious smiles that melt your heart like hot fudge on vanilla ice cream. Holding her was the spark that started all this nonsense and seeing the day old cousin did nothing but fan the flames. I talked to two friends about it. One, a mother of three, told me that three is perfect and suggested I get pregnant as soon as Sam has been accepted to preschool. The other said that she has been thinking about having another one too and wouldn't it be great to do it at the same time! Maybe this all seems normal and reasonable for a woman of child-bearing age, but if you know me, you will know that thoughts of motherhood had never even crossed my mind until I found myself pregnant. You might know that I thought raising one child in a foreign country was just about all I could handle, until number two came along. So you see, for me to be actively contemplating a third child is baffling to me. What I think it really speaks to though is the fact that I am happy. That I am not at my wits ends. That I feel that I can take on more. That I don't feel lost or helpless or frustrated. Life is good and when it is, you want more of what you've got. When I think about it again though, about breastfeeding and not sleeping and not having time to sit down to a meal and talking about nothing but the children with my husband, when I think about buying yet another airplane ticket every summer and those kanji books that are gathering dust on my shelves . . . when I think about things like this . . . I think we will be getting a dog.