One, two, three, four times Samuel!

For the first three months of his life, Samuel was a cry baby. I don't mean this in a cruel way, I'm not making fun of my son, no, Samuel was actually crying for at least 3 or 4 hours a day. Every day. Nonstop. Sometimes we felt like we were going to go crazy or as if we were - already - failing as parents. In retrospect we know that there was nothing we could have done better but in the moment it was almost unbearable. Our tiny, beautiful, new-to-this-world baby was seemingly in pain, in distress or at least very, very unhappy. And there was nothing we didn't try but nothing made him stop. I'm sure all of you know how horrible it is to see your own child cry, particularly when they are to young to verbalize what it is that is causing their discomfort. Listening to his cries for hours every day and knowing that it'll happen again tomorrow, well, that was as close to hell as I've ever been.
Having said all of this, today, almost 8 months after his 3-months anniversary, it is already almost impossible to imagine. I've completely forgotten about how horrible it was and how close we sometimes were to giving up (whatever that means). Even writing it down now, doesn't change the fact that I can't really relate to the situation we were in anymore.

Isn't that odd?

What stays with you are the memories of first baths, first smiles, the smell of your babys skin, the touch of it's soft hair, cute noises and funny faces. The rest is (almost) gone. I'm sure if you would have asked me then, it would have been difficult for me to imagine that at some point Samuel would stop crying and that he would become a rather easy to please, happy little guy. The thought of having more children with whom we could experience the same kind of rocky first months would have been the last straw.

So, it's even the more miraculous, that I've been thinking a lot about siblings lately. After I was born my mother was hoping to have more children but it just never happened for various reasons. Therefore, I was dealt the cards of an only child which I hated every single day of my childhood. In fact, every year when it was time to write my Christmas whishlist, a little brother or sister always made the top of the list. While I don't believe people who grow up being an only child are less empathetic or more selfish than others I would still prefer Samuel to have multiple brothers or sisters. In my opinion (and yes, this comes from someone who could only make this observation from the outside) there is nothing better than having siblings. There will be always somebody who will play with you, listens to you and somebody who you can confide in when your parents are oh-so-mean (think puberty). I also imagine sibling love to be something very special that I didn't get to experience but would never want to prevent Samuel from having.

Yesterday a very lovely friend of mine asked me how many kids I was planning on having and I gave her my usual answer: 4! It got me thinking, though. Isn't four to much to handle? Will we ever be able to afford the financial reality that this large a number of children entails? Then again: I've never been someone to base a decision this emotional and significant on budgetary deliberations.
In the end I hope that we will be able to make this very important decision of when we'll have another baby, then another and another (?) on the basis of how we feel rather than on how we think what is right. How about you? If you have multiple children, how did you decide when and if the time had come for another child? How did you know when to stop? And if you have 'only' one child - is it enough for you? How many babys do you plan on having?