When I was a young woman, I had pretty much decided that I didn’t want any kids. This feeling was supported by the fact that if you showed me a baby and a puppy, I was *always* more interested in the puppy.

I had nieces I was crazy about, but I was required to give them back to my siblings regularly. So I was distrustful of the people who told me, “Oh, when you have your own children you’ll be crazy about them, too. Go for it!”

It seemed like a huge gamble: have a baby, trusting you’d be into the parenting thing ultimately. What do you do if you’re not? Even Amazon doesn’t have that good of a return policy.

Well, I wound up having a baby, and was surprised to learn that I could love anyone more than I loved myself. I mean, I knew that kind of feeling was possible, but it was just a hypothetical construct until the first Kid, Interrupted arrived.

Then I wound up having another baby, and was surprised again to learn that loving the second Kid, Interrupted wouldn’t diminish the love I felt for the first KI. (Srsly: I thought that could happen.)

The third Kid, Interrupted surprised me in so many ways, right from the start. But the biggest surprise was the lesson that the Universe’s plans for me are much better than my own.

But the fourth Kid, Interrupted, laughing at me as he hiked himself on his baby furniture…he gave me the biggest surprise of all: it is impossible to have too much of a good thing. And what I get when I think I can’t handle one more thing is, quite frankly, truly awe-inspiring.

What the heck is she doing now?

© E. Stocking Evans 2016