1. Wiping the baby’s poop off the baby.

2. Wiping the baby’s poop off myself.

3. Wiping the baby’s poop off the dog after he eats the diaper I left on the carpet while I rush the toddler to the potty.

4. Wiping the toddler after he doesn’t quite make it to the potty because I was yelling at the dog.

5. Scrubbing the hot dog juice off the baby’s head after she dumps her brother’s plate on herself.

6. Scrubbing ketchup out of everything in the family room.

7. Wiping down the high chair so next time I can feed the toddler out of reach of the baby.

8. Washing faces before nap time so I don’t have to wash all the pillows AFTER nap time.

9. Picking up whatever that thing was the dog just threw up on the floor.

10. Giving myself a hooker bath because I haven’t taken a real shower in three days and right now I am choosing to nap instead.

Today, I am thankful for baby wipes.

This is what my house is like on a daily basis. I think 3,ooo women screaming in excitement and pounding music all in one ballroom will be a nice rest for my ears.

…have dark circles under them no concealer can hide.

…are coated in yesterday’s smudged mascara.

…haven’t had a brow wax in 4 months.

…are getting wrinkles, but we’ll call them laugh-lines.

…are on the back of her head.

…brim with pride at first steps.

…and brim with tears at first boo boos.

…can see in the dark.

…have seen the same episode of Yo Gabba Gabba a zillionty times.

…read the same bedtime story over and over.

…are hard to pry open after sleepless nights.

…cry tears of frustration.

…cry tears of joy.

…smile more than they frown.

…are full of love for her children.

Happy Valentine’s Day, whoever your Valentine may be.

Yesterday, one of the mommy bloggers I stalk on Twitter follow, Kim from Dirty Diaper Laundry, announced she was pregnant. Another blogger I love, The Feminist Breeder, is currently deep in the throws of attempting conception, specifically trying to conceive a baby girl through the magic voodoo scientific anecdotal Shettles Method. Those two mamas combined with my sister-in-law’s baby girl (due in March) and Emmie Bee’s TWINS (scheduled to arrive March 3rd) and I am suffering from a severe case of baby fever.

I love Baby Evan more than I ever thought I could love anyone, but he was never going to be an only child. I dream of a house full of kids all gathered for family dinners and movie nights and summer vacations. I want my children to have brothers and sisters they talk to and confide in and fight with. And ideally, I’d like to have all those pregnancies over with before I reach an “advanced maternal age” (according to the March of Dimes, that magic number is 35). So if I’m 27 almost 28 now and want to have 4 kids total, I need to have 3 more in the next 7 years. A full term pregnancy is 40 weeks and I’d like to give myself at least the same amount of time off, so three pregnancies and recovery could take 240 weeks. So if you take 7 years and subtract 240 weeks then you get my biological clock banging against my uterus with both its fists and shouting.

Just as soon as I decide I’m ready to start trying, it’s 2 am and I’m up with Baby Evan and he still won’t eat any food and now I’ve started bleeding from my right nipple for no obvious reason and all my bras are ruined and I still don’t fit in my pre-pregnancy clothes and I cannot even imagine why anyone in the world has a second baby.

But today Baby Evan woke up smiling and laughing and full of cuddles. He’s started walking without any encouragement and fearlessly lets go of the couch to fling himself at the cat or the dog. He is loud and social and friendly and grabby and funny and loving. He’s growing up so fast I feel like the nursery door is the entrance to a time warp and ever time the baby goes through it we lose another month. If I have another child I could restart all the milestones – first smile, first laugh, first food, first tooth – and do a better job at the things that didn’t go so well – the start of breastfeeding, introducing a bottle, setting sleep patterns.  Maybe the next one will be a girl and our family can be balanced again. Maybe it will be a boy and I’ll be sadly outnumbered but very well loved. Maybe it will take me five years to get pregnant and our next will be our last. Maybe it’s better to give Baby Evan more time as an only child before we throw another full-time job baby into the picture. Maybe I’m going to spend so much time wondering what’s the right thing to do that E will end up deployed and everything will end up on hold. Maybe I’m already pregnant and don’t even know it and in four months you’ll see me on that TLC show giving birth in the Stop & Shop.

Sooner or later, I’m going to have to stop thinking about all that and jump.