Last night I went out with a friend for “coffee” (heh, which turned into a bombay chicken salad, sprite, and a lemonade) who is expecting her third. Afterwards, in the parkinglot, as we were ready to go, she said “I’m a little nervous about having three. How do you do it?” I had been waiting for this question all night. Something on the tip of her tongue, but was just sort of being avoided. “Adjusting to three children is harder than adusting to having two. You have two hands, so in one, you can hold a baby and in the other, you can hold the hand of the other child, or whatever. When you have three, you have more children than hands. When you are tending to one, you can’t have the other two seperated and doing their own quiet thing all the time. It just doesn’t work out that way. You have to deal with two children interacting with each other at the same while dealing with an infant who needs care. You are having a new baby. A new life is being brought into the world. This is a _life changing event_. If you expect for a baby who has been in the security of a womb for nine months to be born and everything to just carry on as normal, you’re going to wear yourself out trying to stay in control of every little detail. You are going to feel like a failure. Instead, you must recognize the gravity of this life-changing event and allow for yourself an adjustment period for this — not backing down on biblical principles, but just applying more grace to your view of yourself and your children… and not seeing every unchecked item on a schedule as a “failure”, but rather something that may need to be modified or omitted to meet your present needs.” She actually repeated it a few times, and gears seemed to be turning, “This is a life changing event, and I need to allow myself an adjustment period.” I said, yes, yourself, but also your children. This is a hard time for them — they will not have the same measure of attention they are used to, and this makes children do things for attention. It is good time to do things to reinforce that they are still special and loved.”