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Disclaimer: this post talks about pregnancy and stuff. It could be awkward. I might even use the word “ovaries” – I haven’t quite decided yet. If that’s weird for you, just come back another day.

When a couple announces they’re expecting a baby, it’s considered bad form to ask if this was a planned pregnancy. But I always wonder. Don’t you? Sometimes they’ll say something, like “We’d been hoping for a baby” or “This came as a bit of a surprise” or even “This was not supposed to happen.” If they don’t bring it up at all, I have to deal with my curiosity, particularly if the couple already has a kid (or several) and the new baby will be pretty close in age to the other kids.

Aaaaaand I just realized this may make it sound like I’m leading up to my own announcement. NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. I was going to talk about the Bwun and jr being close together, ok?

Here’s what happened. One day, when the Bwun was about 8 months old, the Romgi and I were talking as we drove up to Salt Lake, and he told me that he really loves my name. So much that he’d like to have a daughter and name her after me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more flattered in my life. (You guys are welcome to try topping that, though. I like being flattered.) Of course, I said we’d have to call her something else to avoid confusion. The Romgi jokingly (?) suggested calling her Junior. Well, we did agree on a name like “Junior,” since you can’t really go around calling your daughter Junior. Seriously.

Anyway, I hadn’t even thought about having another kid yet (remember, the Bwun was only 8 months old!), but the idea of having a daughter was suddenly very appealing, especially since the Romgi said something to the effect of “I’m fine with having another baby whenever.” Like I said, a baby girl sounded so exciting. I think I tried to outwardly resist the idea of having another baby because I was afraid people would wonder about my sanity. (And you do, don’t you?) So I wanted to make it seem like it was all the Romgi’s idea. In all fairness to him, he expected another long(ish) wait between me wanting a baby and actually being pregnant. In such a timeline, I’d be due sometime this summer. And in all fairness to me, I never actually bothered to do simple addition and figure out that a new baby and the Bwun could be as close together as 18 months.

Even if I had thought about it, though, 18 months would have seemed so grown up. The Bwun wasn’t even walking at the time, and I knew he would change a lot in the coming months. As it turned out, the Bwun was 14 months old when I found out I was pregnant, and he would have been 21 months old when jr was born, except she had an early arrival.

So. 20 months apart. What has it been like? Not nearly as bad as I expected. I was right about everyone thinking I was crazy for having kids so close together, and a lot of people told me it would be impossibly difficult. At 20 months old, the Bwun was speaking in two-word sentences like “Beebee Joo” and later “June poop.” When he hit two years, he used 4-5 words together and could count to 10. And now he talks almost nonstop.

Yes, he’s come a long way developmentally in the past six months – I can see how, in some ways, spacing our kids farther apart might have been easier. But this has worked out pretty well for us. I started school again right around the time jr began sleeping through the night, and I think if we had planned on having her closer to when the Bwun turned 2, I wouldn’t have been willing to do classes on campus. Both my kids are good-natured, mellow, and mind-blowingly charming, so having them close together has been comparatively easy. I definitely won’t be having another baby for several years, if ever (and you can just go ahead and assume that if I make any sort of announcement sooner than that, it’s one of those “This was not supposed to happen” times), but I love things the way they are.

P.S. I wrote this post in my head at 4am when I couldn’t sleep. It sounded pretty awesome then – which means I can’t vouch for how it actually turns out. Also, I wasn’t ever going to say “ovaries,” but it seemed like a fun introduction. Again, I came up with this in the middle of the night…