Jason Avant over at PetCobra and DadCentric will not be having any more children.
This would be mostly of interest to him and his wife, if it weren’t for the excellent after-action report he wrote about the why and how of the vasectomy he had this month.
Now, I would guess that at least some on the DadWagon contemplate squeezing out another child or two, but I am done. As with Jason, it’s no reflection on the depth of love for my current children, nor a diminishing of my strange new infatuation with babies in general (I used to be quite the hater before I had my own). Rather, for my wife and I, two kids is and was The Plan.
Let me tell my fellow DadWagoners, who have one kid apiece, something I’ve learned over the last 20 months: two kids is a lot of work.
It is precisely two times as much work as having one kid, not the optimistic 1.5 multiplier I was told. There is no way to neutralize both kids at the same time. If one naps, the other yaps. If one’s hungry, the other’s tired. If one has to run to the potty, the other has a full diaper.
And yet, the cloud lifts. Every day since Nico was born has gotten just a little bit easier. After 20 months, we are now at the point where the two of them can peacefully play together without refereeing for five or ten minutes at a stretch. There is the possibility of reading half a newspaper article. Or writing at least the header of a DadWagon post, before they need attending to.
Travel is also showing signs of promise. I am, God help me, taking both of them to San Francisco solo in two weeks, because I believe I am ready and they are ready.
What I won’t do is give back those hard-earned gains by bringing another helpless yob into our home. So yes, it would seem that my vas deferens might also meet the knife at some point in the not-to-distant future.
That’s why Jason’s additional camcorder PSA for DadCentric caught my attention. For those of us with testicles, it’s kind of like a cross between the Blair Witch Project and a Gallagher fruit-comedy routine. Watch at your own peril:
Went three and out. Had the snip snip this past October.
I cover the two surgical techniques here. Some HMO’s are trying to push men into a 3rd option, which involves something called a Sledge-O-Matic. Good thing I have a PPO.
Ha, ha, you said PPO.
A sledge-o-matic might also be medically indicated in the treatment of cancerous tumors or perhaps priapism. As long as insurers could bill Medicare for each individual treatment, I’m sure it will be a big hit.
Mr. Big Dubya, I admire your three-and-out approach. Let’s call it the Cincinnati Bengals family planning method.