More bundles of joy?

Is one enough? Been thinking about having a little sister (hopefully) for Kyle. Not really planning to have another child immediately, as it will be too much of a challenge for me now to manage taking care of Kyle, my studies, working part time in church and spending time with hubby. Cannot imagine myself doing all of that while having a baby bump at the same time. Especially when I did not have an easy pregnancy previously, just dread the thought about being pregnant again.

I noticed that it is really common for mothers to have their kids between 1 and a half or 2 years apart. Heard from some mothers that there are many advantages; the kids can be playmates, you can put them in the same pre-schools, primary and secondary school together, etc.

L has also mentioned before that kids with siblings do have less tendency to be self centred as they learn to survive with another person who is also vying for the parent’s attention. It seems that it get easier for the parents as well. As their energies and attention are shared among two children, they get less hang ups and parenting seem to get easier with experience.

When I think about this 5 year old child that I saw in church a few months ago, I think twice about not having a sibling for Kyle. This girl was sitting on the floor, together with her parents, about a quarter of a metre away from us and browsing through her book. Out of curiousity, Kyle glanced at her book a couple of times and was met with so much hostility from that little girl. She glared at him each time she caught him looking at her, and gave him threatening looks. She even raised her palm at some point, ready to hit Kyle if he inched any closer. And Kyle was only barely a year old then.

Her parents did not pay much attention to her hostile behaviour and so hardly made any effort to correct her. I saw her this morning at church again, this time, she was fully engrossed with her Nintendo DS and she clearly ignored her father when asked to take communion.

I suppose bringing up this example is a little extreme. This girl is probably a result of over-indulging parents that do not know to discipline her.

It’s crucial that I will have my second child for the right reasons. Parenting has not been the easiest journey so far and Kyle is only so young! Cannot imagine the kind of challenges that Keith and I will experience once Kyle enters primary school, adolescence, etc. Although it has been alot of fun so far and we feel so blessed to have Kyle in our lives.

So the 2nd bundle of joy can wait, although I am not getting any younger, maybe 2010 or 2011? Kyle will be 4 by then, and he will have so much other things in his life, like school and friends, and will probably take pride to assume big kor-kor responsibilities.

I want to enjoy more time with Kyle for now.