by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor (Make Mine A Double)
Immediately after having Elby, I truly thought I firmly fell into the “one and done” camp. Even though plenty of my new mommy buddies were of the “two and through” variety, I had not been totally convinced to even have one let alone more and I thought that one baby was challenging enough. As time wore on though I became less certain of my stance and not a little jealous of the women who seemed so clear about the number of children they wanted.
When Elby was about eighteen-months old, I started unofficially polling women on how they knew they wanted another baby. A few of these women already had two kids, some were newly knocked up and one, my friend Lara, was ready to pop. I met Lara when our babies were seven-months and she was always pretty decisive. We shopped daycares together back in the day and while I would have stayed for the entire tour at each and every place, one withering glance from Lara told me all I needed to know and saved me quite a bit of time. She was the perfect person to quiz on the whole “how did you know you wanted another” thing.
Raising preemie twin girls plus a sassy preschooler while trying to make a book deadline isn't for wussies. In her Mommy Track'd column, Make Mine a Double, Stefanie Wilder-Taylor takes imperfect parenting to an art form. Each week she breaks the pristine laws of the mommy manuals as she reveals how she attempts to parent her three children through instinct, intelligence, and a lot of trial and error. She is the author of Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, Naptime Is the New Happy Hour, and It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman. She’s appeared numerous times on The Today Show, is a member of the Us Weekly Fashion Police and writes on her blog, Baby On Bored.
