For those of you with parents of more than two kids...

I was reading this article by Steve Wiens about how going from 1 child to 2 children is easier than going from 2 to 3.  And I found myself nodding in agreement.

We had our first daughter, Sarina, in January 2008, and our lives changed a great deal.  Then slightly less than 14 months later, our second daughter, Laura, decided to make an appearance and give our oldest some competition for attention.  As the years have gone by, Sarina has developed into the bossy type and Laura is content to just let Sarina have most of the attention. This situation has made us realize that we have to give Laura just as much attention, so that she's not lost in the shuffle.

However our observation is that its easy to handle two kids.  When we go out, one kid per parent.  Or you have two hands to hold two kids.  With a third, its not as easy.

We had our first son, David, in August of 2012. After that, it felt like the amount of work multiplied.  Now we've got a stroller with the baby, and we need to push, so the kids can't hold hands if its only 1 parent at the mall, and we have to keep a watchful eye out to make sure they don't wander off or fall behind.

Crossing the street - especially in a high traffic area like New York City, is fraught with peril.  My oldest loves to pick the middle of the street as the time to tell us she forgot something or that she's tired of walking and wants to be picked up or whatever excuse she can think of to avoid walking across.  I can't tell you how many times thats happened, and the light turns green and I have to push the remaining kids to the sidewalk then run back for her while looking helplessly at the cars, hoping they decide to wait before going through the intersection.

Interestingly, my wife disagrees and says that she doesn't find that its harder with three kids than with two, maybe thats because she's devoting most of her attention to the baby due to breastfeeding while I'm left with the majority of the duties, i.e. getting dressed, breakfast, school, then picking up from school, pajamas, baths, bed time.  I can handle all of that with the girls, but adding the baby in - especially at dinner time, is asking for it.  Sometimes I'm very very thankful that I'm deaf because I don't know how hearing people can do it sometimes with all the screaming.

However I wouldn't give it up for the world. Just yesterday, my 10 month old son crawled up the stairs from the 1st floor to the 3rd floor all by himself and looked at me with a huge grin on his face. He deserved a kiss from Daddy for that one!