Well, we've gone and done it again.  Like true champions, we've managed to keep the rational voice corralled long enough so that the intuitive one can rule the day.  Child #4 arrived one week ago today!  He hasn't been here long enough to make any big, wide-swathed statements, but so far it feels both completely chaotic and completely right. 

Birth, like death, is a mighty equalizer.  At death there is universal grief; at birth there is universal joy.  The instinct is to smile, lean in and glimpse the essentials of being alive in a delicate face only days old.  After a birth, we scramble to decipher the visual code of the newborn - who does he look like?  what traits will he carry?  We dig out photos of the other children when they were born, of ourselves.  Relatives stop in to pay their respects, give their opinion and like wolves, bestow their blessing on the newest member of the pack. 

 My wife and I laugh out loud at the pictures of ourselves holding our first child almost 10 years ago. We appear inept, unaware of pending doom, naive and inexperienced. (and we were) It can be argued that we still carry these traits, but it is certain that now, 10 years and 4 births later, we have at least a bit more grasp of the situation. We know more about love, commitment, endurance, hard work, patience, long-suffering, laughter and hopefully, grace. Childbearing and child-rearing: important work, important play. We train each other along the way.