My Grinchy Boy

I like to say that Sam is our only planned child.

Our first daughter came along five years premature- just one month into Brian's return to school to begin and complete his education degree. She was welcome and adored and somehow we even managed to feed her.

And once we found ourselves in the bliss and delirium of parenthood in all its glamour, we kind of took on a whatthehell attitude and allowed the mysteries of love and biology have their way with our destiny.

Along came Jane.

And by the time I was pregnant with Micah, Brian had graduated and entered a jobless education market. I was exhausted beyond what I thought was durable or life sustaining and while I dragged my two preschooler daughters through the tasks of daily living I made my friends promise to hit me as hard as they could if I ever so much as spoke of bearing another child.

Life was...well...

Lifelike.

Yet, there was a lot of love in our dysfunctional family.

When Micah was three, the cravings began.

I wanted to have just one more wee baby.

I fought these urges valiantly. I told myself that I'd forgotten how difficult the whole venture could be and that I was just having some early onset midlife crisis. Besides. With three kids we could still fit in the car and goodness knew we couldn't exactly afford to buy a van.

But I'd always said that money was a lousy reason to not have kids.

So after a year of fighting with my thoughts, we decided to go ahead with our first Very Planned Parenthood.

And along came Sam.

Sam was different from our first three children from the moment he was born.

He slept. Ate. Smiled way more than he cried.

He was not afraid of people, or pets, or of trying new things.
He didn't cry about the seams in his socks and underwear, and never threw tantrums when church ladies smiled at him.

So why did it surprise me when at dinner one evening a few weeks ago, I commented to Sam that we'd need to find him a "who" costume for the upcoming Christmas production at his school.

Casually munching his dinner, he glanced up at me."No, mom. I'm not a Who.


"I'm The Grinch!"