A THOUSAND MONKEYS
And baby makes 4
By Blake Wolfe/The Scugog Standard

The last time I wrote here, I snuck in something about 2012 being a very interesting year at our house.
_But seeing as how this whole Christmas/New Years holiday business usually trumps reading the paper - as well as the fact that I’ll be paying for it later down the road if I don’t devote several hundred words to this particular bit of news - here it is in full.
_We’ll be welcoming a fourth member to the Wolfedasi (that’s a portmanteau of our last names, not a typo) home in April.
_A human member, not a cat or dog or Zhu Zhu Pet.
_We know only a little more about baby No. 2 than everyone else.

What we can say about he/she for sure is that he/she is:
- 6.5 months old
- healthy
- kicking
- uncooperative with ultrasound technicians (hence the ‘he/she’)
- lying sideways in mom’s belly, much like his/her older sister did two years ago.

This, of course, is all very exciting for mom and dad and big sister Norah, as well as for grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins awaiting the big day this spring.
_It’s a much different experience this time around.
_There’s no shopping spree for all those must-have baby items - we already have the vast majority of them and any money that we would end up spending on unnecessary frills is also spoken for by our first child.
_The only major purchase was a double stroller and, until parenthood, I had no idea that moms will shop for this item like it was a new car, guitar, TV or gaming console.
_It makes sense - being a relatively, if not the most, expensive item on the baby checklist. _By osmosis, I am now versed in such brands as City Select, Phil and Teds and Zooper (a two-time winner), having weighed the pros and cons of each model after Tara spent hours researching and narrowing the list to a handful of hopefuls based on style and needs. My head hurts thinking about it, and I was barely involved.
_Although most of the trepidation that only comes with waiting for baby No. 1 is not present the second time around, there’s still a healthy amount involved.
_Some of this involves anticipating the interaction between siblings, from day one forward.
_Obviously, it’s too early to really tell, but Norah’s more than okay with the idea of a younger brother or sister. We know this because she told everyone at pre-school about the news. Having not mentioned anything prior, I was kind of thrown off when her favourite supervisor asked me point blank if we were expecting. Apparently the news of ‘mommy has a baby in her tummy’ had been circulating the playroom for weeks.
_So with 2012 already out of the gate, we are now barely three months away from the big day. That reminder was a bit of a shock when it crossed our minds on New Year’s Day.