Birth Control

For someone who, a few months ago, tearily packed away outgrown baby clothes, wailed that my youngest would soon be all grown up, and calculated the optimum time to conceive my fourth child, I now find myself scandalously content to remain a mother of three.

It’s not that I don’t love my kids, and I had plans for another, but by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I’m tired. I’m tired every moment of every day. I wake up tired and I go to bed tired. I go to work tired and come home even more tired. There’s no period of being refreshed and energised, just brief intervals of being less tired than during the rest of my tiring day.

Unfortunately that’s not the only item on my mental list of Reasons to Stop at Three. I don’t wish to grumble too much because I know there are many people in the world who would love to swap their cross for mine; you, Dear Reader, must therefore infer the reasons I found myself crying in bed last night, wishing only for a padded cell and a soundproof screaming helmet like Jane Jetson’s.

And so it is that the prospect of my brood growing up and attaining some measure of independence and self-reliance is quite cheering to me in this serotonin-addled state. I suppose Mr. Lonie finds the possibility of another baby daunting, too, as he’s done the unthinkable and seriously considered letting some hairy-handed doctor fiddle with his goolies and slice bits out of them.

But do not let your hearts be troubled, squeams and vas deferens lovers! Perhaps the dreaded snip won’t be necessary after all. You see, the other night in bed, Mr. Lonie snuggled up to me in a way that might be construed as a precursor to further canoodling.

“Mm,” he said, his voice husky with what I like to think was desire but was more probably the result of loudly hawking up phlegm seconds before. “My groin is full of fungus.”

Ah, Jock Itch, that’s the stuff. Who needs vasectomies when abstinence will do?