A Question for the Masses

There is one question out there that I thought would never be thrown my way.  How could it?  I never planned to have many children and I knew for sure that they would never be THAT close in age.  But last night, it happened…

A typical batshit crazy Wednesday.  The kids were driving me up the wall, I tried to keep 2 very fidgety small children occupied at boring (well, for us, anyway) dance class and finalizing plans for dinner.  Aw!  Dinner.  The holy grail I look forward to all day on Wednesday.  You could even say it is the reason I never throw my hands up, hire monkeys to watch the kids and hide under the covers all day.  I know that at the end of the day, I will be able to sit down, throw parental responsibility to others while I enjoy a hot meal prepared by someone else.  

This Wednesday was a little tricky.  Sun’s Dad’s car blew up on the bridge and he was in the process of buying a new one.  Sun’s mother was not very happy about all this and no one was happy about the process of buying a car.  Have you ever bought a car?  Wouldn’t you rather slide down a razor buck naked and then get a new car?  Yeah, it is a long, boring, painful ordeal that you never really feel good about in the end.  So, our timing was all off.  George had business at alittle Italian restuarant in our area.  It is quite famous and has the best Italian food in the city, in my opinion.  I swear I would pay large quantities of money and even my children for a dip in their red sauce.  However, if you like you can have it on pasta, instead.  We decided to eat there. 

I walk in with 3 kids in tow ready to pull up a trough of spaghetti and a truckload of bread.  That would have to wait, seeing that the restaurant was very busy because of Jazz Fest and Sun’s parents were nowhere near on their way to meet us.  Sam occupied himself and a few of the patrons by dancing in front of the jukebox.  Frank Sinatra and other oldies will do that to ya.  He was such an enjoyment of some of the customers that they kept the jukebox going just to watch him dance.  When one of his fans approached me.  He started listing the ages of the kids I had with me: “5 yrs old, 2 yr old and what is she 1 yr old?”.  And then without warning the question flew out of his mouth:  “You do know what causes that?”  I was stunned.  First of all, not all these kids were mine (okay, 2 out of the 3) and second, is 3 kids really that many?  Then I was distracted by a small boy who was causing servers to not only balance plates of hot food but avoid dumping them all over him and a girl whining that she was so thristy that she was on the verge of death.  So, for now, the question was tucked in the back of my mind.

I pose it to you, dear readers, what does cause this phenomenon?  Is it Catholicism? I mean the church does allow us some birth control. Is it Irishness? For the record, I am not Irish, but I think I rubbed up against, once.  Is it insanity?  Meaning, mine. For agreeing to let my husband take a “short business” call outside while I stay with 3 cranky and hungry kids, ALONE.  For the record, that phone call lasted almost 30 minutes and my sanity lasted about 5 minutes.  I am at a lost as to what causes this condition.  It surely can’t be sex, because we all know that that gets less and less with each kid.  What ever could it be?