Spawnling laughs. "That dog in the video was funny with that baby. Shadow, why don't you act like that when we have our new baby?" The six-year-old starts walking out of the room.

I call after him. "We're not having a baby!"

"Yes, we are!" he states back matter-of-factly from the hallway.

Spawnling is convinced we're going to add to our family. And it's going to be a sister baby.  You can't tell him otherwise. He talks about it all the time.

It's basically all my friend Lil's fault. Lil just had a baby - a girl baby. Not only that, but she's really, really cute. Like, exceptionally adorable.

See what I'm saying? How do I compete with this?

Not helping my cause, baby.

Spawn will look at her pictures and say, "When I have a baby sister, she's going to be really adorable, like Sophia."

We don't want to have more kids. Our boys are sixteen, ten and six. We are done with baby things. I love infants. I loved pregnancy the second trimester. I sighed over cute little outfits. I appreciated those baby snuggles. Those were good times, but we're onto the next phase of our lives now.

We.

Are.

Done.

But try telling that to Spawnling.

Last night we were watching Hotel Transylvania. The opening scene involves Dracula playing with his daughter. "I'm going to play with my baby sister like that," Spawnling declared lovingly.

"You're not going to have a baby sister, buddy," Geekster explains. Again.

"I am."

"But your dad and I can't have any more babies," I remind him gently. Again. I resist the urge to draw him a vasectomy diagram on the chalkboard.

Spawnling had that angle covered. "Oh, that's fine. You can just adopt one. It happens all the time."

"Adopting is really expensive..." I counter.

Spawnling gave us a laugh one would give to kind but ignorant people. "No it's not. It can't cost money. You can't buy baby humans, mom."

"Uh, well, you still have to pay for the assessments and the, um... Look, werewolves!" I declare, pointing at the screen.



I've been feeling kind of bad about the whole thing. I mean, the other two got to experience the joys of bringing a new baby home. Why does Spawnling get denied the experience? Of course, he doesn't know the stresses that come along with a younger sibling, as he is the stress that comes along with a younger sibling. But will he feel like he missed out on something special because his dad and I were in pursuit of new adventures that go beyond swaddling and burping and wiping up poop?

Guilt over my own selfishness was starting to take hold.



This morning, at breakfast, Spawnling declared, "If my baby sister is born and she looks like Nicki Minaj, we'll just call her Nicki Minaj. Well, even if she doesn't, that's a good name."

Oh, hell no.

Shit on a stick.

No, no, no.

There are some things we should never have to experience, and one of them is delicately labelling "Nicki Minaj" on our daughter's school supplies.

We remain, quite certainly, a family of five.