is three a crowd?

Three's company? Eight is enough? When do you say 'no' to a growing brood? This is a major question that's been on my mind -- our minds -- in recent weeks. To proliferate or to not proliferate, that is the question.

There are only two answers. Two or three. I have never envisioned myself as the patriarch of a clan of five or six children. I may have residual Catholic beliefs, and in some ways I am deeply conservative about marriage and family, but there is no way I'd go beyond three.

As with that idea, I was never a proponent of one. I always wanted Marta to have a sibling. But how many siblings? Anna loves Marta, laughs at all her jokes, thinks she is the greatest entertainer on earth. Isn't that what we so badly needed out of our younger child -- someone to complement Marta while her journalist parents typed out their assignments? If that was the case, then why is there a need for a third, other than to satiate our own desires to be surrounded by cute little pudgeballs?

Epp seems to think that there is a little Maria up there in the clouds that so badly wants to join our family. Maybe she is right. Or maybe, I joke, a little Frederico who would like to be subjected to the abuse of older sisters. It would be nice if we lived on a farm somewhere where we didn't spend our days hooked up to the Internet praying for extended periods of leisure time. But we don't. Children must fit in cars and on planes. Children must fit in bedrooms and at kitchen tables. Right now, our lives seem stuffed.

One should also factor into the debate the knowledge that I am the last male in my extended family capable of passing on the surname. For whatever reasons, Uncles Mike and Rick, along with cousins Pete and Bob, decided to pass the buck to me. Or they simply didn't give a shit. Contrast that with Epp's family. Out of one guy -- Johannes Saluveer -- came an overabundance of Saluveers. In Epp's generation there are Priit, Tommi, Aap, Lauri, and Ott alone. Tommi and Ott have sons as well. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

But does that even matter? Should it? Probably not. Is it all up to me? Maybe. I don't think it ever was though. I always wanted children, but I think my parents too always wanted grandchildren, and my wife as well always wanted children. So there are many different currents of wants and needs that flow into the creation of a new life. It's not just biological impulse or a lifestyle decision. Right now, all I can say is that I am tired, and two daughties seem to be quite enough.