My husband, Brian, had been talking about having a third child for months.
\nThe problem was, I was already exhausted.
\nI worked part-time, handled school drop-offs, cooked, cleaned, scheduled appointments, packed lunches, and stayed up whenever one of our kids was sick.
\nBrian worked long hours and believed that because he earned more, he had already done his share.
\nOne night, he brought up another baby again.
\nI finally told him the truth.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t raise three children when I already feel like I\u2019m doing this alone.\u201d
\nHe took it as an insult.
\nThe argument got worse until he stormed out and spent the night at his mother\u2019s.
\nThe next morning, he came home and said, \u201cIf you\u2019re so unhappy, pack your things and leave.\u201d
\nI was stunned.
\nThen I packed.
\nWhen I reached the front door, Brian looked almost satisfied.<\/p>\n
That was when I turned around.
\n\u201cThe kids are staying with you.\u201d
\nHis expression changed instantly.
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d
\n\u201cYou want another child because you think parenting is easy. So spend one week doing everything I do.\u201d
\nI wasn\u2019t abandoning our children. I had arranged to stay nearby with my sister, and I would still see them every day.
\nBut for one week, Brian handled mornings, homework, meals, laundry, bedtime, and a surprise school call when our son got sick.
\nBy day four, he called me exhausted.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t realize.\u201d
\nThat was the point.
\nWhen I came home, we didn\u2019t immediately talk about another baby.
\nWe talked about becoming equal parents first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My husband, Brian, had been talking about having a third child for months. The problem was, I was already exhausted. I worked part-time, handled school drop-offs, cooked, cleaned, scheduled appointments, packed lunches, and stayed up whenever one of our kids was sick. Brian worked long hours and believed that because he earned more, he had …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10114,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10112\/revisions\/10114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}