Hands not quite full enough

It never ceases to amaze me how many looks I get from strangers, not always good ones, when I'm out and about with the kids.

In my grossly oversized, double decker style bus of a pram, especially if one or both of the kids are fussing, I often get sympathetic type "gee, you have your hands full" type comments.

Juliet is a big girl. She's 97th percentile for everything and probably looks a little closer to Angus in age than she is. He's 15kg, but she's nine already! It is a mighty effort pushing them both around my neighbourhood, but I also love it. When she's particularly fussy, I still put her in the wrap sling but it hasn't been great for my back. And it still means carrying her and pushing the pram, as Angus is a bit small still to tackle our big walks around our hilly streets. Ok, I digress...

One lady stopped me the other day to ask what the age gap was, and I told her 21 months. She'd also had two babies with that age gap and at one stage, she had three under four, she said. Gasp! Can you believe it?

Thing is, for one day last year, the day Juliet was born, I had three under three. Three babies, in three years. I can only imagine the comments I'd be getting now if Hope were here. I'm sure she and Angus would look much closer in age, perhaps almost like twins given there is only 15 months between them? Who knows? I certainly have no idea, given stillbirth is such a killer of dreams and destroyer of imagined futures.

My hands may appear full to nosy strangers on the street, but I don't think they are. I am busy, and I am tired. But I have one hand for each of my children, at any given moment. And when Simon is here, there is one parent for each of them.

Life is crazy, life is hectic, but our hands aren't quite full enough. And I guess they never will be.