Children and Fur Babbies

Daughter

My husband and I have decided to have two children. We can’t know for sure if we’ll have two boys, or two girls, or a boy and a girl (fingers crossed). But, we have names picked out for our kids already and are hoping for the best.

It’s been a long conversation between us deciding what time to have our kids and how far out to separate them. Alex and I are two years apart (I’m 27 and he is 25). And my biological clock is the one that runs the show. My thoughts are having our two children between 29 and 33. He will between 27 and 31 during our pregnancies. But, he is understandably worried about money.

Even though having your first child at 29 isn’t exactly young, most people don’t have their finances in order in their 20s. So, it’s been stressful to consider how we will be able to do it. The American and world economies have not been on our side with the Dot.com, Great Recession, and now Covid.

But, if all goes well we will have Victoria Nova Kimberly Michelle Leonard in 2024! Or we could have a boy.

Son

We have decided on the name Arthur Alex Daniel Ty Leonard for a boy. Hopefully, we’ll have our son in 2027. But, that could be the year we have our daughter. You never know and of course, I am assuming I’m a fertile myrtle, dad’s sperm count is good, and we have healthy pregnancies.

I’m excited to create our baby's nurseries. I am thinking about an off white aqua color theme for their room. I am excited to get a nice home for our kids. Soon Alex and I will be spending time with the new babies. And we have a great plan for childcare.

I have a huge advantage in the childcare department - Alex. Alex wants to work from home to take care of the kids. It seems perfect because he only requires four hours of sleep at night. He’s the perfect caregiver. Even now he has no fear of holding babies and playing on the floor with kids and dogs. I’m so grateful he will be there for our kids when they are little.

It’s a pretty amazing world we live in that an engineer and a lawyer couple can both work primarily from home. It will make the issue of childcare manageable. It also means that we won’t have to stay down the street from in-laws for child care. We can move to a big city and coordinate child care with each other. It’s pretty great!

Cat

Our cat daughter was adopted in July 2017. Her Name is Luna Levante Leonard. She’s a really beautiful American Short Hair black cat. She’s a mutt! We adopted her from the human society in Dayton. I actually adopted her with a friend from law school. We didn’t live together, she just was kind enough to go with me to pick out my forever pet.

Luna came home from the human society with nothing but a green toy mouse and she still loves that little mouse toy. I know she will steal the children’s cribs and cuddle with the babies, eventually. She’ll be jealous at first, but she’ll come around.

Dog

I grew up with a saint of a dog named Moses. He was a golden retriever husky dog mix with one blue and one brown eye. I loved that dog and still have pictures of us cuddling when I was a toddler. As a teen, after Moses passed away, we got Jane Eyre. She was a happy girl and a big mutt. We were never totally sure what she was but appeared to have some black lab in her. She had been abused and took some time to settle into her new life. But, she ended up having a very happy life with lots of running throughout the Northern Michigan woods.

So, because of my great experience with my two childhood dogs, I want my children to have a dog. Alex also had multiple wonderful dogs growing up. I actually had the privilege to meet his last childhood dog two years before she passed away.

Soon we will get a dog for our kids. Alex wants to wait until our kids are old enough to enjoy a dog (between 5-7 years old). I’d like to get one earlier, but we’ll see what happens. We both want to rescue a black lab from the pound. But, Alex wants to get a little puppy. I’ve only ever gotten dogs that are between 1-1.5 years old. So, we’ll have to figure it out when the time comes.

But, one day we will get our family a wonderful dog. I can’t wait to laugh and play with our dog, cat, and kids together as a family.

A Side Note of “Kids These Days”

I have no clue what things kids will be doing by the time my kids are teens and young adults. But, I think it’s worth noting that kids belong with you, not to you. If my kids are gay, on the transgender spectrum, bisexual, asexual, pansexual, transexual, religious, atheist, monogamists, polyamorous, or whatever it’s not a problem.

Cruelty, lack of empathy, bad company, addiction, criminal behavior, and lying are real problems.

My intention in having children is to not teach them what to think but to teach them to think; not to teach them what to feel but to teach them to feel; not to teach them what to believe but to teach them that they have the choice to believe or not.

I want to be so good at my job of parenting that I work myself out of the job. I know Alex and I can raise competent good people. And we will.