Just when I think I'm good...

Memorial Day weekend, we took a quick trip to see my Grandparents in Salinas.  Its a mere three hours from Fresno, but since Caitlin was born, it's been the most anxiety inducing trip of my life.  Caitlin was not a car baby.  In fact she screamed in her car seat for the entire car ride anywhere, save for the day we brought her home.  I'm dead serious.  Once I got stuck in the Starbucks drive thru with her screaming at the top of her 4 month old lungs, by the time I got my tea, I was crying and sweating and the barista took one look at the both of us and said it was on the house.  So yeah, even the slightest car rides make me crazy with worry.
But this trip was different.  Maybe it's because the kids are older.  Maybe it's because we have the DVD in the car, but we got through the trip with minimal whining and minimal crying.  Also minimal fighting on the part of the parents.  It was a miracle.  When I really thought about it I thought about how at ease I was.  I packed one bag for both girls.  No longer needing diapers and formula or pull ups and such.  We didn't need a pack and play or a deluxe stroller.  We didn't worry about missing pacifiers or not enough liners for bottles. The only hiccup was the potty chair and we just bought another one on the way.  I finally felt like this was the kind of trip all my other friends talk about.  The ones that are enjoyable, the ones where the kids are happy, the ones that make you want to travel more as a family.
So upon our return home, I was in a place of contentment.  I was happy that we had finally made it to that point.  Maybe we really could plan that trip to Disneyland.  Maybe we really could go to San Francisco.  It's possible, right?  We are finally at the sweet spot of parenting, right?
Yeah, well this happened.

This is Elizabeth.  My BFs darling, precious, baby girl.  A week old tomorrow!  And friends, I just melted.  It really was love at first sight.  She is so tiny, and fits so nicely in the crook of my arm, just like my own babies did at one time.  And it reminded me that those days are over.  No more babies roam the Crutchfield casa.  I find I'm really sad about that.  I think back to when Caitlin was a baby, and I remember all those times I told myself that the hard part would soon be over and it would get easier, and I'd be happier, and, and, and... Now that the day has come, the newborn smell is a distant memory, and there is no need to shop in the baby aisle.  I'm so sorry that I wished for milestones, wished for more sleep, wished for no more diapers and bottles.  I had no idea that I'd miss them so.
 Miss Elizabeth also made my heart ache.  Because, and I never thought I would say this but, I want another baby.  Yup.  I'm a mad woman.  But something about the smell of a newborn baby, makes my uterus ache.  I've caught an incurable illness, Baby Fever.
The reality is, I really can't have another baby.  I'm not quite sure my body could take it.  I'm a very sick pregnant person.  I'm finally at a point where I feel like I could be a good mother.  The one I have always wanted to be.  We are finally at a point where car trips aren't a total and complete disaster.  Where life isn't a complete and total disaster.   But still, there is that twinge of my ovary that says...
This isn't over.  Not by a long shot.
I guess you should never say never.