There are many good reasons to have children such as tax breaks and excuses to catch unnatural highs from Baby Magic lotion all day. There are also the valid reasons of wanting to spread one's seed, to succeed genetically, to see just exactly HOW recessive redheadedness and attached earlobes really are in your lineage. Then there's the opportunity to implicitly tell your parent(s) that you had sex and that life is going to be a whole lot different for a lot of people because of it. And let's not forget the big honking good reason of becoming the parent one swore she'd never become, the parent who parented her. Oh, and the coupons! Do not forget the coupons. Spawn a chile and your mailbox will be chock full o' Enfamil savings. Excellent reason to procreate. One reason to have children which we had not previously considered (prior to conception) was the chance that our neighbor/friend Shannimal might be more inclined to stop by on a weeknight and gift us with her jovial company, a Bob Marley "One Love" onesie AND a stuffed octopus for tormenting decorating our wee one.

Lest any of our conscientious readers be riding the fence as to whether or not the pros outweighed the cons in popping one out, we simply did not want any of you to omit this extremely important but highly overlooked "pro."

As well as that little postscript about having one's heart swell each time she beholds that little face, a face that angels must have painted on with their eyelashes, a face that seems to emote ten thousand fascinating things to her at once, which may take her entire parenting life to decode.