It looks so perfect on TV!
Every time I have a baby I start to think about polygamy. Like, sort of wistfully. The company, the camaraderie, someone else to help meet the needs of the household. Doesn't it sound just lovely?
The only problem, Dan reminds me, is that more wives often mean more children, and there goes the helpfulness factor out the window. A maid might be more effective. But so much less fun...
Seriously. If we lived in Utah and had a much bigger house, and if we had that whole "income" issue figured out, I'd totally be cruising for a second wife. I'd want her to be sweet and good at ethnic cooking and perhaps infertile.
Maybe there are other means to an end we could think about that don't involve complex sleeping schedules. A farm blogger I read recently mentioned a work swap she's doing with a neighbor. Twice a month her neighbor comes over to help her with 2-person projects, and twice a month she goes to her neighbor's farm for the same. It's much easier to insulate a barn or clear a new garden when there are two people working on it. I would love such an arrangement with stuff around my house. I could use a day's worth of two-people's labor to organize all the toys in Harvey's room, de-clutter my upstairs bathroom, clean out the fridge, and hang about a billion things on the walls. And that's small potatoes compared with all the work outside that Dan asks me to help with, and then I do for approximately 4 and a half minutes before the baby needs nursing. But then again, how could I return the favor to a helpful neighbor if I have a baby that needs nursing every 4 and a half minutes? (He doesn't actually need nursing that much, but there's always SOMETHING that's an emergency every 4 and a half minutes.)
What I need, you see, is a second wife. Or a clone. Or a robot.