“Three is a magic number, Yes it is, it’s a magic number.” -Schoolhouse Rock
I’ve never really liked the number three.
I can’t exactly pinpoint why. Maybe because I tend to believe the old adage that three’s a crowd. In elementary school, I was close friends with two other little girls. Usually, I was the odd one out when we had to chose partners for an activity — or worse, left out of a play date or other social event.
Three wasn’t fun.
It was a hassle.
It was, as the cliche goes, a crowd. No one makes a table for three.
I’ve always thought of myself as an even-numbered girl. My favorite number is 16. I always play red (even numbers) on the odd occasion I find myself at the roulette table. My current house number is 2.
2.
Come March (yes, the third month of the year), our days of two and even numbers will be long gone. It used to be two hands, two children — where can I get another one of those? Yes, we’ve adopted the sports metaphor that we’ll have to change our parenting style from man-on-man to zone defense.
There are families who have one, and sometimes feel misunderstood. Some families struggle in the transition to two.
I swear I wasn’t three sheets to the wind when this happened, but now we’re facing our own conundrum — adapting to life with three kids. And that means we’ll soon be picking up and moving on from our starter home, which we moved to before we even had picked out our darling little dog. (Funny enough, our new house number begins with — you guessed it — 3.)
Life, it is a changin’ around these these parts. I’m quickly changing my tune and starting to adapt the mantra that three is company — and not a crowd. I’m starting to see the light about three.
After all, I’m a third child myself. So maybe three isn’t that bad.
It could be worse. There could be four. (Just kidding, but we do know there’s only one in there).
So maybe three really is a magic number.
Sometimes, you just gotta believe.
Laura Weisskopf Bleill is the co-founder and editor of chambanamoms.com. You can reach her at laura@chambanamoms(dot)com.