Hi

Just reading this as DH and I decided on 3 before we married, now we're back to him wanting 2 and me wanting anywhere between 3 and 5, but I guess we'll just have to see how we feel a bit later.

Firstly, I have cousins close to my age who are in a three, all girls (They were born 3.80,8.81,5.83 and me and sis were 2.81,4.83). When we were little my sister played with the younger one and I played with the elder two and sometimes we all played together (when the little ones were older). We'd usually see each other twice a week and we had great family dynamics when we were very little. Oddly enough, we had the usual sibling arguments when we were teens, didn't see so much of each other, but now we're more grown-up we're all the best of friends again. There's certainly no middle child thing there as they're all different and loved for it. The only one who treats the middle one any different is my dad's sister, who's 2nd of 3, who used to buy her the worst presents out the five of us after saying she was going to look out specially for my cousin. Well, my cousin used to win the "what the heck is that?" prize every Christmas.

Second, I'm technically one of three, a middle child, as I have an angel brother. My mum was absolutely obsessed with my brother when I was little. She recently asked about my earliest memory, I had to lie and give my second-earliest because that's nice (sunset - a beach in Trinidad, and I thought for years that Trinidad had pink sea and everywhere else had blue) and my actual earliest memory is my mum talking about my brother and getting me mixed up with him. I've always known about him, that my mum miscarried him then conceived me before his due date, so I've always felt kind of indebted to his death, if not responsible, and I'm sort-of glad I didn't find out when I was older but it does change things when you know about someone dying so you can be here. My sister has always been the youngest of two, but I've been the second of three and had the whole "middle child" thing, especially as mum missed my brother so much when I was little then my sister was so much more clingy and needed attention, I was far more independant.

But that's a great reason for three! How many times did I wish my brother was around so I could read and not have to entertain my sister, I can't count! How much I was happy to know that he was watching over me, especially driving late at night... he would have been great too to be another chauffeur to my little sister, who's 2 years younger than us and my parents were more than happy to have a drink in the evening so I had to pick her up! She didn't learn to drive for ages either as my parents didn't need to push her so much! I drove more in my learning time (8 months) than she did in her first 3 years of driving.

Finally, I used to babysit 3 girls when I was a teenager while their parents were at work in the school holidays. Again, three very different girls, three very different personalities, the only thing was the youngest was very much the baby, but before she was born the second was babied quite a lot too, so that's just up to the parents.

Anyway, thinking about cars, I've pretty much gone back to 3 again as I was wanting 4 earlier this week. My mum was one of 5 and, again, no problems. My great-grandad was the eldest of 13, so I don't see how people think that 3 children means someone gets left out!