Why kids are so stinkin' expensive

First of all, they cost a lot to get here. From the initial pregnancy test (I get mine from the dollar store) to months of maternity clothes and outrageous pregnancy cravings, it is an expensive process, not to mention the hospital and doctor's bills. Then there's the nursery to outfit and stock, including a crib, a rocking chair, other furniture for baby's room, clothes and diapers for a newborn, all the accessories needed for nursing and travelling with convenience and safety-the carseat, stroller, diaper bag, etc.

Once the baby is born, you have to constantly supply diapers for a minimum of 2-3 years. Right now, Leah wears 5 or 6 diapers a day, and at approximately $.25 each, that's over a dollar a day! You have to provide food and clothing for the child, who is constantly growing and therefore requiring a progressively increasing amount of food and continually needing new clothes and shoes each season.

Then of course are the developmental expenses that creep in along the way: she's crawling, so you need to buy a gate to keep her from tumbling down the stairs. She's teething, so you need to buy teething gel, tylenol, and cough syrup. She's imitating everything you do, so you buy her a play camera, a play phone, a play set of keys, and of course you have to document it with a real camera for the grandparents to see. She's graduated from a bottle and you need to outfit the cupboards with sippy cups, but it takes 10 tries to find the right kind. She needs age-appropriate toys to help her development, so you buy new toys every six months, and all manner of devices to provide entertainment for the child so you can do something else. She wants to feed herself, so you need to buy kid forks and spoons and bibs. She's old enough to start sitting on the potty, so you buy a training potty and start buying more expensive, less effective diapers (we haven't gotten here yet). Then there's the painful expense of replacing things that your dear little one has broken, something we have yet to experience the joy of, but that I know is coming.

We haven't even gotten to the school-age stage of music lessons and sports teams, school fees, field trips, 11pm sugar-cube igloos. I don't even know what I'm missing!

Granted, it is not as expensive to have a second kid as it is to have the first, since you can use the same nursery furniture, clothes, carseat, toys, teething gel, etc. But it's dang expensive! First of all, why would anyone have children at all, and secondly, why wouldn't you have a second based on the decreasing relative price!?!?

But, oh the joy!