Dangerously CuteYou know it the moment it strikes you: Your cuddling instinct kicks in, you yearn to pet a peach fuzzed head, and you start to fantasize about throwing your birth control in the trash. You've got baby fever, sister.

Most of the time this ailment pops up when a friend or family member presents you with an adorable infant, freshly hatched. Or perhaps you see a new mom or dad at the store and they don't seem exhausted and stressed out at all. Sometimes these new families look so good, they make you forget all of the pain of the early days of baby-raising.

BUT THAT'S ALL A FARCE! Don't forget lady, you said you were stopping at two. Or one, or five; whatever you said, you are DONE. Just in case the baby fever is taking hold to the point of you making an entirely irrational decision, do these five things immediately. You'll thank me later.

I'm the last-born in my family, which means that I should be a strong-willed, persistent story-teller who loves to make people laugh. Okay, fair enough. That sounds a lot like me. Until we get into the notion that I should be affectionate, which I'm not. Hrms.

Plus, according to some, I could also be considered an only child as my older brother is waaaay older than me. So really, where does that leave me? And what about my three kids? Is there anything to that birth order stuff?

"Oh, you have such a beautiful baby!" she gushed. "He's just so adorable! I just, I've never seen such a beautiful baby." She wasn't wrong. My son, when he wasn't screaming his Exorcist scream, well, he could have passed for a Gerber baby. There was something delicious about his big green eyes, his shock of brown hair, and his cupid-bow mouth. But I was his mother. Of course I can say that stuff.

I nodded and thanked her, trying to untangle myself out of the conversation without appearing rude. She did, after all, compliment my baby.  

However, there was another son, a bigger child, standing at my elbow, with equally adorable big brown eyes, a shock of dark brown hair, and an identical cupid-bow mouth. He was looking at us both expectantly.

Crap. 

I’m happy for Scary Spice, aka Mel B. (Did I really just type that?) She’s had some ups and downs, including that whole Spice Girls zig-a-zig-huh interlude, but she says she has finally come to a place of peace and stability with a husband and a new baby. Here’s the thing: this is her third baby.

I'm not saying she shouldn't have admitted this. Facts are facts, and it's not like the kids can't see for themselves that she got divorced and had broken up with Eddie Murphy before their kid was even born. I just wonder how to handle this thorny issue? How does it feel to be the one baby your mom feels she got right -- and how does it feel to be one of the other kids?

Anderson Cooper, the drastically handsome CNN anchor, recently premiered his daytime talk show, and I agree that he's better than Oprah. Cooper isn’t someone I’d typically like: he grew up privileged, and I’m more of a self-made-man kinda girl. Yet he's proven that he works way harder than me despite having no need for cash, so okay, he continues to be my TV boyfriend. He only cemented this role when he brought his mom, uber-heiress and designer-jeans-pioneer Gloria Vanderbilt, onto the show to talk about his brother Carter’s suicide 20 years ago. His mom saw everything as Carter swung himself onto their penthouse apartment’s ledge and let go, and felt her heart crash to the sidewalk with him. But she managed to go on.

How? How does a mom go on after her child’s death? Now that I have babies of my own, I ponder this question (because I’m weird and like to torture myself) all the time. The answer will haunt you.

Did you see this amusing video posted on The Stir the other day? It's oddly mesmerizing, despite the fact that the video simply shows a minute's worth of a fairly typical-looking bathtime for one family's adorable baby.

I think what's so compelling about it is how exhausting it all seems—oh boy, the insane amounts of WORK involved in taking care of a small child, and that's just bathtime. Never mind the entire rest of the day, with all the feedings, changings, naps, playtime, and trying to run errands with a squalling infant strapped to your body.

I had to smile at the bathtime video because I have a similar video of my own that I put together when my youngest son was a baby and my oldest was a toddler. I set up a camera in the living room one night, and over the course of a couple hours, it captured exactly what an average evening in our house looked like at the time. When I look back on it now, I have to be honest—I can barely believe we survived.

Big parenting question of the moment: Should you let your older child or children name the new baby? To me, the answer is an obvious "yes."

Or perhaps I should say the answer is yes, but be sure to read the fine print.

My daughter was 4 years old when my son was born; I know the crazy rollercoaster of emotions older siblings go through when the spotlight shifts to the new kid on the block.

But if I had to pick, I'd say that more than anything, big sisters and brothers struggle with feeling left out.

It turns out my rah-rahing for having a second baby is actually backed up by science. Who knew? Well now we all do thanks to this new book The Sibling Effect by Jeffrey Kluger, and his interview on Salon. Kluger tell us that yes, siblings really do matter. And if you have one, you should take full advantage of that relationship, because it's the only one you'll have for your entire life.

Kluger acknowledges that not everyone has an awesome relationship with their brothers and sisters, but after he shows why it's so important, he encourages us all to pick up the phone and foster closeness with the sibs. Something we should also try and do with our own children by not setting them up to be rivals.

So just in case you're on the fence about having another baby, here are five great things about adding that second baby to the brood.