The arrival of a second child is usually the point where most Hoboken families hit the eject button on their life in Hoboken. Parking headaches, squeezing baby gear into tiny walkup apartments, and the simple math of fitting four people into a small space – any one of those factors could be the final straw that sends so many families fleeing for spacious houses in the suburbs. School concerns and cost are also major factors in the flight to the suburbs.

Yet even in the face of those seemingly insurmountable circumstances, there are some families who make it work. I don't know how they do it— although I suspect they are luckier than I am in their children's sleep habits—but I know families with two and even three children who squeeze into small apartments in the Mile Square.

Since Hoboken is walkable and densely packed with toddler activities, it is easy to escape tight quarters at home. A good friend takes her three kids out five days a week to classes, parks, concerts, bookstores and shopping (her kids nap in the stroller) and to her vacation home on weekends.  During the winter, Hoboken Family Alliance sponsors an open gym session on Tuesdays at 1st & Grand, and I take my kids to open sessions at the Kidville gym (you need to be signed up for a class for gym access).

Having a second child is definitely a daunting prospect. The biggest issue, after space, is cost. Daycares do not provide a discount for multiple children, so you are looking at paying $1,600 a month per child ($38,400 ayear). Nannies command an additional $2 per hour for a second child on top of their base rate which hovers at $12 per hour, which seems affordable ($36,400 per year, not including vacation, sick pay or holiday tip) until you add in the cost of part-time preschool plus the prospect of paying the single-child rate for the nanny for after your older child starts full-time school. If your kids are close in age then you optimize the nanny cost since there is economy of scale by having her take care of two kids instead of one.

For us, it made sense for us to have a second child pretty quickly after the first one. I have no guarantee that I will always be able to stay home, like I do now, so I would hate for my first child to get to experience lots of my attention and then to stint my second child by heading back to work soon after his arrival. The clock is ticking on my ability to return to full-time work. Five years seems to be the maximum a mom can stay home and reenter the workforce at the same career level.

The decision to stay home was difficult, but it definitely helped facilitate the arrival of our second child. And now that my baby son is two years old, I am so glad we had him. My children are wonderful companions and partners in crime in getting into forbidden caches of cooking tools and art supplies. It's a real joy to watch them absorbedly play together. My children adore each other, and that is very nice for a mother to see.

To read more about what makes Kathy Zucker tick, check out her blog at http://hobokenmomcondo.com/momblog and follow her at http://twitter.com/zhobokenmom