It's spring in Massachusetts, and I have baby fever.
Every time I pass a woman with a baby, I grin wildly. The child smiles half-heartedly at me, like, "I don't know what this is." The mother either grins wildly back or tightly clutches her child to her chest because I might be a psychopath.
All of my friends have children. I can't even visit their houses during the day. The chubby cheeks and hilarity and ridiculous energy are too much for me. I have to sneak in at night and pretend there's not a beautiful angel resting upstairs, and I am VERY disappointed when Maxx can't get to sleep and has to come downstairs and watch RuPaul's Drag Race with us. Because then I just want to take him home with me. His damn sister too.
It's true. I want to steal babies.
My friend Abby is pregnant with her second child. When she told me, I immediately responded with all of the necessary squeals and OHMYGODs and cooing and relevant questions. And as I asked how far along she was and if they were going to find out the gender this time and so on and so forth, I squeezed the #2 pencil I had in my hand so hard that it snapped in half. Purple shards flew through the air. The cat fled at the sudden noise. I bled a little bit.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I want a baby so hard. And this bitch gets two. As the conversation evolved into a serious assessment of mac and cheese recipes, I envisioned myself present at the new baby's birth. The first thing the child would see would be Abby's beautiful smile. Mr. Abby would lean in for a kiss and hold the baby's hand, and then child #1 would gather round with Momma Abby and there would be a complete family photo.
THEN they'd pass the kid on to Auntie Kyle. But I wouldn't be cooing. No, sir. All they'd see would be me darting out the door, an umbilical cord flying in the wind behind me.
But, well, then I'd have to go into hiding, I'd lose two friends and Auntie status of the first kid, people would wonder about the whole race issue and I'd have to make up some story about having an albino child, the kid would grow up listening to Rachmaninoff and Lauryn Hill and Johnny Cash and Maroon 5 and somehow have all of my issues even though we weren't genetically related.
So then I briefly entertained leaving the house with kid #1. But I knew I wouldn't be able to get out without a brutal fight against scrappy, smart Abby, though, and once Hubby came home from work, I wouldn't stand a chance.
So now I'm back to this: WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I'm all in, guys. I'm in for the weird-colored poop and the spit-up and zero hours of sleep and the lice the child will inevitably bring home from school and having to watch my language until 8pm every night. Because tiny shoes and Goldfish crackers and love from someone who will undoubtedly be an asshole for at least 5 of the next 18 years.
There are several problems with this.
1. I cannot be a single mother. It would be an absolute train wreck for everyone involved. And since right now I'm batting 0 for several of the long-term relationships I've been in, it's hard not to picture that as being the case.
2. I do not want no stranger's ass sperm. NOPE. One of the reasons I was so into having Paul's babies is because I knew what I was in for. We would've had awesome kids. Great eyes, great thighs, great if not perfect pitch. Midnight train to brilliant, those kids.
3. My chances of actually carrying to term are slimming every day. I grow uterine tumors like the CSA down the street grows asparagus. But actually though. The last one I had removed looked like a holiday ham, and my surgeon hung a picture of it up on the bulletin board where she kept all the photos of babies she'd birthed. (I imagine her clientele has slimmed somewhat since she posted that. "Is that a child?!" new moms would ask. "DO THEY COME OUT LIKE THAT?") Which means...
4. ...I have to harvest and freeze some eggs, and then find some poor unsuspecting soul to carry them for me.
5. I kind of want the whole pregnant experience. Or at the very least, a kid with my genes. The Colemans are endangered. It's up to me to pass on the snark. I do feel slightly guilty about the concept of contributing to the whole overpopulation issue. But. Yknow. Cross that bridge when I come to it.
6. Again, what if the kid turns out like me?!
7. If ever there comes a child, my father will make the kid fat, and then I will have to wrestle with childhood obesity in addition to my own ever-fluxing weight.
I do not know what the future holds for me. But I do know this: if I turn 40 and have no child, that Tina Fey movie will not just be a bizarre movie any more. It will be a KB biopic.
In the meantime, watch your damn back, Abby.
(Love you, mean it, kiss your daughter for me, see you next week or something.)
