Back to normal life
My trip home from Baltimore was perfect. Beautiful weather, no traffic (I was a bit afraid of returning-from-Labor-Day traffic but there was none) and seven straight hours of Savage Love podcasts.
I had a great time with my friends and am thinking about when I can go back. Their children are adorable. But even so, I still came away with the total conviction that I don't ever want to have kids SOME MORE. I just don't have it in me. Even that most potent of maternal-instinct instigators, the holding and cuddling of a brand-new baby, didn't affect me. Well, let me amend that...it did, but in that "oh, sweet baby, I shall cuddle him and kiss his little face and rock him to sleep" way and not in that "WANT ONE" way.
The baby loved me. Babies generally do because I am Le Comfy. Boobages are like waterbeds for floating in blissed-out sleep. I'd cradle Max in a football hold to my chest and he'd fall asleep, his tiny little hand clutched in my shirt, and we started saying that he was in his LoriLounger.
Paul (who's two and a half) never quite warmed up to me...I don't think he ever stopped believing, deep down, that I was a babysitter. But by Sunday night he was calling me by name and asking me to come into his pillow fort and read books. He was still kind of relieved when it was clear I was leaving, though. That's okay, I don't take it personally.
I'm glad I could help out for my visit. Sunday afternoon we went to their local community pool and I minded the baby so my friends could both swim with Paul. I didn't think much of it but they came out saying "That was so special! Thanks so much!" They never both get to swim with him, is the thing. One of them always has to be with the baby.
And man, it is really true that babies draw a crowd. We had dinner Sunday at a restaurant in Fell's Point on the Inner Harbor that had outdoor seating, and we were trading off holding Max, and people were constantly looking over and smiling and stopping as they walked by to coo over him and ask how old he was.
On Sunday night, Brad poked his head into the guestroom and whispered "I'm going to bed...good night. Uh...don't leave."
Sadly, I had to leave. There is structuring to be done and I'm the girl to do it.
I had a great time with my friends and am thinking about when I can go back. Their children are adorable. But even so, I still came away with the total conviction that I don't ever want to have kids SOME MORE. I just don't have it in me. Even that most potent of maternal-instinct instigators, the holding and cuddling of a brand-new baby, didn't affect me. Well, let me amend that...it did, but in that "oh, sweet baby, I shall cuddle him and kiss his little face and rock him to sleep" way and not in that "WANT ONE" way.
The baby loved me. Babies generally do because I am Le Comfy. Boobages are like waterbeds for floating in blissed-out sleep. I'd cradle Max in a football hold to my chest and he'd fall asleep, his tiny little hand clutched in my shirt, and we started saying that he was in his LoriLounger.
Paul (who's two and a half) never quite warmed up to me...I don't think he ever stopped believing, deep down, that I was a babysitter. But by Sunday night he was calling me by name and asking me to come into his pillow fort and read books. He was still kind of relieved when it was clear I was leaving, though. That's okay, I don't take it personally.
I'm glad I could help out for my visit. Sunday afternoon we went to their local community pool and I minded the baby so my friends could both swim with Paul. I didn't think much of it but they came out saying "That was so special! Thanks so much!" They never both get to swim with him, is the thing. One of them always has to be with the baby.
And man, it is really true that babies draw a crowd. We had dinner Sunday at a restaurant in Fell's Point on the Inner Harbor that had outdoor seating, and we were trading off holding Max, and people were constantly looking over and smiling and stopping as they walked by to coo over him and ask how old he was.
On Sunday night, Brad poked his head into the guestroom and whispered "I'm going to bed...good night. Uh...don't leave."
Sadly, I had to leave. There is structuring to be done and I'm the girl to do it.