Babies n' things...

So a friend of mine is expecting her first babe right now, and I know of a few other folks who are trying to get pregnant, discussing trying, or even discussing the discussion of trying. This all puts me in mind of babies, and the whole motherhood thing. Now, I have no idea what it's like to try for a baby. They just seem to happen to me, whether I had tried or not. We never discussed it, except to agree that we really weren't up for the whole procreation thing, thank-you very much. I am much better with things having upwards of 2 legs--things that have fangs & fur, or 17 eyes, or 350 legs, or spit venom, or, *oh happy day* all of the aforementioned at one time! Babies usually scare the living shit out of me. The only one who never did is my niece, the gorgeous & now-13 year old Miss Kelsey. So we never "pulled the goalie" (as my pal Dona so aptly phrased the tossing aside of contraception) and waited with bated breath....

Having said that, babies did appear. Twice. In a year & a half. And so I turned into a real live mum, for better or worse. And it really has been better. I've struggled and railed against it as a fate not of my choosing, but my life has been honestly so enriched by the existence of my little gals. And now, thinking of my friend's upcoming baby, I've kind of come over all queerly....

Her babe most emphatically *does not* make me wish for another one of my own. What it has done, here & there, is make me wish I could turn back the clock. Just for a little while. They really are tiny for so short a time, and now my girls seem to be growing up at a galloping rate. This is wonderful--they are becoming sensitive, eloquent and really interesting little individuals, but they are finding their own feet, just as they are meant to. I've been getting a pang of nostalgia once in awhile lately, for smallness forever lost, for soft baby faces and tiny, unsure steps. We raise our children to find their own independence, and the nascency of this is in the elementary school years, where one's children really begin to find a slice of life that has nothing to do with their parents. And my girls are doing just that.

But all of this baby business has had an entirely unexpected effect on me, if only sporadically. Wow. Queen Fee misses her babies sometimes, and not just the ones with fur and venom...