Baby Cheeks

So lately, I have had some serious spring fever. And by spring fever I mean baby fever. Every time I see a baby I go all blubbery and weak at the knees, and come home full of thoughts of pastel-colored butterflies, yellow baby bedrooms, baby feet, joy, happiness, and love, only to discover that Ness has CHEWED UP SOMETHING FANCY. And then (after screaming and chasing her around the dining room so as to rescue my bra/Preston's tennis shoe/the remote control/her tube of expensive ear ointment), I remember that I have some anger problems I might want to deal with before embarking on Project BABY.

But seriously. About a month ago I was frantically writing a paper. And by frantically writing a paper, I mean procrastinating by scrolling repeatedly through facebook. Finally, I saw that one of my friends had put up pictures of her adorable baby girl. I looked through all of them longingly, and had practically turned INTO a pastel colored butterfly, when I saw that I had a new email. Snapped out of my baby reverie, I checked my inbox to find an email from another friend (who is also facebook friends with the baby girl's mother) that said this: "Do NOT tell anyone I said this...but don't [X's] facebook photos of her daughter kind of make you want to go out and get knocked up right away? Don't get me wrong. I think it would be a BAD IDEA. But nonetheless."*

To which I immediately laughed and thought THIS IS WHY WE ARE FRIENDS before responding that the photos made me think the exact same thing, "because no, I don't want a baby right now...except that I totally do."

So that pretty much sums up how I feel about Project BABY right now: on the one hand, absolutely not. On the other hand, BABY CHEEKS! And really, there is no baby on the horizon for us. I need to finish my Master's degree and decide what to do after next year (i.e. continue to the PhD or look for a job as a high school Latin teacher), Preston and I both need to recover from LIFE WITH A PUPPY, and I still want some years that are only ours. Not to mention that I'm still way too vain to donate my body to someone else for a year.

However, even though there is no baby on my horizon, that doesn't stop me from losing my ability to form coherent sentences whenever I see a baby. Or even a toddler. So a couple of nights ago, Preston and I were talking about Big Adult Purchases, and I said that I thought I'd like my next two big purchases (spread over the next few years) to be a new laptop and a SLR camera. That was my wish-list that night: new laptop and SLR camera. Fast forward to the next morning, when Preston showed me an email from a former graduate school colleague with an attached picture of his newborn son. I took one look at his squishy red face, and my wish list immediately became: BABY. All thoughts of a new MacBook and a fancy camera had evaporated instantaneously. Preston could see my eyes glazing over into thoughts of baby names and baby rooms and baby feet and baby skin and baby hair, and looked wholly unsurprised when two seconds later I said, "I want a babyyyyyyyyy." Raising one eyebrow, he asked, "Do you want a baby, or an SLR camera?"

And now I'm imagining our first born child one day asking me when we decided to have children. And I will reply, "Well, lovey, it was you or an SLR camera. And we chose YOU! It was your lucky day!"

Except that we didn't chose him/her...we chose the camera. For many, many reasons. But mainly because this way, when Project BABY does begin, I'll have a kick ass camera to document every step of the journey.** Till that day comes, however, I will simply continue to treat my dogs like my children and turn to liquid goo at the sight of baby cheeks. But, shhh. Don't tell anyone I said that.

*I did in fact ask this friend if I could quote her email here.

** This is obviously NOT the main reason. I promise.