BRING IT ON
Since I am trying to get pregnant, have no children, live in a community in which it is impossible to recycle bottles at the curb three feet from your apartment without bumping into 17 pregnant women, 400 children, and 32 parents pushing double strollers while walking their puppies, and every pet that I have ever owned is now dead, my hobbies include cooking, knitting, blogging, and Sitting Around Feeling Sorry For Myself.
One good place to engage in this fourth hobby is church. On any given Sunday, there are approximately 862 adorable children within a two-pew radius of my husband and me, even at the last Mass of the day, which I affectionately dub the "singles Mass" because it is primarily attended by all the young hipsters who were out partying the night before and are headed to brunch and cocktails after. Still, there is generally an excellent chance of sitting in close proximity to at least three of the following five:
1) cute rosy-cheeked, pigtailed little moppet clutching a teddy bear in a pink tutu and wearing a miniature cardigan sweater;
2) adorable tow-headed tot in Osh Kosh B'gosh overalls who looks the way I imagine my husband did when he was three, holding a toy train in one hand and a prayerbook in the other;
3) the two tiniest children in the world, wearing miniature Easter dresses and hats, huddled together over a Newbery Award-winning children's paperback book that I remember fondly from my youth;
4) glowing woman who is 16 months pregnant and whose ass is still smaller than mine, but whose breasts are nine times larger than mine (oh, and she has no pimples or saddlebags and always gets a seat on the subway, and she'll be in her size 0 clothes again 4 days after giving birth, and her cooter will shrink back down to virginal tightness, and she already has three beautiful, well-behaved children that look exactly like her);
5) messy-haired two-year-old tyke who turns around, looks up at me with big brown eyes, smiles, and whispers "Hi!" when everybody is praying.
Why not just stab me in the heart with a sharpened Krazy straw?
Even better, the kids are all with their adoring, doting parents, who stroke their hair and gaze at them lovingly as meaningful Scripture passages are being read, knowing that their children are the most important things in the world, and I can't blame them one frickin' bit.
I'm really, really tired of all of this "trying." I'm tired of retelling humorous anecdotes about my best friend's nephew, a child so tangentially connected to me that he wouldn't know me from Uma Thurman. Or Boris Karloff. I'm tired of jealously searching for traces of wee mustaches and low IQ in the photos of distant acquaintances' children sent to me at Christmas (I know, I know; I am a terrible, terrible person, but at least I'm a good, good cook). Even though I'm only 28 and I enjoy doing all kinds of selfish and shallow things, like sitting around all day and reading copies of Us Weekly that are so old that they feature stories with headlines like, "Brad and Jen: Inside Hollywood's Hottest Marriage," and staying up later than I should and sleeping in later than I should just because I can, and even though I secretly think that newborns are really funny-looking, and even though I fear the loss of my flat, flat abs and the expansion of my already ample derriere, I am officially ready for a baby.
What are you really, really, really ready for?
How far has humor carried you in your life?
One good place to engage in this fourth hobby is church. On any given Sunday, there are approximately 862 adorable children within a two-pew radius of my husband and me, even at the last Mass of the day, which I affectionately dub the "singles Mass" because it is primarily attended by all the young hipsters who were out partying the night before and are headed to brunch and cocktails after. Still, there is generally an excellent chance of sitting in close proximity to at least three of the following five:
1) cute rosy-cheeked, pigtailed little moppet clutching a teddy bear in a pink tutu and wearing a miniature cardigan sweater;
2) adorable tow-headed tot in Osh Kosh B'gosh overalls who looks the way I imagine my husband did when he was three, holding a toy train in one hand and a prayerbook in the other;
3) the two tiniest children in the world, wearing miniature Easter dresses and hats, huddled together over a Newbery Award-winning children's paperback book that I remember fondly from my youth;
4) glowing woman who is 16 months pregnant and whose ass is still smaller than mine, but whose breasts are nine times larger than mine (oh, and she has no pimples or saddlebags and always gets a seat on the subway, and she'll be in her size 0 clothes again 4 days after giving birth, and her cooter will shrink back down to virginal tightness, and she already has three beautiful, well-behaved children that look exactly like her);
5) messy-haired two-year-old tyke who turns around, looks up at me with big brown eyes, smiles, and whispers "Hi!" when everybody is praying.
Why not just stab me in the heart with a sharpened Krazy straw?
Even better, the kids are all with their adoring, doting parents, who stroke their hair and gaze at them lovingly as meaningful Scripture passages are being read, knowing that their children are the most important things in the world, and I can't blame them one frickin' bit.
I'm really, really tired of all of this "trying." I'm tired of retelling humorous anecdotes about my best friend's nephew, a child so tangentially connected to me that he wouldn't know me from Uma Thurman. Or Boris Karloff. I'm tired of jealously searching for traces of wee mustaches and low IQ in the photos of distant acquaintances' children sent to me at Christmas (I know, I know; I am a terrible, terrible person, but at least I'm a good, good cook). Even though I'm only 28 and I enjoy doing all kinds of selfish and shallow things, like sitting around all day and reading copies of Us Weekly that are so old that they feature stories with headlines like, "Brad and Jen: Inside Hollywood's Hottest Marriage," and staying up later than I should and sleeping in later than I should just because I can, and even though I secretly think that newborns are really funny-looking, and even though I fear the loss of my flat, flat abs and the expansion of my already ample derriere, I am officially ready for a baby.
What are you really, really, really ready for?
How far has humor carried you in your life?
Copyright 2005-2010 by Arabella and Trattoria Breve. All rights reserved. 8:16 AM
7 Comments:
Commence to baby makin' girl! I'm behind you 100%... Um, metaphorically speaking. Because anything else would just be strange ;). I'm ready to finish school and move out of my tiny little house near the city into a bigger one in the country where I can have goats if I please. I don't know what the hell I would DO with goats, but at least I could have them if I wanted.
Well, you know that you and I are ready for the same thing. And I am so, so, so tired of trying as well, if that makes you feel better. My husband and I just had this conversation where I said I was tired of trying, and he said, well, then let's stop trying, and I said no. Myabe I'll be ready to stop when we hit the one year mark.
In the meantime, let's plan for Chinatown tea! Will discuss dates via email. :)
To be honest, I'm tired of having my blog as my only creative outlet. I have a collection of short stories that I have been trying to complete for 6 years. I started taking a distance learning class at the local U as a way to force me to wrap them up, but baby Quinn interrupted, and now when I try to go back to my characters, I find that I don't like them and don't want to be their boss any more. I think I'm going to have to start over from scratch.
Your experiences at church are like mine as I see single women or women with grown children sowing their identity-affirming, life-loving oats.
I'm with you sister, but we are still in the humor gets us by stage. If we didn't laugh, we'd be fighting about it or crying, so humor works just fine.
Tea in Chinatown with you two ladies would also help a lot.
Since I'm at the stage where everyone I know is telling me to just "see how it goes", I can understand COMPLETELY what you have detailed so eloquently.
"Trying" is a pain in the ass.
I am so the #4 person on your list, NOT! I so hope the baby makin' thing gets its mojo working for you and all the other bloggers who are trying. I am with debbie flat abs, bah...
Humor is one of about 3 things (including my blog) that has stopped me from running naked down the highway with my hair on fire.
Thanks, ladies!
Tink--Good luck with school! Mmmmm....goat cheese....
Mrs. Harridan, TB, and Brooke--It's good that we have our own little support network going. And TB, let me know if you plan to come to NY anytime soon, and we can get some tea!
Mignon--good luck with the writing. People I know with older children say that it's really, really hard to take time for yourself and your own creative outlets when they're babies, but that it gets easier as they grow.
Debbie and Ditsy--HAVE YOU SEEN MY ASS??? All the tummy pooch has gone there instead.
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