Ahhhhhh babies. I had a weekend full of babies. Big babies, little babies, familiar babies, stranger babies, new babies, old babies, crying babies, laughing babies, sleeping babies, smelly babies, all sorts of babies. All of these babies make me feel like I'll be satisfied with a dog for a while. Sure, I know, they're all magical little creatures, and no matter what, you love yours more than anything else in the world. I get that, and I know I'll feel that way eventually when I decide to have one. But the one thing you *cannot* say about babies is that they enhance your freedom, because that they certainly do not. They require so much undivided attention and I'm just not ready to take that attention away from myself just yet. I mean, in my head my vision of myself is still a girl barely out of college, I just happen to have a ring on my finger and a mortgage in my name. The babies I was mostly around were even particularly good and cute babies, so these sentiments are nothing against them. I just couldn't handle that feeling of getting into bed every night and wondering where the hours went. I feel that way now and all I do every night is make dinner and possibly watch a movie. I'm not all that great at time management, so I could definitely see myself being one of those mothers who lets the house become a pigsty, gets fat and surly, doesn't shower, and bitches constantly about how she has to do everything and is still unappreciated. Because let's be honest, that's pretty much me right now.

I do love kids, but this is such a scary part of a woman's life, when she knows she's going to start hearing that tick-tick-ticking pretty soon and she's going to have to make a decision. Plus you start gradually passing from the majority to the minority, when you become that childless couple who has nothing in common with everyone because you don't have any poopie diaper or breast feeding stories to share with the group. You find yourself constantly just saying, "Hey, did you hear that new album?" or "Have you seen that new movie?" and quickly afterwards feel dumb because you're asking people who have all they can do to stay awake until 10pm after their draining day of feeding, burping, napping and soothing. I always say that I just wish you could have kids later than this, because these days no one has their shit together before the age of 27, which only leaves a few good years of enjoying your career and your disposable income and your marriage before you have to start worrying about your eggs drying up. Of course, the kicker would be that if by the time you start trying to have one, you can't get pregnant, because then what good were all those years of taking a stupid little pill every single day and having a panic attack when you're a day late, wondering if that time you took it in the afternoon and not the morning is coming back to bite you in the ovary.

God, I sound so angry about this. I just really hate ends of eras, even if the next one is good, too.