wherein i reveal why exactly it is that women are so soft and fabulous.

so every year at this time i start getting it in my head that i want to have another baby. every.single.year. at the same time. like the flu. or taxes.

i start noticing cherubic toddler cheeks peeking out from knit caps. i see babies in strollers and long to pick them up. i don't, but i really really want to. because hormones make you crazy. i always think about that when i read news accounts of women who go nuts and do crazy things. i wonder...

i look at old baby pictures of the boybarians and remember ONLY THE GOOD TIMES. never the times i wanted to run away screaming or leave my kids in the free pile or considered implementing mama happy hour at 8:30 in the morning.

i think about how beautiful and sexy pregnant women are. how the clothes are WAY cuter now than they were 16 years ago. or that magical few months when you feel like liquid gold. mainly because you don't feel like shit 24 hours a day anymore. like how not getting hit in the head with a board feels so good after it stops. after the nausea, before the cankles.

i never think about that. how sick i am for four months solid or how i gain 85 pounds when i'm pregnant or how having another baby could literally kill me. not 'literally' like a drunk college girl uses the world either. like kill me dead. you'd think that would be a deal breaker for even thinking about it right there. but apparently not. silly mortals are weird that way.

or that i'd have another bunch of breastfeeding and co-sleeping and homeschooling years ahead of me. when frankly i'm lucky my boobs and my sanity have weathered the first two rounds as well as they have. nope. all i'm thinking about is how amazing it is to hold a brand new baby.

a little revisionist history. you know, like how texas writes their textbooks.

it's a bad idea. for me. for all the reasons i listed. and it's not gonna happen. but it doesn't mean it *can't.* and that's the scary part right there. one false move. one too many cocktails. paired with the goosh that is my brain thinking about it for a good part of the new year. it's a minefield out there. (this is the part wherein the husband stops reading and seriously reconsiders our romantic evening out tomorrow for his birthday. might as well file this under 'how not to flirt 101.')

so i was thinking about it this morning while i was staring out the window at, i kid you not, a toddler playing with a puppy! AACK! and it hit me. it's JUST BIOLOGY. that's it. that's all. it's not a need or a want or a loss of a possibility. it's not a choice to make. i mean it is, for some, but not for me. i made my choice. BUT there's still that little matter of 'the childbearing years.' just because your head and heart make a decision doesn't mean your body will go along with it. it's hardwired for what it's hardwired for.

(which explains SO MUCH. mainly bad boyfriend choices. but that's another post.)

it's just what happens when you're born a girl. it starts early and goes late and then it's gone. in the meantime you've got decades of TRYING NOT to get pregnant then TRYING TO get pregnant then TRYING NOT to get pregnant again. that's if you've decided to have kids. and that's if it all goes swimmingly. for some it doesn't. for some it's a heartbreaking and horrific ordeal.

basically it's an amazing, magical, fucked up process. and it goes on SO LONG. and there's next to nothing we can do about it. and it spills over into so many parts of our lives. sometimes all of them. and it may or may not have been responsible for a few tense words and a box of popsicles being thrown against the wall in the late 90s. good lord it's a wonder we don't all end up in a corner rocking back and forth. more.

OF COURSE i'm going to be affected by the cute and the cuddly and the memories of how wonderful newborns and toddlers and preschoolers are. how watching your child grow is the most awe inspiring heartbreaking thing you can ever do. who wouldn't want that again? then pair all that with all that biology and BAM! another baby at 40 coming off the worst year of my life coupled with the fact that i haven't exactly gotten around to losing all of the baby weight from the last baby (who is now 11) yet seems like a *fine* idea. oh. and i forgot about the kill me dead part. again.

god. just thinking about it makes me want to re-consider the implementation of the 8:30 a.m. mama happy hour.

so there you have it. and i share this all with you to put it out to the universe. again. how it isn't gonna happen. i also share this all with you so that the next time you look at a woman just know that what you see is NEVER 'all' of what you get. there's a lot going on underneath that skin. a LOT. so allowing a bit of latitude for how that translates 'behavior wise' is always appreciated. because sometimes we can't help going bat shit crazy. can.not.help.it.

THAT'S why they make us so soft and fabulous on the outside.

it's survival of the species. it's also why they make toddlers and puppies so cute.

and wine.

x.