Sunday, September 27, 2009

If...

If you want to be questioned and followed constantly by someone
and just when you start to get that person
and really know their number,
they change.
And give you new challenges you must understand and learn
and adjust to.
If you want to spend a good chunk of your money
and give up your once peaceful mealtime
to something demanding that lacks understanding.
If you want to give up your simple life
and those sweet moments with your spouse...

Going to the store will never be the same.
Going to sleep will never be the same.
and neither will staying asleep.
When getting sick all the time and gaining almost 40 pounds in 6 months
is by far
the easiest part.
Relationships will change.
Traveling habits will change.
Your breasts....
will have a utilitarian cafeteria-style purpose.

Hearing "mommy" for the first time
will be practically miraculous.
But after 30 times in a row repeated with jumping and whining
is not.
They will smile at you
and you justify the last month of screaming.
When they wake in the morning,
as crazy as it is,
you missed them.
Thinking of the possibility of losing them
you will cry. Instantly. Like an actress.

You act silly
because it makes them smile.
You constantly balance between what is best for them
and what will keep them quiet.
You spend your free time
folding little shirts, pairing little socks and changing little sheets.
You will never clean so much genitalia
in your life.
You take pictures of them sleeping, eating, sitting, crawling, standing...
again and again and make albums out of them and send them to your friends and family.
You play music to the fetus
You pick apples with an infant
You take toddlers to plays
And teach your kindergartner to play the piano.

The noise level, the demand, the fractioning of your selfishness is astounding.
And then a sick bunch of people after one of all this
want to do it all over again. And again.

When people my age ask me what it is like to have kids I don't really know what to say.
When they ask me what I do all day home with them,
again, I don't really know what to say.
But you do it, you never stop doing it because with these little people lies so much vested interest. Lies so much love - of that which you can't define. But since it is so difficult makes it that much more worth it.
When they are hurt, you break too.
When they learn something, your pride abounds.
When they laugh, you will smile too...no matter how mad, sad or annoyed you are.

You will laugh at them
and they will laugh at you.
You will imitate them
as they imitate you.
You will love them with a love so great
and they will love you
unlike anyone you have known yet.

So if you want to be driven crazy, and like it
And if you want to change your life all around
and love it...
Go ahead and have one of these exhausting, funny, loving, witty little things.
And the sweet couple you once were, will be a sweet family with family moments to share.