I spent this past Easter Monday staring at the one-week-old faces of identical twin boys, incubated and birthed by one of my best friends Melanie.

That’s right. To all you young people out there currently considering having kids, let’s take a minute to really absorb that…

…You can have TWO of them. AT THE SAME TIME.

So I’m sitting there, watching these two tiny humans form neural connections and learn and develop before my very eyes and all I could think was:

1. All newborns really look like shrunken old men, and
2. Oh man, this is SUCH real life.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written in the past, you know I’ve spent a huge bulk of the last two years attending bridal showers, bachelorette parties and weddings.

So you’d think I would have already comprehended that this “real life” started long ago and that I’m sitting smack dab in the middle of it.

But although I love a good wedding (friends celebrating friend’s love and whatnot), unless all my friends find themselves immune to those, “Global Statistics” the unfortunate truth is, some of those relationships will last and some won’t.

And before you say anything, get off my back; I’m not being a pessimistic downer. Because for the MOST part (aside from a little emotional turmoil and the mass drinking of one’s problems away) people are capable of picking themselves up and moving on.

Marriages and the relationships that comprise them are as permanent as you actively choose and fight for them to be.

But now, the babies have started; those living, breathing, miniature mirrors into your own human abilities and inadequacies.

And babies are FOREVER.

The time has come for getting knocked up. When people get to sit back in their new-parent smugness only mildly haunted by that tiny voice in the back of their minds that they can REALLY screw these little people up.

Now don’t be fooled by my rejection of certain traditional life events – I want myself some babies.

I want them in that weird biological-clock-ticking-feel-it-in-my-gut-constantly-trying-to-hold-strangers-babies-on-the-street kind-of way I thought was completely made up by men and projected on women as a way to keep them from becoming CEOs and taking over the world.

However, the idea of someone’s entire emotional and physical existence being reliant on me? Me – the person who crumbles under the pressure of deciding between crunchy and smooth peanut butter?

That’s some scaryyyyyyy stuff.

Aside from paralyzing fear, here are some of my thoughts on having kids:

1. Pregnancy is SO WEIRD.

When I say this verbatim to friends, most of them laugh awkwardly and change the subject. Because you know, as mammals the process of being pregnant and giving birth has been firming ingrained in us as natural since the moment we stopped believing those stork stories.

So the fact that as a fairly educated woman who is not 5-years-old, I still can’t wrap my mind around the whole baby-making process is considered a little off-putting to some. BUT COME ON – we take 3/4’s of a year to grow another human in a giant sack full of fluid, letting it feed off our innards and then spend 20+ hours of excruciating pain excavating that now-grown bundle of cells from our bodies and BAM! – Instant life commitment.

That’s.friggin.weird.

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2. Not all babies are created equally cute, but it’s amazing how if they are even vaguely related to you you’ll be signing up for baby model agencies before they’ve learned to control their neck.

My nieces are goddamn adorable, but both have gone through a definite “Rob Ford” phase (all chins and lesbian-chic blonde hair sticking in every direction), all of which we can look back and laugh at now, but one that not a single family member seemed to notice at the time.

Similarly, when I joke around about my extended awkward phase that lasted 11+ years my father STILL actively refuses to admit that this was a thing and continues to say I was always beautiful.

… I assure you when I was rocking inch-thick glasses and trimming my own bangs into sporadic projectiles from my head I definitely wasn’t landing any beauty pageants.

So what I’m saying is, if I have a weird looking kid, keep that shit to yourself. Hormones are going to trick me into thinking they’re cute as fuck and every kid deserves to have their parents look at them through rose-colored glasses.

My parent’s unrelenting belief in my beauty meant when I was called a four-eyed midget for two torturous years in junior high I was able to let it role off me rather than have it absorbed into my fragile pre-teen psyche. Kids need to grow up strong, and this strength comes first from their parent’s blind support and encouragement.

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3. I plan on taking full advantage of the nine months I’m pregnant to be a full damn nightmare. 

I spend most of my life trying to maintain a personality one can describe as “laid-back” or even “aloof.” But I still don’t understand why pregnant women don’t spend more time having full-fledged tantrums in the aisles of Loblaws if they don’t carry the exact right brand and flavor of ice cream.

For nine full months women have the ultimate excuse to shift between Zen and crazy-bitch and only have to utter a simple, “It’s for the baby”

Who needs to be passive-aggressive when you can just be aggressive?

No one wants to let you have a seat on the bus? Dump hot coffee on them. Restaurant accidentally puts bean sprouts in your Pad Thai? Launch a formal class action lawsuit. Your baby daddy doesn’t anticipate every want and desire at least 12 hours in advance? Have a suitcase constantly packed and ready by the door with threats of, “Never seeing his child again.”

SO MUCH FUN. Screw trying to be casual and low-maintenance in some attempt to not succumb to the crazy girl stereotype.

After all, it’s for the baby.

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4. How do people plan for kids?

I’m a planner. Sure life demands a certain amount of spontaneity and if anyone wants to invite me on a private jet anywhere in the next 20 minutes SIGN ME UP.

But kids demand a certain amount of pre-thought. I need to understand what I’m getting myself into. The whole, “As human beings we are evolutionarily programmed to know how to raise a child” is a GIANT amount of horseshit.

Our ancestors never had to plan for death-by-peanut allergy or trying to save for college tuition in a city where affording a 12-pack of Timbits feels like a luxury.

I don’t think my human heritage means I’m innately prepared to know how to raise a kid in a high-rise condo. When our ancestors had to send their kids out to learn how to forage for food did they have to teach them how to take an elevator to the park?

No, they just had to worry about little things like dysentery, starvation and animal attacks. You know…the easy stuff.

At least the forest has great square footage.

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5. Kids make everything immediately scary because you don’t want to be the first one to break your child.

Kids are going to fall down, and hit their heads, and end up with black eyes and bruises and lumps. I had a permanent soft spot on my forehead as a kid I ran into so many things (probably a clue I needed those inch-thick glasses early on).

But you always hope someone else is the first one to let your kid fall down, or drop him or her. You know, so you can sigh and act very superior and forgiving, all the while wholly relieved someone else got it out of the way first.

At my friend’s house Monday I was holding one of her sons and she went to walk down a set of stairs and I was like, “Nope, I’ll be staying put up here.” If she hadn’t been there to assist me I probably would have:

1. Remained on the second floor and lived off food scraps until someone more qualified to jointly manage breakable babies and stairs came along, or

2. Wrapped said baby in some impenetrable cocoon of pillows and blankets to ensure that should I slip and fall, he would be so fully encased in feathers he would bounce ever-so-gently to the first floor.

Similarly, my boyfriend recently caused a line at Starbucks to form behind him as he diligently examined the physics of pushing his niece in a stroller down ONE STAIR, assuming doing so would cause her to launch headfirst out of the stroller like a little human rocket (despite her being securely clipped and harnessed into said stroller).

When you have kids every crack in the sidewalk is a possible broken leg, every pebble means choking and every fruit fly and mosquito a transporter of death and disease.

On that pleasant note, if anyone wants to volunteer to babysit my future child really early on and scuff ‘em up a little so I can maintain that classic motherly moral superiority that would be fantastic.

Come on guys, it’s for the baby.

E.

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