Oh Baby

Oh yeah. Happy Hour with Lana and Valerie tonight. We meet at the same place, laugh about the same things, and order the same food every time we get together. I love it. I need it. Aside from just being a supes fun night out with my girl friends, it also just happened to be the Four Year Anniversary of Lana's successful brain surgery. She had a tumor from her brain removed four years ago. Imagine that: She was just driving home one day, and all of a sudden, she tried to turn left, and her body turned right. Cray-cray. But luckily for me (and, okay, for her too), she's back to 110% awesome! Happy Brain-iversary, Lana!!!

So the three of us sat, chatted, and drank wine (oh, and ordered a very unfortunate Panna Cotta). Then the conversation turned, as it always does, to crazy, scarring events from our adolescence. Did you guys ever get a robot baby in middle/high school? Lana did, and Valerie apparently got an Egg to take care of. I never enjoyed such an opportunity. Then, as if she took the words out of my mouth, Valerie exclaimed, "It's gotta be so hard! You can't just shove the robot baby in a locker! They like TRACK it!" I might have failed that test.

I looooooove babies. (Well, babies I KNOW - stranger's babies are weird, everyone knows that.) I love snuggling them and smelling their Johnson & Johnson No Tears-smelling heads. I love them. I have cuddled and snuggled the five most perfect nieces and nephews ever, and I get all high on their baby powdered bodies. They're so sweet. They're so perfect.

For two summers in college, I worked at a day care in Bloomington, MN. That's right, folks. I was in charge of America's Future. ME. Nevermind the fact that I couldn't even get myself dressed for the day, I presided over classes of spongy little brains that soaked up whatever nonsense I'd spill. I'd bop around from the three year-old room, to the school age kids, and back to the toddlers, but nothing was more sweet, more perfect than cradling a wee little baby in the Infants Room and rocking 'em to sleep. Nothing was more refreshing than seeing a baby smile for the first time, or being able to calm a baby down after a major tantrum. Watching those tiny little fingers work their way around a Cheerio and pop in their mouth was total icing on the cake.

So, yes. I love me some babies. I, however, am not ready to have one of my own. I like an uninterrupted sleep. I like knowing that, on a day-to-day basis, I will have nothing to do with another person's poop. At any given moment, though, I will drop absolutely everything I'm doing to go and hang out with my nieces and nephew. They're funny. They're clever. They think anything I do is funny. They're like the greatest audience ever.

The big thing here is, at the end of the night, I'm gettin' out of Dodge. I go home, watch Family Guy and fall asleep when I'm good and ready. And on some random nights, instead of chilling at home, watching TV in sweatpants, I'll squeeze into some skinny jeans and head out to meet friends for drinks. Tonight, I briefly considered how horrible I'd be at finding a babysitter on such short notice. Plus, I still hand off my sister's kids to someone else when they need changing, and when they're inconsolable, I panic and leave the room. That's like the HARD WORK that I am, at this moment, ill-equipped for.

And yet, ironically, the new season of Teen Mom is on right now. I feel waaaaay too similar to those poor, stupid girls. Except the one who's totally idiotic who literally couldn't care less about her own BABY. She should be sterilized.

Anyway, back to robot babies. I think I always WISHED I could have had that opportunity. I feel like I'd surprise myself. Like, I'd get a robot baby and turn in back in and they'd tell me that I'd just started to raise the next Einstein. I think I'd make a sick temporary parental figure. I'd probably go down in history as the best fake parent of a robot baby. As long as I could give it back eventually.

Did you guys get robot babies? Did it fan the flames of parental desire in you? I don't know. I don't think it would have helped me. I have too many incredible little kids I can hang out with whenever I want, and then just dip out when I need to. (Meanwhile, I'm posting an a-dor-a-ble video of one of my nieces playing with an iPad on the Pharon Square Facebook page...check it out for SURE!).

The consensus tonight was that not a one of us is necessarily ready to give up Happy Hour for If You're Happy and you Know It. But, if you have the opportunity, I highly suggest you encourage all your brothers and sisters to have a zillion babies. They're totally fun, when you don't have to clean up their poop.