It must be spring, cuz I want kids.

I'm a very selfish person. Well, not THAT selfish, but still, I can't bring myself to get a cat. Or a houseplant. I mean, if I wanted to go away for a month, who would take care of it? I work too much to get a dog... And I still need to go out and get rip-roaring drunk at least one night per week. I need to be able to stay out and have dinner with my friends, and I need to either be able to sleep in on a Saturday, or run errands, or go on a 15-mile-bikeride. I do NOT need to have another human being dependent on me for survival, cleanliness and general nurturing. As of right now.

I've always wanted kids. I'm very good with them, and they like me. Whenever someone's kids come into the office, they take to me quickly. And I take right back to them. I love their shiny little eyes, and their stupid observations, and their smiles full of evenly-spaced teeth. And the way they're huggable, and the way they can pretend that things are other things... And I also love that after 15 minutes, they go away.

I can't imagine coming home after a loooooong day and dealing with homework and dinner, and questions and stories and bathing and crying and the rest of the gonteh megilah that comes with having kids. Looking back on my own childhood, my parents should be canonized. I was an obnoxious little terror. And, instead of backhanding me (I've seen old videos of myself. I deserved to have been backhanded.) they read me books and patiently (and sometimes not-so-patiently) helped me with my homework, and ferried me to and fro, and bought me clothes, and thought up fun activities for me to do, and quelled nuclear arguments between my brother and me.

And normally, I operate under the "Someday, I'll have kids" mantra. I genuinely intend to. I want my own, too... and, given that the Great State of Florida has seen fit to deny hundreds of loving and capable couples the ability to raise and nurture abandoned and unwanted kids, by being the only state in the union to specifically prohibit homosexuals from adopting children, if I want kids and stay down here, Imma have to have my own, or I ain't got no other choice. But I'm not going to go on that rant.

Like I said, I didn't want someone else's kids anyway.

After I save up 30 or 40K for a 10% downpayment on a condo, I guess I'll have to start saving up the Moo-lah to buy some womb space. God. That's going to be costly. Instead of saving up to buy myself an SL500, or a second-home in Costa Rica, I'm going to have to save up to convince one of my friends (or a stranger) to give up their figure for a year, and be both my baby-momma and my incubator, or bribe more than one person so I get a "huevo" and "espacio." My friend Alyson once said to me, though, very rationally, I might add, that she would not hesitate to either give me an egg, or be the incubator, but she would not, under any circumstances, do both, because then she would be too attached to the child, and couldn't see fit to give to me as my own - we'd have to be co-parents. (Even if it WAS half mine...)

So, anyway, because the thought of having kids is soooooooooooo cooooomplicated it's always been one of those things that starts to hit me in the spring, but I can comfortably shrug off as, "Eh...I'll have them when I'm a grown-up...that won't be for a while."

::needle scratching off a record::

I am now an adult with a viable career, capable of maintaining a child. I even have a second bedroom and bathroom where said child could sleep, and poop. So, this Spring, despite the fact that I have absolutely no plans at any time in the near future to even consider having children, the option seems just a little more real to me, and a little closer to being a possibility.

And it's super weird.

Oh, sure, I'm not in a relationship where I live with someone else, and we share bills and responsibilities, and cook for each other and have Friday night movie night, and read books in bed before we turn out the light every night...

But I realize that as soon as I'm in a relationship like that, after a few years (let's say five...like my parents...) down the road, we could have a chat about having some chil'runs. And think about it... if someone manages to stay with me for five years (we're on almost 2.5 here right now...but there's no moving in together, and no obvious signs that that'll ever happen) and we live together, and have a bright, fancy house with an ocean view and money to spend on jetting off to St. Kitts every winter... we could have some kids. I think I want two. And I think I want them both to be mine. I guess we could have three to accomodate any partner's desire to procreate, but that seems sort of expensive, and I want my kids to be spoiled rotten. Well, not spoiled rotten, but you know... go to Private School... have good clothes. Braces. An Explorer when they turn 16 so they can wrap it around a telephone pole (and not get hurt) and learn a lesson about safety.

So, now that it's spring, when I look around and see little children in adorable outfits, in strollers, or actually walking and eating ice cream and wearing star-shaped day-glo plastic sunglasses, or a Spiderman outfit, I melt a little bit. And I want to steal them. Or at least have my very own child, that I can raise from 0-6, and then resume raising at 18...no, let's make it 25, so that I'll miss out on all that expensive "college" and "grad school." (Jewish parent, no?) Because it's spring, that "cerebral" part of my brain saying "A CHILD MEANS NO MORE PARTYING!" "A CHILD MEANS YOU'LL HAVE TO DRIVE A DURABLE AND INEXPENSIVE JAPANESE CAR!" "A CHILD MEANS YOU CAN'T HAVE NICE FURNITURE, BECAUSE THEY WILL SPILL PEE AND CHEERIOS ALL OVER IT," is silenced, and all I see when I see plump little arms and chubby little fingers (on children) is "Awwwwwwwww! A baaaaaaaaby! I want one!"

I was going to make this longer, but see? I can't even commit to a longer blog, let alone a CHILD, which I must be financially responsible for until at least the age of 21, but preferably, until they either have a Dr. before their name, or an Esq. or a Ph.D. after their name. It won't be a matter of whether my kid goes to college... it'll be a question of where. And it damn well better be a top-50 school. I went to a top-50 school. (I went to a top 35 school. 34, if you want to get technical.) So, I guess my kid will have to go to a top-20 school. Or 10. But I'm flexible and understanding, so 20. See? I'll make such a good parent.

Bottom line: Financially able to have a child? Semi-check... I'd have to round up some bux to rent some space, and pay for all the expensive "vaginacology."

Mentally and emotionally ready to raise a child? I believe so.

Physically around enough to have a child? Probably not.

Sewn all my wild oats, and gotten all the wild hairs out of my ass? Definitely not.

Normally the "cons" outweigh the pros. Except in springtime. In Springtime, every baby is a little cooing bag of possibilities and the embodiment of (in theory) my genetic material. And I want one. At least until it turns summer, and the idea of carrying a hot, sweaty, colicky, stinky baby around in 95 degree heat with 88% humidity turns the whole idea of parenthood into a delightfully avoidable disaster...