Here's looking at you, kid!

A couple of years ago, there was a rash of marriages in my social calendar. I enjoyed several long road trips, became very intimate with the Target Gift Registry and was forced to take poetic license with my wardrobe so as not to be dressed exactly the same in each of several dozen wedding pictures. Attending various and sundry fests of matrimony was sort of an expensive hobby for a girl TA-ing her way through seminary, but on the plus side it provided myriad opportunities to keep in touch with old friends.

Now, as these things tend to progress, there is a rash of babies appearing in my little black book. I am delighted to report that I have gotten to hang out with many of them this week, and let me tell you, it's FUN. I have always had a secret fear of parenthood, dominated by the Greek chorus of my mind singing "You can't; no way; think again; ha!" I mean, a whole entire new LIFE, dependent on me and my skills of organization and diaper-changing and patience in the midst of wails and jets of bodily fluids shooting out from all available orifices? I just couldn't really imagine it.

But now that I have been in contact with so many really little babies lately, and their parents too, I am starting to realize an astounding truth: people have been doing this parenting thing for many, many years. And many of them do it well, even. The skills seem to come when you need them. And if (or, I hope, when) it's my turn, I will do just fine. Because babies are so precious. They giggle and coo and wail and poop and spit up all over your church clothes and every time they do it you just want to smile and make preverbal noises in an embarrrassingly high tone and say, "aren't we CUTE? Can you do it again? Auntie Jessie loves you!"

Bring it on! Well, someday.