I don’t know if it’s that whole “biological clock” thing that everyone talks about, but lately I have wanted to have a baby. (GASP) I know that is the most shocking and disturbing thing I have said in the past ten years. I kind of want to wash my own mouth out with soap … and then violently cut out my tongue with bolt cutters.

One reason is that they smell good. And they are cuddly. I have a constant battle with my sons about the finer points of deodorant and Stridex pads. With babies, you still have everything to experience with them: The first day of school, getting to see what their personalities are going to be like. My kids are boring! I already know them, and let me tell you … they are NOT all that fascinating right now. They don’t believe in Santa anymore … they don’t even play with toys anymore. It’s all about video games, skateboarding, and giving me looks of disgust. Telling me how I need to stop living their lives for them now that I am thirty-one because mine is over. (Yeah, they kind of got me on that one, for right now anyway.)

I keep waiting for my sisters to have babies so I can smother them with kisses and give them sugar, and laugh hysterically when their kids fill the cat’s ears with ketchup. No, but seriously, I want to have my nieces and nephews every summer for a week. I want all my kids’ cousins to be close to them, just like I was with my cousins. Unfortunately, the only way this is going to happen is if they come stay with us. The good thing is that we live far away so they can’t just drop in for babysitting.

So why don’t I have another baby? There are a few reasons, one being that Andy can’t. I forced him to be the one to get fixed after I had pretty much two pregnancies, back to back. Evidently birth control was not one of my strong suits, so left to my own devices, I would probably have twelve kids by now and live in a shoe, undoubtedly, a Birkenstock, not a Jimmy Choo. Secondly, my kids are ten and almost twelve. I would be a complete moron to start over, just when the finish line is in sight. I guess I will just have to continue admiring from afar until my clock breaks completely.

Or until my children continue on the pattern of teen pregnancy in our families, and make me a grandmother before I turn forty, which is more likely the story.