Sure, I’ll hold your kid at a funeral, takes the pressure off of me.

 

 

When my grandmother died, my brother had an infant and I was a newlywed.  A newlywed from a small town in South Carolina who dated her husband for four years before we even got engaged.  At the age of 27.  You would have thought I was being put out to pasture for sure!  If you live in the south (and likely the rest of America) the next question out of the preacher’s mouth after he ask if ya’ll will take each other and all that other crap, is “when are ya’ll starting a family?”

 

Spoiler Alert!!  I’ve been married for 10 years and we haven’t gotten around to that, so I’ll just say, it ain’t happening.  Non-the-less, at my grandmother’s funeral, as I held my niece in the receiving line and people made assumptions.  I have dark hair, my husband has dark hair, this kid has dark hair…”Look, that weird girl, you know, the one who went off to school at 13?  She did alright after all, married and a baby!  Life is complete!!”

 

So here it is folks, my top 10 for your Friday…now you NEVER have to ask me again why we don’t have kids, and more importantly why I wouldn’t want to be a mother!

 

1.  I am a mother….and no, not to my dogs, which of course I totally am, but this is not about them right now (note to self: don’t come across as a crazy dog lady).  I’m a nurse.  Any nurse in the world will tell you they have a VERY strong maternal instinct.  I’m a mother to my patients and more frequently to the doctors I work for.  I take pride in it!  I love my job, wouldn’t do anything else, and let me tell you right now after leaving the hospital at the end of the day after seeing 40 patients, and attending to 3 doctors every need…I go home to an empty home (hubs gets off a little later than me), and it’s my favorite time of day.  Silence!    Just that hour of not talking to anyone is complete bliss for me, and I intend to keep it that way.

2.  When I was a kid, and all the other girls were playing “house” and “school”, I was playing tackle football outside with the boys.  “War” and “kick the can” were more my speed.  Not exactly hair bows and smocked dresses…thank god!

3.  The thought of growing a human inside my body and then squeezing it out of an extremely small space whilst emptying my bowels and bladder for the world to see…no thanks, I’m good.

4.  Then, after the thing comes out, you have to make sure it doesn’t die.  Ever.  At least not until after you do, then there’s really not much you can do about it I suppose. 

5.  Look around you the next time you’re at a restaurant.  The look’s on those parents’ faces.  It’s called tired.  We see it, from all the way across the place where we sit at the bar sipping our wine and staying out as late as we want.

6.  I like expensive shoes and I’m a nurse.  I can’t afford both.  Shoes win.

7.  I don’t have an extra 200K laying around.  Which according to that crazy interweb, is how much you need per kid not including college savings.  I don’t know how anyone in this economy has kids!  The stress! The worry!  My brain never shuts off now! 

8.  You know how when you wanted to eat at that new restaurant that opened last year, but you never got around to it because ya’ll could never get a sitter on the right night and then little Billy had to have his tonsils taken out and little Ashley bit that girl at daycare.  Well, we ate at the week it opened and it was fabulous!

9.  Other people’s kids!  They are great!  For you!  And, for in short bursts, myself and the hubs.  I love spending time with the little people in my life!  I love that I have watched them come into this world and be babies and grow up to have these kickass personalities and obviously inherited amazing senses of wit and humor!  And I love getting in the car and driving home…in complete silence, if I like, or rocking out to Loverboy without a word about it.

10.  And this maybe the most important reason.  The hubs.  I love him and in a shocking turn of events, I love spending time with him.  I love jumping into the car and taking a drive in the country and eating at fancy lunch places and cooking at home for dinner.  I love the idea that we can go anywhere in the world at a moments notice when we win the lottery (that’s right, when not if).  I love that we get to sleep late and enjoy our adulthood!  Yes, I will take the day off work to go see The Cult with you.  Yes, I will spend my income on buying sweaters for the dogs.  Yes, I will binge watch Battlestar Galactica with you!  I will freeze my ass off walking to a waterfall on Christmas Eve and then drink wine with you in a little cabin in the mountains with no one around for miles!  So, come on parents…pay someone hundreds of dollars to keep your kid alive for the night and join us…guess what we are doing?  Having fun.