Better Late Than Never

I realize it is December 1st and that Thanksgiving has come and gone, but since I spent most of Thanksgiving weekend focused on what I didn't have rather than what I did, I thought I would spend December being grateful for all the good things in my life. So today, I am grateful for reality. Yes, you read that correctly. I am grateful for reality. Today. Most days I am not. Most days begin with me saying out loud, to myself and possibly my alarm clock, 'Five more minutes,' at least twice because I don't want to face reality.

To fully explain today's gratitude for reality, I first have to start with an unsettling confession. Recently I have begun to think of having children as something I want to do. To do in the near future, not as some random possibility in the long-term. Maybe it is because my ovaries, after 17 years of wasted output, have suddenly begun to fear there will be a shortage of supplies and are sending random hormones surging through my system, butI have begun to coo over babies. Whatever the reason, rather than squealing 'EW!' and turning the channel when I happen upon TLC's A Baby Story, I pause and think, 'How lovely.' Well, the actual childbirth isn't lovely, but the newborn baby is. Thus, one of the things I was mentally complaining about during Thanksgiving: dying alone and being eaten by Alsatians.

Which brings us to today. I have been baby-sitting a lot lately for my friend Z, as she and her husband Mr. Conservative bought a new house and are doing all the labor-intensive moving and cleaning of the old house etc. So Wednesday night and today I baby-sat for Jr. while Z and Mr. Conservative got that last vestiges of furniture, dirt, and dust out of their old house. Jr. is 17 months old and absolutely delightful. We have fun driving cars off the back of the couch, rough-housing, and playing his favorite game, Empty-and-Fill the CD Rack. Usually I only watch Jr. for a couple of hours at a time, but today he was here for almost four. So the fun was interrupted by a rather foul dirty diaper. So foul, in fact, that I have been burning candles and Febreezing for several hours, but still think I smell it. If it weren't two million degrees below zero, I would open all the windows. And that my friends, is a reality for which I am thankful. Dirty diapers and not having enough hands, and the sheer exhaustion of being responsible for another human being makes me realize that possibly I'm not ready for that kind of commitment right now and also, thank goodness I'm not a single mom. Even if Jr.'s reddish hair and blue eyes make everyone around here think I am.