No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine

I have a new favorite song. It's called 'Gotta Have You' by The Weepies. It's like I have the troubador from Gilmore Girls following me around with his guitar, only he's joined by Deb Talan and they're singing the chorus over and over and over. And over.

It's not a bad song to have in your head. It's a happy one.

This morning I received a red exclamation point email informing me that my friend Fellow Bridesmaid was in the hospital. Apparently her baby decided to make his entrance seven weeks early. Now, last time I saw Fellow Bridesmaid she was getting a little uncomfortable and feeling rather over the whole pregnant thing, but I don't think she was THIS ready. I don't think she was REALLY minding having to be pregnant for another month. I mean, the new baby has totally disrupted the shower we were going to throw for her on Sunday! Obviously the baby and I are going to have to discuss things.

It appears I have passed from Wedding Season into Baby Season. I know it happens at different times for different people, but for me it's the last half of twenty-six. Not everyone is married, but they probably will be soon. And the ones who've been married a while are buying houses and having babies.

Maybe it's just who you end up with. My brother the Lieutenant happens to live and work with people who are just like him. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the military, but the same-ness of everyone is sometimes startling. The Lieutenant was even in a 'married' flight when he first started out- a bunch of guys his age, fresh out of college, all married or getting married that summer. On one hand it sort of creeps me out. On the other, how crazy lucky are my brother and sister-in-law to be surrounded by so many insta-friends, so many people going through the same stuff? He's twenty-four and the baby stage arrived long ago.

The people I know who are having babies are people I hope I know my whole life. It's likely I will be sending these babies high school graduation gifts and going to their weddings. I hope they will be friends with my babies. They are all going to have one white and one Asian-American parent and they might look more like each other than they will look like their own moms and dads. The whole thing just makes me sniffly and watery-eyed.

I just didn't know this was what it was going to be like. When I was seventeen and writing my college essays, I was writing about me and all the things I was going to do. I worried about a boyfriend screwing up my plans. Eventually I figured that out, but now? there are so many people. It's not even just me and my husband and our family- I am already in love with babies I've only seen in sonogram pictures and over a webcam. Is this even normal? Are my friends going to swoon over my kids? I just get so caught up in the hugeness of everything. This baby? His mother is nearly the first person I met when I moved back to the states. We plan to be friends for a long time. I can't believe I'm going to watch someone grow up.

Comments

[orangepaas]

"The people I know who are having babies are people I hope I know my whole life. It's likely I will be sending these babies high school graduation gifts and going to their weddings. I hope they will be friends with my babies... I can't believe I'm going to watch someone grow up. "

My sentiments exactly. I just want everything to stay the same so we never have to move away and lose track!

[Lieutenant]

Your friends will only swoon over your babies if they have no babies themselves. People with babies only consider other people's babies when noting how much cuter their own baby is.

I think that ended with a dangling something-or-other. Apologies.