PurpAnd

I was talking with a friend today and he asked when the wife and I are going to move back. (’Back’ is the Sacramento-area. I grew up in Davis, T and I met at UC Davis, and we lived in Sacramento for three years before moving here to SF). So I responded, ‘dunno, but likely not until T is done with school. (She’s in a nursing program at USF).

The conversation continued and he asked how long until school is over, if we would really move when school was over, and where would we like to move to. I responded to the last question with Davis and Roseville and he replied, “Is that where the jobs are?” I kinda laughed, because I instantly realized how much we have grown up.

Here he was asking me if we were moving for better jobs (a very mature and responsible question), and I flash back to 8th grade when he and I used to ride to the park on our bicycles and talk about girls. But… I laughed even more because of my answer, “That’s where the good schools are.” (Gulp) Was I talking about schools? As in schools for kids?

He of course got excited because he assumed (rightly) I was talking about kids. He and his wife are having a baby (Ronald) due in December. But I had to quickly extinguish his fantasies of our kids playing together because I didn’t want to get his hopes up. We are not quite at the point where kids are a near-term thing.

That doesn’t prevent us from being bombarded with baby bonanza almost on a daily basis. We have two couple-friends that are due, one very soon (Clyde is the name of that poor little tike) and the other is the aforementioned couple with their due date in December. Two more couple-friends are likely to be pregnant in the next year or two, our neighbors downstairs just had a baby, and T is now working in the maternity ward for her clinical rotation. If there were a season for babies, we would be smack in the middle. It’s like BabyFest ‘08.

I’m afraid that I sound like an anti-procreationist. (Spell check tells me that is not a word… it should be). So, let me just soothe some of your concerns (Mom) that we do plan on having kids, and you can baby sit anytime you want. We just want to be able to provide a nice life for the little ones and we want to take care of some stuff first. That’s all.

I see how proud and loving and excited new parents are about their kids, and they should be, and I’d like that too. I guess partly what it comes down to is that I am just scared. I’m sure that will go away when the time is right, but seeing friends become parents is a pretty good indicator that the time is fast-approaching.

To all you who have babies, are having a baby, planning on having a baby, or who recently kicked their 18 year old out of the house, I say congratulations. I hope someday you can return the sentiment, but for now… I don’t want to hold your baby.