How I look at children

If you knew me in real life, you would probably be really shocked that I want kids so badly.

I've never been one to goo-goo over babies.  When out in public, I'm the person who's annoyed by all of the annoying things that kids do rather than finding it cute.  My eyes roll pretty hard when a parent can't keep a kid quiet at a restaurant.  And really, I haven't been around really young children a whole lot.  I'm not the person who is stretching out my arms to grab a baby relative at every family gathering.

So I can understand why some people might wonder why my day to day life is pretty much the opposite of what I really want in life.

Here's how I see it.

To me, a child is the same thing as a brownie is to someone on a strict diet.  That dieter knows that ultimately, they are not allowed to eat the brownie.  They will not taste its chocolaty goodness.  So when they pass by the bakery window, they might glance at it and think "I'd really like to taste one of those some day." and then they quickly scuttle pass that window and they don't linger on this wonderful confection that they really, REALLY want to eat, but ultimately can not have.

And if they are forced to stand there for a moment (I dunno, maybe a friend they are with stops at the window), they will not think about all of the wonderful brownie fudginess, instead they will focus on the fact that some idiot decided to put walnuts in it (who does that?  Who messes up a big square of fudgy goodness with this bitter, tooth breaking thing?), or how it looks pretty dried out.  They will concentrate on all of the reasons why they don't really want that particular brownie anyway.

What a dieter certainly does NOT do is go inside that bakery, hold that brownie in their hands, take a deep lungful of all of the bakery smells, and suck in every bit of the bakery experience they can without actually eating anything.

Would they enjoy the smells of the bakery if they allowed themselves that experience?  Oh absolutely.  But it would make the fact that they can't eat the brownie all the more heartbreaking.

And since I've known since I was a teenager that I was destined to be an infertile, I've never gone inside the bakery and taken a good strong whiff.  I have kept myself on the outside of that glass, noticing the walnuts, and the dried edges.  Occasionally I will allow myself to acknowledge that yeah, I do want that brownie, but no, I won't indulge in the partial experience of going inside without actually being able to purchase.

Until I'm certain that I will be someone who will get to eat the whole brownie, I will continue to roll my eyes at bratty kids in the grocery store, focus on all the diapers I don't have to change, and smugly indulge in sleeping a solid 8 hours.

And when my own kid is in my arms, I'm sure my entire persona will change and I'll be scarfing down every brownie in sight (both literally and metaphorically).