I was chatting with my four-year-old cousin (who is a 35-year-old New Yorker stuck in the body of a toddler). She was asking me all sorts of inappropriate, sweaty-palm inducing questions like: Did you grow your babies in your tummy, and how did your babies get into your tummy. After I answered affirmatively to the babies in my tummy comment she fell silent and got "the thinking" look on her face. You know, which made me break out in a cold sweat and my pupils dilate with fear. Finally she looks at me and states that she (and I quote here folks - can't make this up if I tried) "is not interested in having human babies in her tummy." She goes further informs me that the only things she is interested in having in her tummy are Norman (her cat) and Shrek (her favorite stuffed animal). And yes, in fact, she did use the word "interested." Twice.

So here I am a mom with two sons, a husband, two rescue dogs, and a partridge in a pear tree and my little cousin is reminding me of the days when the thought of a baby in my tummy made my tummy turn - which I had, at this point in my life, completely forgotten about. And I wasn't four when I felt that way. I was married, in my late twenties, and thinking maybe my husband I will never have kids. I mean they just seemed like so much work and we were having so much fun. We could travel when we wanted to, we could go out to eat anytime we wanted to, we could be as selfish and self-centered as we wanted to be! Oh what fun!

Then I turned thirty and the baby bug hit. I'm not sure I was ready to give up all my selfish ways but for a number of complicated reasons I thought "this is the logical next step, this is what I want."

And when our first bundle of joy arrived, I was of course head over heels in love with him. Ditto for our second. I mean madly, deeply, insanely in love with them. But I have to admit. I didn't always like them. They were super clingy, they required my total attention at nearly all times, they were not consistently well-behaved in public, and God were they loud. It was the equivalent of being responsible for two spider monkeys with no zoology degree. Good Lord, what had I done?

But then a funny thing happened. They grew up. And by "grew up" I mean they are still young - my boys are only five and seven-years-old. Still babies to me but capable of, you know, walking on their own, using the toilet on their own, and making their own bowls of cereal in the morning. Which to parents are the hallmarks of maturity. And they are funny. I mean make me pee my pants funny. The seven year-old plays soccer and his games are actually not a chance to catch up on my emails anymore. My five-year-old is a total joker and can do physical comedy like he's a young Chris Farley. I could go on and on here but my point is they are incredibly interesting, fun little human beings. I can't wait to come home from work and hang out with them. I love being lazy with them. I love to run around with them. I love to hear what they think about, well, anything. And even though those first few years were tough I'm so happy that I was interested in carrying human babies in my tummy after all.

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