Not in a million years

You've all gathered from my previous writing here that I never thought I'd be a stay-home mom, not in a million years. First, I didn't think I wanted to. Second, even after I discovered I did want to stay home with Maggie, I didn't think we could afford it. So it's been really wonderful to see the way things have worked out for us, and specifically for me (since I'm the one writing about it and all ...). You can call it fate, you can call it karma, you can call it God -- He's my source of choice -- but I do believe things work out the way they're meant to, and I'm living proof of that.

So on Friday, I was at a baby shower for a former co-worker. She's been married a long time, and she and her husband weren't planning to have kids -- not in a million years. And truth be told, I'm pretty sure that if this had been their decision to make, they'd still be riding the babyless train. But things don't always go as planned, and they're doing a great job handling being thrown off the one train and forced to board another. (Well, she's doing a great job. We're all still a little worried about him...)

Maggie and I attended the baby shower together. This will be relevant in a minute. Two of the other guests are employees who joined the staff sometime after 2005, which is when I left. I know them enough to call them each by name when I say hello during my weekly "work" shift, but other than that, I really don't know them at all. They're both young, pretty, and, from what I can gather, fairly newly wed. So when the pregnant guest of honor started making jokes about which of them would be next to board the baby train, they began saying they never wanted to have kids -- not in a million years. Then, "saying" they never wanted kids quickly grew in intensity to "swearing" they never wanted kids, which grew in intensity into a bizarre contest in which each seemed to be trying to outdo the other in her insistence that she didn't want children. Not EVER. I'd had about all I could take when the most recently wed of the two declared, "No seriously. If I ever turn up missing or dead, it's probably because I found out I was pregnant and killed myself."

Excuse me?

(I won't even mention how inappropriate that was to say at a BABY SHOWER. Or in front of seven employees who have children. Or in front of one former employee who quit to raise her child. Or in front of a 3-year-old. I won't mention that at all ...) I get it, sort of, I really do. She's a newlywed, and she thinks life will never be any better than it is right now. I remember that too -- what it was like to be so completely enamored with my husband that I couldn't imagine, not in a million years, that we'd ever want anything more than we had right there. I remember what it was like to have two incomes and be able to afford most of the things we wanted. I remember the freedom we felt on our trips to Hawaii, to New York, to anywhere. I remember what it was like to talk about starting a family after we'd been married three years (then four years, then five ...). I remember thinking, "Maybe I don't ever want kids" too.

As I mentioned earlier, Maggie was at the shower with me. She was cute and well-behaved and content to eat tortilla chips and icing and play with the rubber ducks used for decoration. I listened as these two immature women tried to surpass each other's fervor at wanting to remain childless, and at first I was amused by it. I even said to them, "Be careful what you say, girls. I know someone else who used to feel the same way, and now she's sitting here in maternity clothes opening baby gifts." But when the one made the suicide comment, I couldn't take it anymore, and Maggie and I quickly made a graceful exit. "Inappropriate" doesn't even begin to describe it. "Tacky?" Getting closer ...

On the way out, I was thinking (again!) about how different my life is. (Remember, this was the day after I had the juicebox flashbacks at Sonic.) I wondered what this young newlywed would think of my life. How would she like driving to preschool, to playgroup, to Kindermusik? Could she ever succeed at convincing a picky 3-year-old to eat broccoli? What would she think if her greatest contact to the outside world at times was the Internet? Could she live without showering for three days, without her hair perfectly styled, her clothes trendy, her makeup flawless? Would she ever want to trade places with me? And would I want to trade places with her?

Not in a million years.