Beautiful Baby Bea

This past weekend G and I headed over to NYC to meet our new niece, Beatrice. This is also the name of my favorite Shakespearean heroin --- so she too is clearly going to grow up to be strong and smart with a rapier wit. She arrived about 3 and half weeks ago to G’s brother Drew, and his wife, Suzanne.

Bea with her Momma . . .


. . . her Pappa . . .


. . . and her grandma . . .

This girl is ridiculously cute, with her already full head of dark hair and gray blue eyes. I know, I know! Everyone says that about every baby, but somehow, little Bea was just that much more irresistible to us. We may be just a little partial, but she seems to have a rose colored glow surrounding her.

G turned to mush the moment he saw her. You could literally see his insides melting into a puddle of love. He didn’t stand a chance. He was wrapped around her teensy little fingers within moments . . . Well, he wasn’t ready so much for poopy diapers or burping, but otherwise, he was putty in her little hands. It was so moving to see. I think girls fall a little more in love with their guys when we see them being good with kids.

Mush. He was complete mush.

I was also enchanted. Pretty much any time she was in sight, we stared at her completely enthralled, even if she was just lying there. She’s endlessly fascinating. Just laying there asleep, not moving, she’s fascinating. Yeah, we were smitten.

I was pretty much mush too.

I think I might have actually felt my biological clock tick for the first time. I think this gorgeous little creature may have given me my first pang of maternal longing!

Now, before anyone (Mom, I’m talking to you here) runs out and starts buying out Babies R Us, let me clarify. I’m not saying I’m ready to have one now, or even in the next couple years, but the time is coming. This is actually kind of a relief in a way. See, I’ve always had this timeline of when we should probably start having the kiddies. This was never based on any emotional pangs, but was arrived at by considering multiple factors such as health, finances, age, work, etc, and calculating when these factors were most likely to optimally align. It’s more a matter of scheduling the calendar of life’s to-do list.

I love kids, and have always wanted them in the abstract, but I kind of tend to shrink with horror at the idea of actually having one. When asked if I have any kids of my own, it’s all I can do to hold back a ‘HELL NO!’ I love other people’s kids. I like to goof around and play games and am always happy to baby-sit, but I’m also very happy to give them back at the end of the day.

It’s not that I’m even squeamish around them or grossed out by dirty diapers or burp-up. I’ve changed a few diapers in my day and, well . . . I’ve been known to drool a little when I nap myself. Who am I to begrudge a little person’s inability to control what comes out of their mouth when I still haven’t completely mastered this skill after all of these years? I do admit that I’m TERRIFIED of labor, but I’ve simply come to terms with the fact that I will get drugs. Say what you will about the epidural, but being born with your mother in a panic attack can’t be good for you either.

This cautious feeling regarding maternity actually goes back a long way. Even as a kid, while I definitely played with my dolls quite a bit, when I played “house” with them by myself, I was never their mother. I’d create these elaborate stories where I was an older sister tragically left to raise her 12 younger siblings, or sometimes I was left in charge of curiously nice orphanage or boarding school. I may have seen A Little Princess once too often.

It really just comes down to the fact that I still really like my freedom. I’m still too selfish. I like it being just G and me for now. Let’s put it this way, when I go to Disneyland I still want to dictate what rides I go on! And money is a whole other story. Aside from the fact that we really don’t have the money to care for a baby just yet, let alone a home in this city, or schools, or the doctor’s bills --- hell, I think we could maybe just afford a pet --- I still kind of want to spend the money we do have on us for a little while longer before we bring another person into the equation. It’s definitely easier to make a decision to go spend a few months and a good chunk of change in another country, as we will be doing in just another month, when you don’t have another tiny person to consider.

So I was really starting to wonder if that maternal longing was ever going to kick in. Rather than longing for the moment I can have a baby of my own, I often try to figure how far back I can push the timeline I’ve created – maybe 32-34 could be 35, or 36, 37, 38, 39, 40. Is 50 too old? (Actually, nowadays, it really might not be.)

Right now, we’re still nowhere near ready; not financially and not emotionally. I/we still have a few more years of selfish living to do. However, it’s kind of comforting to know that biology may kick in yet. I can actually now fathom that the day is coming when I’d be willing to sacrifice all the freedom I now love so much in favor of another little guy or gal. The charms of Beautiful Bea have given me hope that I may still catch up to my timeline and be ready when the time comes . . . or at least I won’t mentally push the bar back quite so far from now on.