Next month I turn twenty-four, which is becoming blatantly obvious to me due to the overwhelming number of engagement and baby announcements that keep popping up in my Facebook news feed. I get it world, I'm an adult now! The family members I played Barbie dolls with are adults. The school friends who giggled beside me during Sex Ed videos are adults. We're all grown up and at a perfectly acceptable age to get married and have babies and live love-filled lives. And being surrounded by all of this love makes me inexplicably happy! Add that to the fact that 9 'til 5:30, six days a week, I'm surrounded by adorable newborns and glowing mums-to-be and it's completely unsurprising that every now and then I get the overwhelming desire to have my own tiny, squishy human to look after.
And then something like this happens, and it reminds me that I am in no way ready to be responsible for the upbringing of another person.
1. I often fail at dressing myself.
A couple of months ago, whilst visiting my beautiful sister and equally handsome nephew, I was trusted with the job of dressing him for the day. After several minutes of struggling, I succeeded and celebrated my win for all of ten seconds...before my sister politely told me "Good job, but his pants are on backwards." As I hung my head in shame, I looked down to see a white tag protruding from my collar. I had also put my own jumper on backwards AND inside out that morning. We all laughed and laughed at how I was embarrassingly not with it 'this morning'... it's happened twice more since then.
2. I find myself constantly shocked by what having a baby apparently involves.
Working at a baby store, I am pretty flippin' in-the-know when it comes to the products used for infant care. Need to know the size of your standard bassinet fitted sheet? I'm your girl. Not quite sure how that Steelcraft stroller folds down? Here, allow me sir. But do not be fooled - this in no way means I know the slightest thing about actual children, giving birth to them, or how to care for them! I am forever trying to disguise my expression of sheer terror when an overly open customer decides to tell me about her less-than-enjoyable birth experience. They cut what open with what?!
3. I am very forgetful.
The number of times I walk upstairs to my bedroom to retrieve something, forget what it was, and return downstairs with nothing is alarming. Imagine if that something was a child.
4. I am very VERY indecisive.
And if I had a child, I'd be responsible for not only making my own decisions, but every decision for a tiny human who is incapable of doing so themselves. That sounds like a lot of seriously time-consuming hard work for someone who struggles to choose between breakfast cereals (Special K is good for me, but Coco Pops are so damn delicious).
5. I would definitely name my child something ridiculous.
To me, naming another person seems like the hugest, most intense decision anyone could ever have to make. And it's one that I just don't trust myself with yet. When I was four, my family got a pet cat which I called Lipstick (it was a boy cat, too). Twenty years later, I again faced a similar challenge when Windows prompted me to name my new PC. I panicked and went with 'Harry Potter' which is both unoriginal and completely nerdy (if my PC were a child, it would TOTALLY get bullied at school).
6. Sleep is my absolute favourite past-time.
And I'm just not ready to give that up yet.
Don't get me wrong, I think babies are awesome! I think people who have babies are awesome! And I think (and hope) that one day I'll be lucky enough to be one of those awesome people who has an awesome baby and it will be awesome. But for now, I am content with the fact that my biggest responsibility is making sure I wake up each morning and put my shirt on the right way.
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