Oh baby!

I found this post that I began well over a year ago:

My very good friend Donna recently became an auntie. On Sunday night at church, I got to hold her little nephew Harrison for the first time. He started crying a little, so I gave him back to Auntie Donna - I figured he'd be happier with her, and besides, I didn't want him to throw up on my new black trench coat! I was trying to coax a smile out of him, doing usual baby-entertaining stuff - tickling him, letting him grab my finger, some low-level baby talk along the lines of "you cute little munchkin."

Deb, one of the lovely girls who I led in youth group last year and who I now mentor said to me, "Lara, I think you're clucky!"

"I never used to be clucky!"

"That's what I thought," said Deb. "This isn't the intellectual Lara I'm used to talking to!"

Oops! I've never been particularly clucky. Sure, babies are cute, but they cry and throw up and dirty their nappies, and I'm always happy to give them back. I've never been particularly fond of older kids either. I think four years of teaching Sunday School to kindergarten kids turned me off. But lately, I seem to be getting clucky. "It's not a bad thing," Donna said, but I'm not so sure. It seems now that I might actually want to have children (or maybe just one child) of my own. That means I have to figure out what I believe about gender roles in marriage and parenting! It wouldn't have been an issue if I didn't want to have kids...

I blame my new-found cluckiness on Tim, the associate pastor at my church. Well, at least I blame it on his kids (and I guess his wife, Sam, had something to do with that as well!) Tim and Sam have two little boys - Toby, who is "3 and 5/6" (the 5/6 eems very important to him) and Noah, who turned 1 a month or so ago. They are very adorable kids. Toby can be rather naughty, but generally in a very amusing way, and Noah is just very sweet. I remember visiting Tim and Sam just after Noah was born. Sam asked if I wanted to hold him. I said I wasn't very good with kids. "You'll be fine," she said. "Um, I've got a cold..." "He'll be fine," she insisted. Some months later, at a young adults camp, I voluntarily held him for quite a long time, and he was just so adorable. Probably the first kid who actually seemed to like me.

Update: Toby is now 5, and Noah is 2 and a half. Donna's nephew, Harrison, is about 18 months old. A couple of my other friends had a baby just over three months ago. I saw them at a wedding recently, and was able to hold little Joshua. He was still half asleep, and cuddled against my chest. Just so sweet! And I'm still clucky. In case you hadn't guessed.