My Child

There's actually nothing better than coming home and finding you've got one of those red slips to tell you there's a parcel waiting for you. I actually think it's better than finding a parcel (in the same way that Christmas Eve has a brilliance completely separate to Christmas Day), because you can then spend all the time until you reach the sorting office imagining what your parcel could possibly be. On the walk to the sorting office you've the potential to be a light sabre owner, the proud recipient of a puppy or even some kind of excellent chocolate box designed to make me chubby and grinny.

I collected my parcel today and found it was the Flanimals books I have ordered to give to my Beastie nephew next week. I am particularly excited about teaching him the names of the beasties and pretending to be them with him. I like being around this child - he thinks I'm super fun and completely on his wavelength. He is more than right.

It makes me think quite a lot about whether or not I'd like my own children and, if I do have them, what they'll be like. I worry a lot that they'll be the sort of mud chomping nobheads that even reception class children know to ignore, but there's always the chance that they might be some sort of rocket scientist that will be ultra cool and very impressive.

My opinion on having my own children is quite similar to my opinion on cooking - if you try it and pull it off it's  really, incredibly brilliant. But, it's a lot of effort for something that you don't actually have to do. Instead, you can just make friends with people who like to bake/reproduce and try out their cakes/children, then you don't have to stay friends with people who've made crap ones.

I am a complete commitmentphobe and, to be quite honest, the thought of committing to someone who isn't even born yet is a bit freaky. If I knew it was all going to work out well then I'd start popping them out tomorrow, but I don't have the best track record of making good things that last for very long and I'd rather not foist that on an unwitting foetus.

My worst nightmare is that I'd turn on the telly one day and there'd be my children staring back at me from the screen while a sympathetic Scottish voice asks strangers to help kids that didn't have a very good start in life. My children would be there, well fed and alive, but clearly needing better supervision from someone who doesn't fantasise about being a Gilmore Girl.

I would like to have children; I would not like to have attention deficient versions of myself who will struggle to explain to people why their names are Attenborough and Butler regardless of gender.

For this reason I am going to stick to my nephew until I find a man with perfect enough DNA to override all of my own. With the nephew I am allowed to be an excellent character who comes and goes (mainly goes) and is a lot of fun and then never has to do the telling off. It's a lot safer to be this person I think; plus, you don't have to worry about folic acid. I'm not really sure what folic acid is. If I find out you need folic acid to be a good aunt then I am going to kick off.

What's my point? I have no idea, but to be honest if you were looking for a point still after yesterday's entry then you're reading the wrong blog. I suppose I think having children is the hardest and scariest thing you could ever have to do and I thought I'd know whether I wanted to do it or not by the time I was this age. I guess you're not really supposed to make those kinds of decisions when you have just had pop tarts for lunch and have watched the same Bill Pullman film 6 times in the last 3 days.