Monday, May 31, 2004

I'll have that with ketchup [by Laura]

It seems to me that Denmark is full of pregnant women at this time of the year. It's simply unbelievable - they're everywhere. Could it be, I wonder, that Danes are so law-abiding, such good citizens that when the government tells them to have more children in order to get more workers and tax payers into the country, they really go and baby-boom?

I've been to the zoo earlier today, and naturally the place is literally swarming with the little people. Buggies, double-buggies and kiddie-carts trample the unvigilant zoo-visitor, and if one doesn't keep a sharp eye out at knee-height, sticky hands and faces can, and will, leave sugary mementoes of the trip for the next laundry visit.

My experiences with children are largely composed of the occasional enthusiastic encounters with my nieces and nephews, and I'm convinced that they are all insane. A two-hour visit into my sister's house is simply the best contraceptive in the world. From what I've learned, children are easy to entertain, if you have enough energy; the tickle-torture will always get them coming back for more, and hanging them upside down and shaking always seems to be a hit.

I did the game called Aunt Laura Practises Ju Jitsu Throws On Children only once, since one of the little angels ran out and invited all the children from the yard to join the queue.

Funnily enough, my sisters both have multiple children, in spite of the fact that they both called me from the hospital after giving birth and said: "Laura! Never. Have. Children!"

I guess that explains a lot about the strength of the primal instincts to reproduce.

I used to be a magnet for all kinds of weirdoes - perhaps I'll share a story or two another time - but these days, it seems, I'm only attracting little sticky persons. I'm certain I don't encourage them. Just in the last two or three weeks, two little girls grasped my hand in absolute trust, and I had an almost-perilous encounter with a chocolate coated little Danish boy. I was in the front of the queue at the grocery store, when suddenly I realised that in the narrow space between the counters, a dreamy little devil ambled mindlessly towards me. He was between me and the till, and there was nowhere to run. "If he touches me," I thought in growing terror, "I will surely die."

Luckily a sharp command from the mother turned him from my path and I could reach towards the till safe from chocolatey horrors.

I won't swear I'll never have children, but I do feel I lack some kind of maternal supplement. Tiny helpless babies - at least, the human kind - don't make me go all gooey inside and I certainly have no enthusiasm for passing my defective genes on to some poor little bastard. Too many graphic descriptions of painful childbirths, things ripping up where they shouldn't be ripping, swollen body parts, milk-squirting, peeing when you sneeze, sleep-deprivation, depression, pains, aches, poop and other bodily fluids have been passed on to me in the past years.

Majority of my friends is starting to settle down now and even the most dedicated baby-hater is starting to long for a little hairless bundle to care for. It's strange, to say the least, but I suppose that's what long-term relationships do to women. I don't mind kids running around, in general, but I also like the option to exit stage left when the decibel levels get too much. I'm never surprised when stay-at-home-mums go a little wonky after a while.

They say that having a child changes your life completely, and it is the ‘best thing they never knew they always wanted'. I've no doubt that these statements are true, but for now, I prefer to stay as irresponsible and selfish as it suits me; children, at large, are beyond my comprehension. But I'm not unduly worried: there are about 6.5 billion people in the world doing their part in filling the earth; surely my contribution won't be missed.

* * *

Although otherwise common as muck, Laura claims the title of the Queen of Procrastination. She's also an expatriate Finn who spends most of the time inside her own head - out of which the words overflow on their own accord. Any resemblance to coherence is purely coincidental.

1 Comments:

Blogger L said...

Oh, go on. Some of the best stuff is started over someone's mad offspring. Just look at Calvin & Hobbes!

10:57 AM  

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