Something in the Water...

All of my friends and relatives really need to stop synchronizing major life events.

Remember a couple of years ago when approximately half* the people I know all got married at more or less the same time?
And then remember last fall when everyone who wasn't already married** got engaged in a single week and I put a moratorium on the announcing of engagements until 2007 was over? (Which worked very well...too well, in fact, because in the months after that way too many of my friends went through break ups and divorces, so, uh, I guess I shouldn't complain anymore.)

Well, now the inevitable has happened. And it has happened much sooner than I thought it would. You know what I'm talking about...
The babies are on the way! People close to me are becoming parents! On a seemingly-daily basis! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I am very, very not ready for this.
Don't get me wrong, I like babies. At least, I think I like babies. I definitely like them in theory. In practice, I have no idea since it recently dawned on me that my actual experience with infants is pretty much nil. But at any rate, I've recently discovered that despite my best attempts to ignore the damn thing, the proverbial biological clock is very real. Some moments it feels like my stupid uterus is audibly ticking (especially now that I've met someone I can actually envision myself potentially procreating with eventually. EVENTUALLY. NOT NOW. Emphasis completely necessary because apparently these days making babies around here is as easy as drinking a glass of water.) So yes, I'm excited about having a baby someday, but the regularity with which my friends have been announcing pregnancies lately is crazy. It makes me very happy for them, of course, but every announcement simultaneously forces me to anxiously eye my enormous stash of birth control pills while googling "anti-fertility rituals."
I'm thinking about this today because a friend I taught with over the summer just announced her first pregnancy via Facebook. She's hot on the heels of Penn's sister, who told the family last week that she's pregnant with her third child. Cas is due with her first in April. My cousin Rae is due with her first in June. As part of my current job I assist a secretary who is going to have a second baby any minute now. One of my fellow PhD students had a baby just before Christmas (well, he's the dad so he didn't give birth to it, but still). Two of my friends from college who had a whirlwind courtship that led to what I still think of as "The Most Unlikely Marriage Ever" (despite the fact that it has already lasted almost three years) had a baby just before Christmas, too.
I really am thrilled about all of these babies. As I mentioned above, I have very little baby experience so I'm excited that everyone else is popping out these little people for me to hopefully get some practice with. In fact, I think I have unwittingly planned things perfectly since I don't think I'll be the very last of my group of friends to have a baby but I also don't have to be the first. Muahahahahaha. Plus, it's just exciting. Babies!!! My friends are producing offspring!!!

All in all, I think it's pretty cool. It's just that there's nothing like vicariously venturing into carseat and diaper bag territory to make me realize that I really am closer to 30 than 20. Yikes.

*This is possibly a slight exaggeration.
**Okay, okay, this is also a minor embellishment of the actual facts.