Day Five: Babies.

I recently turned 25, which means most of my friends are also in their mid-twenties. Naturally, this means my Facebook feed is an ever-expanding wastleland of engagement pictures, wedding announcements, ultrasounds, and baby pictures. If my Facebook feed had a headline, that headline would say "Things My Peers Accomplished While I Got $100,000+ in Debt to Earn a Useless Degree."

Just kidding! I'm totally and completely happy for all of my friends and their happy, adorable lives. I'm not even 1% jealous. At all. I super promise. No, really!

Ok, well maybe a little bit jealous.

I'm not jealous of their careers.

I'm not jealous of their shiny, attractive partners.

I'm not jealous of their shiny, attractive rings.

I'm not jealous of their successful artistic endeavors.

I'm not jealous of their nice cars, apartments, new shoes, new puppies, or any of the other things that begin being possible when you have a job.

I'm only jealous of one thing.

 Source

Babies.

Source

All of the babies. Although not these specific babies. These are anonymous babies who showed up on Google.

Source

Girls, do you remember when we were all 12 and everybody had a "thing?" Maybe this was just my friends. But you know how some girls were obsessed with horses? They read all "The Saddle Club" books and had that same poster of the bucking black horse on their wall. Their notebooks were always covered in horse stickers. Breyer horses were always on their Christmas wish list. And other girls were obsessed with Lisa Frank, remember that? 

Well, just like every other 12-year-old, I had an obsession, too. I was obsessed with babies. I was an avid reader of the terrible and vapid "Baby-Sitter's Club" books. I babysat every chance I got. I held babies at church and waved to them in grocery stores, and dreamed about the day when I'd be old enough to have one.

Seventeen ought to do it, I always thought. No way, in my mind, was I waiting a second longer than that.

At twenty-five, I have a bit of a better grip on reality. I'm really glad I didn't have a baby at seventeen. I'm glad I still don't have a baby, because my life is not together yet.

But.

I still love babies. I still fight the urge to steal them from shopping carts in the grocery store. I still babysit whenever I can.

It must be biological. Nature must plant some kind of switch in a woman's brain that makes her determined to have herself invaded by an alien being that is going to grow inside her, feeding off her for months before finally erupting out in a stream of blood and viscera. Nature has to make this seem appealing, or the race would go extinct. Something about those cute chubby legs bypasses the logic center of the brain entirely, and goes straight to the uterus.

These are my top 5 ways that babies make my uterus hurt:

1. Head smell

Have you ever sniffed the head of a full-grown person? A homeless gentleman, for instance, or the sweaty scalp of your roommate post-workout? Go ahead and try it. I'll wait.

All done?

Good.

How was it? Was it an explosive bouquet of delight and hormones? A sweet, powdery blast of delight?

No?

That's because it wasn't the head of a baby.

For whatever reason, babies' heads have a specific scent that cannot be replicated. This scent contains molecules not found anywhere else on Earth, scent nodules that are absorbed through the lining of the nose and transmit themselves directly into the bloodstream as estrogen.

Ok I made that part up. 

But they smell really good.

2. Soft floppy bodies

If you've ever picked up a soft stuffed animal and thought, "Hey, this is nice," then you would probably enjoy holding a baby. It's just like that, only 100x better and warmer and also, don't drop it or it could die.

3. Baby clothes.

Yup.

4. When they're asleep

It's a cliche for a reason: babies really do look like angels when they're sleeping. Like actual, winged, angelic, heavenly beings. There is nothing more perfect and innocent and heart-melting than a sleeping baby.

Except for, perhaps...

5. When they're awake

Because when they're awake, their huge eyes are scanning the world and their little brains are making connections and learning at a rate that you and I cannot even comprehend.

Imagine being suddenly and rudely thrust from the world you know and into a completely different dimension, where everything is completely unfamiliar and beyond your comprehension. None of the laws of physics are the same. Nothing is even remotely connected to any of your experiences thus far. How long do you think it would take for you to completely assimilate, learn to communicate with your alien companions, and ambulate yourself around this freakish new existence? Could you do it in three years?

Because, as Ze Frank would say, that is how the baby do.

Also, when they're awake, this happens.

So there you have it. Babies are adorable, and I want one. 

For now, though, I'll content myself with the vicarious joy of watching the little ones of my friends.