Of Maternity Clothes and Baby Talk...

Yesterday was my niece's 7th birthday party. My cousin invited her friends and their families as well. As I was so so so bored in the function room, I spent all the time observing the bunch of families as they went about swinging babies and toddlers around the room, chasing after them with bowls of baby food in their hands, carrying fluffy bags packed with milk bottles and diapers.... looking absolutely puffy with huge swollen bellies and struggling to walk with every step...

And I thought to myself, oh....my....goodness.... this is the scenario I will be facing in about 8-10 years???

All of a sudden, from my cool hangout places at cafes and shopping malls, to visiting auntie's house lugging a bunch of wailing kids, from activities like rock climbing and roller blading to activites like rocking-your-baby and playing with the swings at the playground, from buying cool stuff like crumpler bags and oakleys to buying baby stuff like milk bottles and bibs from Motherland......

Eeeek.

I can imagine a scenario where I scream at my husband:" LOOK OUT FOR BABY'S HEAD!!!!He's going to crash into the coffeetable!!!!" And my husband panics and scurries to pick up that tiny tot who doesn't seem to get what it means to crash your head into something hard.... Thats so uncool.

Or maybe a scene where I am struggling with an absolutely swollen belly and when I look into the mirror, I have horrible water retention on my face, I wear ridiculous fluffy clothing and my hair is conveniently cut short and auntie-like (so that I can be comfortable during confinement period).... *Gulp*.....

All these scenes, most probably I will see it in my peers in a short 6-8 years??
Its quite scary... how quickly I see my stages of transition in life... (actually given my age in other cultures its more than time to settle down and have kids)

I won't say I'm really looking forward to such a lifestyle at this present moment, I felt like I just grew up and there are so much more things to discover first...

But its such a strange thing...the cycle of life. First you are forced to grow up, you get into romantic settings in the dim of the night and do romantic things like candlelight dinner, walk in the beach, and you'd pay so much just to look your best, when in 5 years down after your marriage you shed those facades of yourself to reveal your haggard, naggy self, and buying the cheapest grocceries or even generic clothes from Metro for your kids and yourself.

I'm not putting down parents but its really ironical, the stages of life, after spending some time going for deep-meaning plays and watching movies filled with deep meanings you end up watching Barney or Sesame Street most of the time with your kid to entertain him or her. When you borrow books in the library, when you used to borrow Pride and Prejudice now you borrow picture books with HUGE fonts.

Strange, parenthood.

But I guess all these seemingly ridiculous things that young parents do in my opinion are worth it, for it is a life that they are bringing up, a precious life in their hands.

For me??? Naah... not in the near future....