Mamma-Mania.

Well, I have been having internet trouble all weekend so I thought I would put in a pretty meaty post.

I thought I should confess something.

Its a big secret.

I want to have a kid.

Freaky, I know. Well, it would be if you actually knew me. See, I have had trouble with children my entire life. Whenever I approach a child they start bawling, kicking and screaming to get away from me. It's like I have some sort of aura that tells them that I wont take any of their manipulative crap. My mum's co-worker once brought her daughter to the house for me to look after while she and my mum worked downstairs. Now this little girl, with her pigtails and high-pitched voice, and her occasional switching into Spanish should have been all kinds of adorable. It is my belief, however, that this child may be the devil incarnate. She shows up every once in a while and demands to watch Dora, then sits in front of the TV like some sort of cult member, staring back at the unblinking eyes of her leader, the One Great Dora. If I don't turn the TV on for her, she will stare at me, hands balled up into little fists, firmly attached to her hips.

"Chelito.. Put on Dora, por favor."

"No, you've watched too much TV today."

She then will proceed to climb into my lap, or hug around my legs and whisper "I love you." I fell for this the first time, and hugged her back, and then a little voice would whisper in my ear:

"Dora?"

Well, well, well.. it looks like this might be a case of cupboard love. She has no interest in me and chooses to manipulate me into watching Dora with little fake proclamations of Love. Well played, little human, well played. I have since stopped falling for this, and she knows it. So If I say no to Dora, she just looks at me, smirks (which is hilarious as one of her baby teeth has fallen out now, so she looks like a smirking Hobo), and sits in front of the blank TV and begins to sing. She will sing Dora songs, she will sing Hannah Montana songs, High School Musical (which I will readily admit I happen to love), any annoying song that she can think of. As I stand there in disbelief, she will turn towards me and sing and sing, until finally, I break and put on her freaky cult leader for her. I swear, Guantanamo has nothing on this little manipulative girl.

So as you can see, I haven't got the greatest track record with children. I laugh at the supermarket when a child slips and falls. I nearly wet myself when I was at the supermarket with my friends the other day and some kid ran away from his mum and so I yelled out "Little human!" and as he turned to look who was calling for him he walked right into a shopping cart. I have never really had any maternal instinct, and have no experience with looking after children.

I once had to look after three little boys all under the age of 7 who only spoke French. The two older ones had to tell me what to do to look after the baby, and in the end I just got my friend to do it while I chilled downstairs watching Princesse Sissi.

Make no mistake, I get along quite well with kids ages 8 - 11. When I was in Cuba with my family on vacation, I had no friends. So I spent the entire time running around the resort with a gang of 8 - 11 year old boys, wreaking havoc, playing soccer, tennis and teaching them magic tricks. It was delightful in a Neverland sort of way.

So it was with great surprise that I began reading the blog Catwoman in Texas at the direction of my friend.

This woman is a miracle worker.

She writes about the joys, and tribulations, of motherhood with such hilarity and insight that it is impossible to not start wanting a baby too. She doesn't glorify the tantrums and bizarre requests that she receives on a daily basis from her son, but she presents motherhood with grace and humour, and that has really made a huge difference in my understanding of motherhood. Generally I've found that people either glorify it (their child is the brightest, cutest, nicest creature on earth and angels regularly fall out of it's ass.) or create these absolute horror stories. Catwoman (She uses a pseudonym, as do I) manages to mix these genres so well it's impossible not to want a baby too.

So now I want a kid, eventually. I'm still far too young, and I think if I made any mention to wanting a kid Camera Man might flip out and run away. And I only JUST caught him.

Yours,