Baby Love

I have won two tickets to London Fashion Weekend! How about that? I snagged them by entering a staff competition to name our new staff magazine. All entrants with names that will be considered were put into a hat for a lucky draw, and I won! They haven't decided on a name yet, so I don't know if any of mine will be used, but I will certainly be using those tickets. Scarf and I are going on Saturday afternoon. I know the biggest part of Fashion Week is the shopping, and we are both as poor as churchmice so that's kind of an issue, but at least we'll get to soak up the shopping glow with elite fashionistas and catch a catwalk show or two.

In other, rather more frightening news, I was out seeing one of my covens at lunch today and I just saw babies everywhere. Babies babies babies, like they were falling from the sky or something. And, even worse, I wanted them. I didn't think: that's the cost of 10 pairs of really expensive shoes this month, I thought, aaaahh, wouldn't it be nice to have one those (babies, not expensive shoes). It's finally happened. The day I thought would never come, the day where my age catches up with me, where my biological clock is not just ticking but spinning around and making coffee in an effort to be noticed, the day I am ready to give up SHOES! I want a baby. I can't help it. I don't WANT to want a baby, I just want one. It's like when you want to watch that gory, violent, psycho-thriller movie on late night TV, or perhaps a spot of porn, depending on your preference... you don't want to be the person that wants to watch these things, but you are and there's not much you can do about it.

I still maintain I am too young for kids, and I don't intend to go slicing my arm with a razor blade to rip out the one thing that is preventing me from having them just yet. I also won't be buying baby books, offering to babysit all and sundry's children or quizzing Shoes about baby names and whether or not smacking is acceptable in today's society (for the record: if it's a girl, Ayla, or a boy, Lincoln; and I'm totally into smacking, it's the greatest discovery by parents since the beginning of time). But I can't stop myself from cooing over every baby I see in the streets, something most women do but which for me has increased from Would Like To to Must Have, Gimme The Baby Now, and wanting to hold every tiny person I can get my hands on. Shoes has told me several times in the last month to tone it down lest people start thinking I have an unhealthy interest in children. Parents can't be too careful these days.

So what now? I want a baby, but am savvy enough to realise it would be kind of disasterous right now, considering a) our massive debt b) our lack of owned property c) the small problem of being a few hundred thousand miles away from the place we want to raise our kids and d) our massive debt. Oh yes, and the fact that Shoes would probably rather die than be a father right now. Just a wee bump in the road.

Does this condemn me to the status of irritating woman in a group of young and care-free 20-somethings who is constantly nauseating her peers with her baby obssession? Not me. I'll not do it. Emergency shoe shopping this Saturday. Stat. Maybe I'll spend at a bit at Fashion Weekend after all.