Babies, Babies, Everywhere!

This morning as I was putting together a delicious breakfast (speaking of, if you've never tried organic vanilla yogurt with applesauce and a slight drizzling of pure maple syrup....you might want to give it a whirl), I was thinking....about.....babies. Now if you know my husband and I then you're already aware that we're the couple who double up on contraception when we hear of other people discovering they're pregnant, just to help encourage the stork to keep on flying past our house. Not that we don't want to maybe one day have a bio kid (although I'd rather adopt if we do have kids....), but we definitely aren't ready to have kids now.

Somehow my social circles have always balanced out their weddings. I've heard of people who get the pleasure of attending 6-10 weddings a summer at times, but luckily my friends have been getting married since we all were 19 (I do come from a small town) so somehow they all tied the knot in more than just one or two summers. I also have friends that are staunchly opposed to the notion of marriage so more than likely will never get hitched, and the hub and I both have friends that will hold out as long as possible.

But amazingly, a majority of the babies seem to be arriving about the same time, although I'm sure there are many more to come still. This is even more amazing when I recognize that the ages of my friends vary from around 40 down to 20. Being on a military installation I've gotten used to babies being the norm and at young ages of the mothers. The hub and I are quite the outsiders and at times I dread chatting with my health care providers here who can't believe I have yet to reproduce at my age. ;) Luckily, there are a few friends from back home who really intend, like us, to wait until somewhere in our 30s and who are really interested in adoption rather than biological children.

In the last six months, my nephew, my host sister, an old high school friend, a friend of the hub's, and two former colleagues had babies. Two other former colleagues and a current military spouse friend are all due in the next month. A current coworker and a good high school buddy are due in the spring. Three current and former coworkers will all be pregnant soon, and 2 more of the wives that I spend time with aren't preventing any pregnancy. Add onto that the 6-10 other individuals from high school and college that I know are currently pregnant or recently had kids, and that's a lot of babies!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not a baby hater. I love seeing little chunky rolls and watching lil ones grow, but I also have never understood that innate desire to reproduce and why society likes to pressure others to recreate their genes. We've already discussed before my aversion to baby showers, as I feel forced to keep my mouth shut on the toxic exposures being gifted to unaware mothers in the form of shower presents, although I'm all for celebrating the joy of an infant's healthy arrival! 

The most joy I've ever had selecting a baby gift happened recently when the hub's friend from high school had registered for cloth diaper items. She later reported that everyone else had ignored that gift, but nothing made me as excited as seeing those items on her registry. I also really enjoyed making a baby quilt for my high school buddy's first child. And now recently I'm tapping into the creative skills of the sister of a friend from home. Her designs can be found at MeFein Designs on Etsy (although she just set it up so I'm not so sure how active it is) and she's incredibly gifted with all things baby: shoes, blankets, bibs, hats. She's a great eco mama herself--cloth diapering, breast feeding, home cooking, and getting her lil ones outside. And she creates the perfect gifts for me to send on to those I do intend to pass baby gifts to--nothing like a lil something special made by hand to let a mama know her child is an adorable and naturally made blessing. (Pictures with this posting are some of her items.)

So how do you help celebrate baby joy and what are your baby "plans"?