Pink Tea Princess

I am currently sitting at my desk enjoying a nice cup of Twinings Sunset Rose Herb Tea and writing to you fine people.

One day, I hope to have a little girl (whose name, hopefully, will be McKim) and some afternoons we will take tea, as the English do, and this is what I will serve her. She will love it because it is pink and I will let her put honey and milk in her cup. I will love it because it is caffeine free and little McKim will be able to take a nap afterwards, so I can work on my latest novel. If that is not a Twinings commercial waiting to happen, I don’t know what is.

I would have been thrilled to have pink tea as a child. Instead, I thought of it as a mythical beverage that got served at princess’ tea parties. I didn’t discover pink tea until I had hibiscus tea at my swanky hotel in Budapest, almost two years ago.

This blog is meant to be more about children than pink tea.

My friend and I were out to lunch this weekend (the first of many), when we saw a little girl eating with her family at the next table over. She was adorable- she may even have worn pigtails- and she made bird noises, and we did the requisite ‘ooh’ing and ‘ah’ing and cooing and felt our uteruses (I really wanted to write uteri here) yearn. Then I ruined everything by looking away from the child, spearing a bite of lettuce, casually, and saying, “You know, at least one of us will have one of those in the next five years” (by ‘us’, I did not mean my friend and I but our entire group of close knit college friends- our posse, if you will).

And it blew both of our minds.

Because it is one thing to live on our own and have jobs and bills and nights on the town and one night stands and car problems and balanced diets and gym memberships and pets and dinner parties and houseplants that don’t die, but it is quite another to find yourself in charge of another person’s life. Because once you have a kid, that’s it: you’re responsible for him or her (or them- eek!) forever. And though I’ve always seen children in my future, I can’t see five years as adequately preparing me for that responsibility. In truth, it’s hard to see five decades as sufficient prep time.

Sometimes it seems the older I get, the further I am from being ‘grown up’. I mean, at eight, thirteen was wonderfully grown up: ooh, teendom! And then when I reached thirteen, I didn’t feel grown up at all, so it had to be sixteen, when I could drive or eighteen, when I was a legal adult. And eighteen year old Me, on the brink of four whirlwind college years, was absolutely certain that by the time I graduated, I would have things figured out. I’m pretty sure earlier drafts of Me were married by this time, with jobs and perhaps a kid or two.

Oops.

Not that I’m not glad for the revisions. I am. I mean, at eleven years old, playing house with a girl from my neighborhood, the height of sophistication was working at Sbarro’s, the pizza place in the mall, in between kissing our imaginary boyfriends (who, in their defense, drove really cool cars and wore suits).

In the end, it seems to me like I’m never prepared for anything in the Real World until I have to deal with it. Then, after I emerge victorious, I know I can handle it. I suppose having kids is the same way and that we’ll all be figuring this out over the next five…or ten…or fifteen years. And now I’ve just had the thought that, medically speaking, I really only have seventeen years of childbearing left and WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY LIFE, I’d better get cracking.

That was scary.

Still scared.

Soooo scared.

Maybe I’d better go find something stronger to drink than tea…

Or a man to impregnate me, stat.

Stat, like a hot doctor…from Grey’s Anatomy, preferably.

And this is what we call stream of consciousness blogging. And now I’m happy again.

Mmm…hot doctors...

(And, in the end, this is why I am nowhere near ready to have children: because I’d much rather think about my favorite TV show).