Recently the list of things I’ve been looking forward to has been modified in a couple of interesting ways.

1. I’ve always looked forward to getting married, for all sorts of reasons, but recently I’ve been specifically looking forward to the difficult times. Those sorts of things that I used to list in the “cost” column of a mental “cost/benefit analysis” of marriage.

2. I haven’t always looked forward to having children. My thoughts on children have ranged from ambivalent to selfishly hoping I can’t have them (not for too long or too seriously). In addition to beginning to look forward to kids, I experienced a strange situation recently.

I was watching a few kids for some friends and one little guy was experiencing the usual “baby angst” while trying to go to sleep (“I want to stay awake, but I also want to go to sleep, and I want both now!”). I’m holding him and he’s screaming into my ear, the sort of situation that I would generally run from for the first 25 years or so of my life (I’m not 26 yet). Then he does the little “Ok.. I’ll calm down” thing, getting me off my guard, followed immediately by the “extra loud scream x3 directly into the caregiver’s ear” that just has to be malicious. And, after suppressing unrighteous anger, I thought: “I can’t wait.”

Obviously, I can, but you get the idea.