This pretty much sums up my weekend.

Exhausted and cuddling with Peanut. That's how I spent this weekend in Ohio, and I couldn't have asked for a better time. I love that little dude so much! He's, like, the cutest, most amazingly fun, most super awesome thing that ever happened to this planet.

It's weird to me that people kept asking me, "so what do you think of him?" Duh. He's my sister's kid. What do you think I think of him?

Given my long history of not wanting children of my own, it felt almost accusatory when this was said to me. As if the real meaning of the question was "Don't you want to have kids now? See? Didn't you change your mind just like we told you a thousand times?"

I hate when people tell me I'll change my mind about this. As if they know better than me what is good and right for me. As if there is something wrong with a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant. As if my life cannot be complete without a man/baby/domestic lifestlye/"real" job/suburban home/what-have-you. My family is really quite excellent at getting that idea across to me in the subtext of every conversation we have.

The awesomely ironic part is that my sister, who is now a stay-at-home suburban wife and mom, taught me the core principles and values that made me feel okay with being different and not wanting those things for myself. I thank my lucky stars every day that I had a role model for that--those same core principles are why I refuse to settle for a life that doesn't make me happy! I'm really proud of Salty for dumping her stupid corpo lawyer job when it didn't make her happy...she's stay-at-home-momming for all the right reasons. Hopefully she'll find the right kind of job that allows her to better balance motherhood and lawyerladyism and championing.

And sure, maybe someday I'll change, but that day is not today, nor is it in the forseeable future. So the answer to the question is no: I still love kids, but still don't want one. In fact, Peanut makes me want to have kids even less - it's so much work just to keep him entertained! Not that I wasn't up to the challenge, but now at the end of my visit I am one tired auntie!

That's not to say I'd complain if Salty had another one...or two...