I am very often amazed by my mom, but my awe is strongest when I’m in her house witnessing her many daily miracles. Right now, where as I am sprawled in front of the fireplace roasting my frozen feet and lazily reading a book, she is in the kitchen, spraying every surface down with a lemon-fresh disinfectant and wiping it all off to a high shine because, as she says, “the kitchen smells like fry.”

The other day, Thai and I discussed ways to boost readership of my blog in entertaining my dream of becoming a professional blogger. Now, I know that might sound silly to some, but to that I say that everyone has, and is allowed, a dream. When I was 5, my dream was to be a pediatrician, mostly because I liked the way it made everyone’s faces glow when they heard me say it. After I broke my ankle when I was 7, I decided I wanted to specialize and become a podiatrist. After I needed glasses in the fourth grade, I wanted to be an optometrist. Then came a long time of not really knowing what I wanted to do, but knowing for certain that becoming a professional swimmer, softball player or historian were out of the question. Lasting 2 weeks on the high school swim team, hating my entire softball team and barely keeping awake during history class were all proof of careers that were not meant to be.

I often point to Dooce’s highly successful site as evidence of someone who was able to professionally blog very well, well enough that she is able to house, feed and clothe her entire family from her blog’s revenue. Thai offered some good advice, namely, he said that I needed to find my “baby.” Dooce writes about her babies, her growing daughter and about her new pregnancy, all topics that have measurable progress — Dooce is 14 weeks pregnant now, how is she going to look and feel at 15 weeks? You are almost prompted to internet stalk her in order to check on the progress of these things going on in her life.

All this has brought up the question: What is my “baby?” What are the topics I can write about that have a start and end date, things that I could report progress on? This is too daunting a question to be addressed in this blog post, but suffice it to say that I did have a fleeting idea of actually having a baby of my own! Imagine the turn of events! People would come back for sure to find out if Baby and I had found better shelter yet or if we were still living next to the dumpster behind the pizza place. And what about my business of selling mini sail boats built inside small glass bottles on Pier 39 — has that taken off yet? Yes, it all sounds so exciting, doesn’t it?

But upon further thought, I wonder if I would be a good mother. Sometimes, when I see plump babies dressed in faux shoe socks or striped leggings, I feel my maternal instincts calling loud and clear. These are the times when I feel like I should have had a baby by now, but then I find myself making trips to the store to buy gummy bears and sour worms and I am reminded of why I don’t have children. When I see my mom constantly bustling about — cooking this, washing that, tidying up here, making recommendations there — it is very clear that I don’t have “that.” In complete contrast, I left a sink full of my own dishes at home before flying here and hoped that Alan might take notice and do the whole lot while I was away. I suppose if I did have children, I could have them help me do things around the house… But I doubt Child Protective Services would take too kindly to that.

Ok, but seriously, aside from my top 2 reasons for having a baby so far (No. 1: baby Crocs and No. 2: striped baby leggings), No. 3 is babies that look like Hayden.