"Ok Mommy, I think you're right - I need a nap"

Today I remembered a totally different life. I remembered being much younger and single. Either by friendship or pure pity, I would visit my friends who had children. Inevitably I'd walk into their house and see a life taken over by something you'd find along aisle three of a Toy's R Us store: colorful trinkets, play gyms, whirley things, building blocks, stuffed animals, talking books and choo choo trains ...(insert background circus music here). I would immediately feel like a foreign exchange student trying my hardest to find something relevant to discuss, "Wow, little Timmy is so smart! What is he, like six months old now?"

"No, he's a year and a half."

"Oh... so, the conversational french book is his?"

Every mother at the time gave me the same song and dance, "You will never know until you have one of your own. " When Edwin and I were engaged, I remember walking Tess through the neighborhood and passing houses that obviously had children; toys in the driveway, swings on the trees, the occasional midget-sized basketball hoop... I distinctly remember passing a house where no cutains sheilded the contents of the front room. And what could passers-by see? An Easy-Bake oven surrounded by an infant-sized kitchen complete with colorful plastic food strewn about the floor and toddler clothing hanging over the furniture. I thought to myself, "Jeez, that will never be me. Kids toys will never rule my adult space."

Insert 'kid' here.

Then insert foot into mouth:

"Hello, welcome to our home! Thank you so much for attending our wine-tasting, pheasant-roasting, cheese-sniffing evening! May I take your coat?"