Ready or not

I always try and hide a smirk when people say that they are really and truly ready to have kids, since I don't think that that is possible. How can you be ready for something so important that you haven't done before? I don't think you can. You can get all your ducks in a row and be in a place where you can visualize kids and being able to take care of them properly, but ready? So that said, my husband and I were talking about being "ready" to have kids this morning on a walk on the beach. I was asking him whether for him having kids was part of an assumption that he would do some day in the natural course of things or if he made a conscious decision that he wanted them. He said both, which is a reasonable answer. I said it was both for me, too, but that lately I had been thinking about what having kids is going to do to our lifestyle and wondering whether all the hassle is worth it. I look at people with their kids and most of the time it looks wonderfully cute and touching and full of love, but sometimes the kids have runny noses and are screaming and have a dirty diaper and I think "Is the love you feel for your kids enough to make this manageable?" I'm pretty sure that it is most of the time, but it's another one of those unknowns. Until you actually feel the love I've heard and read many describe for your own child, you can't know how it's going to affect you. And when I see the snivelling, grubby, foul tempered creatures that kids sometimes turn into, it gives me pause.

The other thing, as I said, is that I really like our lifestyle now. Besides working too much, we have a really good time together, hanging out, sleeping in (not too late but enough), going to the movies when we want to, swinging by the mall on the way home, and just doing nothing when we feel like it. I have enough experience with kids as lifelong babysitter and big sister to know that that just doesn't happen anymore with kids, at least not with any regularity, and that takes some preparation to deal with.

I think these thoughts and questions are just my manifestation of the inability to be really ready for kids. Most of me feels ready but obviously not every part. I'm going to take that as a sign of normalcy.