Baby Thief

For those of you who don't know, I want a baby. Or more perhaps, put less frighteningly, I want to be a mom. Someday, somewhere, somehow.

For those of you who did know, no surprise. I understand.

Tonight my dream almost came dream. Or, I almost made it come true.

I got to my school board meeting a little early tonight and sat in the parking lot playing Brickbreaker on my Blackberry. Let's just say...addicting. Anyway, a beater pulls up next to me and grandma gets out along with two boys aged maybe 8 or 9, white-trash momma (WTM) gets out with a car seat. Immediately, WTM starts yelling at Matthew and TJ for running their hands along a landscape wall and seeing how far they could touch. Grandma goes to the corner of the building and starts smoking.

"Mom! You can't smoke!" yelled WTM.

"Yes, I can," she yelled back.

"Smoking on school property is a FELONY," WTM screeched.

All of this is transpiring in front of my car and I'm trying not to look.
(And whether or not smoking on school property is actually a felony, I don't know. Don't really care.)

Even though I was early, I decided to go on in so I could people-watch the family.
(I never denied being nosy.)

I walked into a room full of parents yelling at children. I sat in the front row with WTM behind me with Grandma, Baby and two little boys.

During the whole elementary school presentation, I had to listen to WTM tell her approximately 8-week-old baby girl that "Mommy feeds you, Mommy takes care of you, now be quiet."

Grandma joined in by saying things like, "You just need to be quiet. We're in a meeting."

And so it went. For about 25 minutes. By the time they left, I really debated giving WTM my business card and saying, "If you don't want your kid, I'll take her." But then I thought what mother (even WTM) would just GIVE their baby away.

So then I decided that if I wanted the baby, I'd probably have to steal her.

Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit that I actually, for a moment (or two), considered my options...and way of escape.

But, instead of stealing Baby Girl, I shared my paper and pen with the two-year-old next to me and we traded back and forth, back and forth until the elementary school presentations were over and I was left with the dryness of school board politics.

Then I left.

Babyless.