Then you really might know what it's like

August of my freshman year of college, I had one of those "wait, that can't be right" moments with my then-roommate, a friend from high school. She was standing in the middle of the apartment we'd moved into two days before, holding a pregnancy test that, yes, showed she was very pregnant. Later, we'd find out just HOW pregnant she was, as she had twins. Yow-za.

That little Lifetime moment aside, she gave birth months later to the two cutest babies ever, until I have my own, of course. As I visited the three of them one day, I asked her how things were going.

"I don't feel like they're mine. I feel like I'm babysitting, and any minute now someone's going to walk in and take them away," she said.

So today, as I watch my nephew so Dave and his family could go to the Packers-Raiders game in Green Bay, I keep peering (not eerily, just curiously) at Jack and wondering what it'll be like in a year when I have one of my own. Only by "a year or so," I mean five months. Mini panic attack .... Aaaaaand release. Whew.

We stood by the door and checked out the snow. We hovered over the coffee table and made pictures from Bingo markers and printer paper. We watched a little of "Finding Nemo." I don't know. Maybe it's because I've not HAD one of these things before, but I just can't picture one running around who's my own. Who lives here. Who I feed and bathe and clothe and raise and love and cuddle and curse when they throw up on the rug. I'm thinking it'll work itself out. I can't freakin' wait.

And, for the record, put down your cell phones with the pre-programmed child service's number in it. He's sleeping now. It's not like I tied him up and said "Ya'll wait here. Auntie Erin's gonna BLOG."