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Family I Didn't Know I Had

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I deal with little kids all the time. They run around my house during the day (sometimes literally), and I see them on my days off. This has led to all manner of amusing exchanges, shenanigans, and even some added stress on my part. Mind you, none of these are my actual children, but I've grown very accustomed to dealing with munchkins. It's actually kind of fun, and it occasionally gives me a way to relate to folks with young children of their own.

That last part also means that I have opinions on things like daycare etiquette, and I can talk to other folks my age about their experiences with their kids. I know full well that their job is much harder than mine (I've yet to wake up in the middle of the night because my kid demanded attention of some sort), but we can hold conversations about other aspects of their development. I never quite expected to be in this position a decade ago, but that's how it turned out. In fact, when one of my friends was invited to a birthday party for another mutual friend's two-year old's birthday party and his wife and kid were out of town, he asked if I'd tag along. That's probably the best way to describe it: I can pinch hit on occasion when it comes to dealing with little kids.

On a related note, I also have friends that are fairly established. Several of them own houses, run businesses, or are otherwise full-blown adults. A few of them have kids of their own, so they are definitely in the stage of life where "adult" responsibilities have started to take hold. These friends will relate to me on their terms, about things that are current in their lives at the moment. That means that I will also have discussions about interest rates and mortgages, about financing a new car, or job prospects in one city versus another. Like I said, it's all just a matter of what's currently going on with that particular person.

On one particular occasion, though, both of these things managed to intersect on the same day. A good friend of mine invited me over to his place since he had to watch his son, and I was going to try to meet up with a friend who had recently bought a house after that. The wrinkle here was that the latter friend was going to go furniture shopping, so she might be tied up a for bit. She offered to combine the actual meal we were supposed to have with her errands to save time, to make things simple on everyone involved. Since I wasn't sure what time either of us would be done, I told her we'd play it by ear.

As it turned out, I ended up having a discussion about daycare and at what age verbal communication starts to happen with the first friend. I didn't think much about it at the time, but when I was telling someone else about my weekend, it occurred to me that I was talking about daycare and planning to go furniture shopping. Immediately, the thought struck me that I was old; twelve year-olds don't have these discussions. They don't even understand how these discussions start, much less how to participate in them. Then, my smart aleck gene kicked in, and I realized that, out of context, it sounded like a have a wife and kids.

Funnily enough, I posted about this on Facebook, and several people laughed at/liked this observation. You know what no one did, however? Disagree. I did not hear, "nah, you're crazy" or "whatever, you're still young" at all from anyone. They were laughing with me, but they were agreeing with me nonetheless.

Great, I've suddenly become middle-aged without even realizing it. And I didn't even go through the usual motions, either. I somehow managed to acquire the life of a married man with kids without getting married or having kids. I don't have normal problems, I tell you.

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