In the early eighties, my mother was pregnant with my brother, and my parents tried to infect me with their feverish enthusiasm in regards to his creation.

Having read in all the parenting books published in the late seventies that they should try and include me in the process, they asked me what I thought we should name my new little brother.

"Driveway," I replied, thus setting the stage for our relationship for the next twenty years.

Other than him, I've always been fond of babies. Having been born with wide-set hips, I can't help but coo at babies despite my natural proclivity towards negativity. I make faces at them when their parents aren't looking, and when they cry, I tell them sternly that they have no idea how bad it is going to get.

So when my friends Holly and Rene decided go and get pregnant, I was pretty excited.

My friends have had children before--well, one of my friends had managed to pop two out before the end of high school, and another two by her twenty-first birthday. She was a religious girl, and didn't think that God wanted her to use birth control. Unfortunately, she had skipped the day at Sunday School where they were warned about the injunction against pre-marital sex, probably because she was out boning one of her many older boyfriends.

Eventually, I convinced her that God wanted her to have her tubes tied, and saw her through the process after the birth of her fourth child. I also talked her into giving her son the male spelling of his name rather than the female version she had her heart set upon, and left feeling like my work as a good friend to a new mother was done.

Holly, however, hasn't needed this kind of help. One of her few requests of me during her pregnancy was to learn how to make Bloody Marys so that I could have one waiting for her the minute the baby crawled out. This however, has presented too much of a challenge for me thus far.

Despite my lack of bartending abilities, I'm thrilled about Holly and Rene's new baby. Most babies come out looking smooshed and deformed, leaving one forced to grimace and compliment wildly, hoping that anything might seem plausible. Luckily for me, Baby Rene is a beautiful specimen of a child, from the minute Holly squirted him out.

Recently I was exposed to another set of young parents, who made me thankful for the remarkable amounts of laidbackness and coolness that my friends have shown. This couple had a young person, around the age of four or five. The father of this little boy insisted on talking in baby talk for the entire afternoon that I was there, even when there were no children in the room.

This fellow also insisted on calling his wife's brother, also present, "Uncle Mark," making comments like, "Wud Uncle Mark wike a wittle bit of cheese?" Aunt Lina was considering vomiting, when the young father turned his attention on me.

"So, when are woo going to have a wittle one?" he asked.

"What?" I replied, dumbfounded.

"When are WOO going to have a wittle one?" he repeated, this time gesturing towards his son's toys, which were strewn all over the floor.

Momentarily at a loss for words, I finally muttered, "I'm barren," and left the room to fix myself a drink.

So for now, it seems, I'm going to stick to babysitting, and leave the actual babymaking to my more capable and genetically superior friends.