Ok, I really think I’m still having a crisis about turning 30, y’all. And that’s something, ‘cause I’m about to turn 32, so, y’know, ‘bout time to get over it.

I had a dream the other night that took me through, as I told Web Editor Megan, all the stages of childbirth, “from labor to birth to accidentally losing the baby somewhere.”

And while that dream could be my body’s way of telling me I’d be a horrible mother, it’s as likely a product of all the babies around lately. Lefty’s Progeny is but one hockey biscuit fresh out of the basket, with at least two more hockey children and another young Cheetah Club Clan-member on their way, plus tales and pics of newly hatched office-related offspring. The only thing I’ve created recently is a half-decent curry.

Not to mention, all these regenerators are younger than me (aside from Captain Beerslinger, who brings the average up considerably, heh).

Hockey Progeny in a locker room. ("I *heart* Bananas" bib courtesy of crazy Aunt Hannah Banana.)

I’m starting to realize that a lot of people go through some of the big “life stages” stuff in their 20s—marriage, kids, frigging insane ladder-climbing corporate careers. Where was I when this schedule was being decided? It’s just like when I graduated college at 21, turned around and looked behind me at the last eight years of schooling (high school and all), and realized everybody had been “experimenting” and going nutso and trying all kinds of…things…and I thought, Wait, THAT’s what I was supposed to be doing? And there I was getting an education like a sucker.

I tried to get that stuff taken care of, but they moved the goal line again.

Now I’m in my 30s, thinking, Hey, long-term employment, long-term relationship, well-maintained rental home, reusable dishware—I’m doing OK, right? Then bam, baby deluge.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is no baby fever in this head of mine. I just always find myself looking over my shoulder and taking note, feeling like maybe I don’t have enough feathers in my cap or something. There is no accomplishment that can’t be undercut by selective juxtaposition. And now Rock Band drumming perfection seems so trivial.