Tep, in what I'm about to say I want to be clear that I'm not pressuring you to be a parent. Not only is it your right, but you are the best judge of what would or would not make you happy.

But if you got stuck with the job, you are way too good a person to act in some of the ways you fear. Again this is not me arguing about your decision. This is me objecting to you failing to sufficiently respect a person I'm fond of.

I'm with Typo on this, Steph.

At the same time, I am you in the being glad I am not a parent category.

I love kids. I favorably influence the lives of kids pretty much every day. I am so glad I am not inflicting my issues on kids.

Just giving out balloons last weekend was a chore in self-control. Not that the kids were wrong in their behavior, per se. It just took way too much of my grit to be nice about it.

Not full-time parenting material.

Yeah also not parenting material.

Erin, there's temporary tattoo transfer paper: [link]

I don't see any signs that you're taking after your mother, Teppy, and thank god for that. That's appalling.

I don't see any signs that you're taking after your mother, Teppy

I think with kids it would be a whole different ballgame. I'm more or less okay in how I interact with people now (although, truly, I have a lot of her more narcissistic qualities; despite how much I try to hide it, I do tend to make things All About Me at every possible opportunity), but I think with children it would be vastly, vastly different.

I mean, thank you all for what you've said -- that's very kind. But I know myself, and I know what lives under my metaphorical bed.

I think everyone makes things All About Me. Civilized people learn not to act on every impulse and not say everything that comes into their heads.

I worry about the same thing, Teppy. But I want to have kids in order to be a better parent to them.

But I want to have kids in order to be a better parent to them.

Well -- and I don't know if I can say this in a non-convoluted way -- the fear of becoming my mom is a big reason I don't want to have kids, but even if I were 100% sure I would never become my mom, I still don't want to have kids.

So, it's a big reason, but even if it were able to be alleviated, it's not the only reason.

Unrelated to my always-entertaining mother, or to my fears of becoming same, I have a doctor appointment at 2:30 today to see about this nagging pain in my hip. It's also in my low back, so I'm assuming it's a muscle thing rather than a hip joint in need of replacement.

If I stretch, and roll on a tennis ball for the trigger points, and move around a lot, it really helps. Yesterday during the day I was pretty much fine. But then trying to sleep -- IOW, staying immobile in possibly non-ergonomical positions for 6-8 hours in a row -- leaves me in serious pain in the morning.

Plus, I've noticed at work -- where I sit for long periods at a time -- that when I stand up I can often feel my lower-back muscles spasming.

I've been using a heating pad, and hot baths, along with the aforementioned stretching and whatnot, and it's not quite getting rid of it. So I'm hoping some flexiril will get it the rest of the way gone.

(Pretty sure I caused it by [1] walking too much, [2] in really bad shoes for walking.) (We might also need a new mattress.)