Past two in the morning and Baby Kitty is rolling a baseball around the room with her back legs. The sound on the wood floor is just the slightest bit irritating, but dude, this is a trick. She is doing a stupid pet trick and I get to be here to observe it. Damn, where is a video camera when you need one. Like I would seriously get out from underneath the warmth of this blanket to film her pushing around a baseball with her back legs, but it seems like that is a good, standard thing to say when an event like this presents itself to you, and you're relaying it to someone.

(sigh) Well, it's over and done with now anyhow. Too bad.

What? You want to know why I am up and out of my bed at 2:30am? Why that is because my beautiful teenaged son got into a car at 6pm with another child at the wheel and hasn't returned yet. It's, I think, called "payback." But that would suggest there is a malevolent force out there in the Universe seeking revenge wouldn't it?

Well there is. It starts innocently enough coming out of the mouth of your parent to a teenaged you, the determined-to-have-your-own-life, willful offspring, and it sounds like this:

"Just wait 'til you have children of your own. "

One statement that sets it all into motion. And what it first does is creates a vaccum in space time where the idea of a future child suddenly pops out, and it becomes a possibility now that you might have one in spite of your retort, "I aint having any kids! No way."And then next it creates all potential parenting DNA to start wanting to take you to a movie, and you mindlessly say "o.k." Then the manfacturer of the car where your issue will be conceived rolls off the line on a Friday. And since you've developed a taste for what happens in the backseat of vehicles, the chance of your determination not to have any kids (no way never) is reduced exponentially.

So, what this eventually develops into is a smaller version of yourself that you were sure you would never have, and this one happens to turn out to be interesting. Much different from the average kid you never babysat when you were young because you thought kids stunk, were loud and basically unattractive. Well, this one turns out to be cute, make sweet noises and is even cuddly. And, damnit, smells really good most of the time. And on top of that, it seems to like you too.

So you hang in together and you worry about crib death, falling, dog bites, bumble bees, splinters getting infected, drowning, lightbulb burns, choking on cheerios, and because he is little you think he is going to be stolen by a stranger when you turn around in Dairy Queen and he is not standing beside you holding onto your coat tail or every word anymore. And your chance for cancer has increased again because of the onset of stress, and then you spot his brown head over looking at the cakes in the freezer. Sweet relief.

(I did have a whole huge life before you came along kiddo. I did. And it was full and fun. It was. Really.)

So fast forward to 3:00am on a Tuesday morning, and the cat has worn itself out, and sleeps soundly beside you. And the child you never wanted is still gone in the night with the boy in the car who drove away with him 9 hours ago. And each sound outside or light from a car comes from the same vaccum in space where you first encountered the potential child and maybe soon he will pop out of it again. And relief will be sweet again and you can refrain from saying to him, "Wait til you have your own child."

But it's too late because you've already thought it 1,000 times and set into motion his after-midnight shift in the worry chair.