One Bambino, Two Bambino, Three Bambino, Four.

The kid in the highchair, maybe about 8 months old, was super cute. Looked just like his dad, only miniature. This is what I thought to myself while waiting patiently for Lauren to arrive to our dinner date last week. I soon noticed as I pseudo spied on the cute young family (mainly the dad) that there was a 2 year old sitting next to the mom. Wow I thought. That's a lot of babies. I then began to calculate in my head how many months in the last three years she's been prego. It was a lot.

Lauren and I sat at CPK, reminiscing about our childhoods. We literally sat for hours reading letters we'd written to each other when we were 9. Finding out that I used the term "Wuz doin" more frequently than anyone should was sort of embarrassing for a moment. It wasn't until we got to L's "returned to sender" letter to Jodie Sweetin that I began to feel a little bit better.

Now the cute family was about to leave. As they stood up I noticed the 7 month old watermelon the mom was carrying under her shirt. I tell myself this so that I did not have a sympathy panic attack for the cutest family ever as I realized she would soon be carrying around a newborn to go with her currently screaming infant and cranky toddler.

I soon got to the bar and quickly ordered a bottle of wine (don't worry Mom, I shared it!) where I normally sit and gossip with my girls. This time though, the night took a a more serious discussion route than which martini sounded the best. The recent arrival of more babies in my circle of friends sparked a talk about how many kids everyone wanted. Sort of a dead topic for me at this point in my life, but I joined in anyway.

Soon the chat enlightened me on how many siblings all of our parents had and it was then that I realized - Holy hell, my grandparents were out of their freaking minds. My parents both have 3 siblings, and if you do the math, this means that there were 4 kids. FOUR. Now being an only child, I think 2 is a handful. 3 is a lot...but 4? Take the 4 plus the 2 parents, and that is a 1 hour wait every single time you attempt to go out to dinner!

Now I could understand if, oops, triplets, on the second go 'round. But no, all single births. I have to wonder what sort of plants were being smoked by what I thought were my conservative grandparents! My mother and aunt are 11 years apart, but there are 2 others in between. I tried to calculate how many years my grandmother was pregnant in a span of 12, but I kept losing count as my brain began to hurt.

I think I have finally begun to realize why I'm an only child. I'd imagine that 4 kids means that the parents rely on some help. Both my parents being the oldest, they sort of already helped raise 3 kids each by the time they even got around to having me. I would also guess that growing up in a human zoo would ensure some sort of birth control/safe sex alternative for all involved.

All I can say is I forgive you Mom & Dad for the lack of sibling, and thank you that we never had to wait more than 20 minutes at the Sizzler, while the parties of 5, 6, and 12, might still be waiting for their "go" at the salad bar.