Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Fabulous Friday: Finding the Fun Again

courtesy: iStockphoto

Trying to make a baby is supposed to be fun, and for a while it can be. But if you’ve been trying for some time, maybe even years, odds are it’s lost its luster.

What’s worse, the stress of infertility or the specter of a rapidly closing fertility window, plus the constant conversations of why you don’t have kids, can color your entire life. After a while, it’s easy to forget what you used to do for fun or even that you’re still supposed to have fun.

It’s been well over three years since Mr. Fab and I decided to get off the baby train, and let me tell you, it’s been hard to reignite our passion for the fun things in life.

We talked about it recently and realized it’s time to find that fun again. We made a list of things to do around town and we’re checking them off.

So far, we’ve taken a (rather exciting) canoe trip, been back to our favorite museum, and seen Gone With the Wind on the big screen. Here’s our list of what’s to come:

Go to an L.A. Galaxy Game

Play Mahjong at the Skirball Center

Have Dim Sum in Chinatown

Go to the Griffith Observatory

Kayak around Naples Island

Take a Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus Tour of Hollywood

Go on a day sail

What about you? Are you remembering to have some fun? What’s on your list?

P.S. For those of you who get to be an auntie to nieces, nephews, and children of friends, happy Auntie’s Day for Sunday.

My Inner Child on Time Out

In my “real life” as a freelance writer, I’m hard at work writing a guidebook to California’s Wine Country, where I’m lucky enough to live part-time. It’s a fun project, I’ve been enjoying doing the research, and I’m now down to the serious task of compiling all my information and committing it to paper.

It has been fun to learn about the region in which I live and I now have a whole list of activities I’d like to try, restaurants I’d like to eat at, and places I want to visit, once the book is done.

On my travels, I’ve come across some great kid-friendly place I’d love to try. Safari West is a wildlife preserve where you can camp out over night and do a dawn animal patrol. How cool is that? Pee Wee Golf is an old-fashioned miniature golf course that’s supposed to be a blast. And then there’s Train Town, where you can take a 20-minute train ride on a quarter-scale train though tunnels, over trestle bridges, and through miniature towns. I want to do that.

If I had kids, I’d have the perfect excuse to do all these silly things. But I don’t have kids, so what am I supposed to do, go to Train Town alone? Can you see me in my striped engineers hat, woot-wooting in the tunnels, surrounded by 6-year olds who are terrified of the weird lady?

My inner child is alive and well, but without kids as a cover, I’m not sure how it gets to come out to play.