I remember remarking once that the longer I lived alone, the worse my table manners became. Right then and there, I made a decided effort to clean up my act. I noticed this weekend that the longer I live without children, the more intolerant of them I become. How do I go about improving this? Don't even think about it.

A good portion (the sunny portion) of this weekend was spent with four toddlers who communicate with each other through a series of screams, cries, shoves and shrieks - to which the parents respond with any number of hollered directives. I couldn't hear myself think! Mr. Crabby and I scurried away for a while and necked in the hallway; "Oh get a room" my father says, passing by in a huff. During dinner (such as it was), one of 'em cranked up a toy police car that has a very loud siren, and sent it careening across the dining room. "Can we take that away maybe?" I ask the mommy. "Do you want my child to cry?" was her unkind answer. Don't slap the pregnant lady, don't slap the pregnant lady, I kept thinking.

So yes, I'm intolerant. When I grow up, I want to be just like Shirley McLaine's character in Steel Magnolias.

One more dumb story - some friends of the family have just had their second baby, who was born with the exact same hand/tendon problem as their first daughter. "How awful," my sister-in-law told me. "They refuse to have any more children because of this deformity, even though they wanted at least four." I was horrified. What a terrible message to send to their daughters: after having you two gimps, we changed our minds. If someone wants to have a child, or children, who cares if they have gnarly hands, or if they're deaf, or have other difficulties? Good thing there's no return policy.