i wouldn't make a good mother, or father, or any type of parent. i don't want to pass on my bad genes. i don't want kids. i just want to drag my finger along the words of a book as i read them out loud to a captive audience in cartoon-print pyjamas. i want to struggle to explain why the plural of goose is geese but the plural of moose isn't meese. i want to make up songs about animals and sing them in parks. i want to put on band-aids, explain that the fizz is killing germs, have a painkiller kiss. i want to talk to a wide-eyed someone who doesn't know that dandelions are a weed, chipmunks are not baby squirrels, you can't "catch up" in age, eating seeds won't make trees grow in your stomach, the words coming from the radio are not spoken by little people inside of the speakers, stars are made of gas. i want to encourage a sand-covered ball of energy to try the big slide. i want to take video of first steps, first words, first haircut, first day of school, first performance. i want to accessorize with macaroni and frame brightly coloured scribbles on the backs of restaurant menus. i want to guide small hands over piano keys, into lumps of dough, over the roughness of brick walls. i don't want a kid, i just want to create something bigger than myself.