Almost all of my friends who have kids don’t have kids plural, they have only one kid. It’s a generation of only-children in the making.

But even having just one kid means a commitment to extended sacrifice, starting with those sleepless nights when it’s a baby, through all the boring school concerts you don’t want to go to, paying for its college if you can swing it, and in some cases still supporting the child until he is in his 40s. Ahem.

I don’t have a kid, for obvious reasons. So I can afford to make the occasional sacrifice for someone else and still come out way ahead of the parents I know in conserving myself and meeting my own selfish needs.

In that spirit of giving, I sacrificed an afternoon/evening for the 3rd birthday party of a friend’s girl. The shindig was hosted by another friend with a daughter the same age as the birthday girl. About six people were there total.

Time passed. As I stared absently across the large multipurpose living/dining room area, the hostess and her daughter came into frame. The hostess/mother, like me, seemed either a little bored, or maybe she was just worn out with having to make consistently patient, calm replies to her daughter’s endless questions.

“Mommy wheeeen… what…sss… um… w…” the daughter gurgled in a 3-year-old’s cadences. Like an across-the-room antipode to my blasé, Paul Lynde-esque adult male self, the little girl was looking around frantically, breathless and genuinely appreciative of this party that was tons of fun at a 3-year-old girl’s eye level.

Her mother grasped her on either shoulder, and in this laying on of hands, focused the girl’s attention.

“The pizza will be here soon,” she said.

The little girl’s head bobbled wildly, her eyes darted back and forth across the room as she emitted this word or words, which crested on the second syllable: “Nnnn…CITEing!”

“Yes, honey, it’s exciting,” her mom repeated dryly in that patient adult-to-child voice.

I smiled and shook my head, “I wish I could still get that excited over pizza,” I thought. Oh, who am I kidding? The party was suddenly “on” again for me, too. I stayed long and ate lots of pizza, so excitedly that I dropped toppings on the floor and bit the inside of my mouth more than once as I fought over the best pieces with the little girls.