Celeb Cycle

Every time I pass a newsstand and I glimpse Nicole Richie and her new baby girl on the cover of People, I wonder how long the baby obsession is going to last. I wonder if, say, in two years, the great majority of women who currently buy OK! and Star and Life & Style and Us (I have been known to be among them) will done with the non-stop baby stories.

Everything runs in cycles, right? (To every season, after all) and the last few years (or decades) have been: party girls (let's face it, Lizzie Grubman was Way ahead of Paris Hilton on that curve) and romantic smash-ups to rehab to hook ups to baby. How'd we get stuck on baby? Could it be a cultural backlash?

Whether or not it is (and let's face it, it is), with Kirsten Dunst finishing a stint in rehab, the party girl thing could be over. (I may be a year late on this, but, you know, I go local.) But the baby thing? We're stuck on the replay for a little while longer.

But the downward slope just may begin when Nicole Kidman has her wee one and Angelina has her twins (Twins! Just like me! And I had a dream once that Brad Pitt was my boyfriend! Coincidence?). There will be more babies, of course. And no doubt we'll have to endure lots of Jessica Alba getting her body back, but maybe in a year. two on the outside, and we may stop seeing softly airbushed lip-glossed post-celeb moms on the cover of magazines every single week and we won't be faced with photos of pregnant Oscar winners every day on celebrity blogs.

Then, women will smash through the domestic glass ceiling, domestic work will be shared, flex time will be de rigeur, and soft postpartum bellies will be in vogue, or in Vogue. Yes we can! (Even if we couldn't in Ohio and Texas. Two more days in Texas and we could have.)

You heard it here first. Express.