Babies

Holy crap, so many babies!  First, let me sum up for you my feelings on babies:

They are terrifying.

It’s basically the fact that they are so completely dependant and breakable that frightens me so much.  It’s not like alligator frightening, like I think the baby is going to attack me, sink its three teeth in and spin around, crushing me under its seven pounds and four ounces, whip me in what’s left of my face with its scaly tail, and then drag me down into the swampy deep to tenderize for easier consumption at a later date. (See, that’s another thing: I don’t know shit about them.  Those facts are probably all wrong.  I don’t think the seven pounders even have teeth.)  It’s more the fear of being responsible for and then breaking them.  They can’t hold their own heads up!  That is way too much responsibility for a girl like me who often spills cups of soda because I need to carry something else too and the full cup is just easier to carry on its side.  (That was a long way to go for an analogy and makes much more visual sense.)

I also think I see babies differently than a lot of other people, probably due to never having been around them.  I really mean never: I have no siblings, no cousins.  Babies are just compact, defenseless humans, not some other species who require a different language to communicate.  Or maybe they do.  See, I don’t know.

So, as you can see, I don’t hate them, I’m just scared shitless of them.  What if they break?  What if I’m handed one and it starts crying and then I’m marked as evil and unlovable because babies (like animals) can sense evil?  What if their first word is “fuck?”

That would surely be my fault.

So, babies.  Ashley (not me) had her baby.  This is a girl I went to high school with.  We graduated together.  We also went camping together once and she asked a road worker if the direction the arrow pointed on a detour sign were, in fact, the correct direction in which to go.  That’s a completely different story, though.  The point is, we’re very much the same and now SHE HAS A BABY.  That’s just weird.  And amazing.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited for her and that child, but mostly I’m in a state of sort of shocked awe.  Like, how’d that happen?

Okay, I have an idea of how that happened.

Also, I met The Boyfriend’s older brother and The Boyfriend’s sister-in-law and The Boyfriend’s niece.  Excuse me, The Boyfriend’s seven month old niece.  Cue wide, horrified eyes.  My fears: What if I have to hold her?  What if she hates me?  What if we have completely contradictory political and religious views and we experience an awkward silence that we can't get over???

Are you starting to understand the terrifiedness?

Finally, I went to a baby shower just recently.  I admit, I love baby showers, but that should be expected--there aren’t babies there.  Baby showers are all about the cuteness of tiny, pastel things.  Tiny pastel shirts, tiny pastel socks, tiny pastel accessories--it’s a 13-year-old Japanese girl’s wet dream.  (That wasn’t supposed to be racist or about penises, by the way, but take it as you will.)

I even made the cake for this shower:

Be sure to check out how dangerously close that cake is to falling right off the fucking table.  I am pretty amazing at not ruining things--really, this should be enough proof to myself that I can handle a baby.  Then again, if that cake fell I could make another one in like an hour; if I break someone’s baby I am sure as hell not willing to make them another one.  Not after the first hour at least.

The point of all this is: new humans are just exhausting.  We should be like Merlin, born old.  Also, we should have magic.  And awesome, white beards.  And pointy, starred hats.  And miniseries in which we are portrayed by Sam Neill.

What was I talking about?

Oh, Jurassic Park.

Anyway, you need to learn how to distinguish between tyrannosaurus poop and triceratops poop.  It could save your life someday.