After my friend Wonka brought his baby Cosette over for show-and-tell several years ago and Henry had a firsthand account of my fear, horror, apprehension and decidedly un-female reaction to babies, he asked, “We’re never having children, are we?”
And then something made me change my mind and I ended up having a baby.
Everyone said, “Oh, now that you have a baby, you’ll love all babies!
ALL BABIES! Even ones with no arms!”
Well, it’s been four years and I have yet to go out wearing a bonnet and clanging a bell, looking for babies to hold.
Don’t get it twisted – I don’t blacklist my friends once they have children. I love Wonka’s daughters! I love Kara’s son Harland and Christy’s daughter Claire and Jess’s son Gavin, especially now that they’re not infants anymore.
One of the analysts at my job has twins. They’re babies, less than six months old I think. Or maybe they’re six months. I don’t know. He brought them in one day and I’m sure I was the only asshole who didn’t go running over to their carriers to honk their little baby toys and poke their noses. The entire department was humming with baby talk and cooing.
“Did you go see his babies?” someone asked me on the way back to their office after taking in the ripe aroma of upchuck and soiled Pampers and smiling wildly like these were the aromas her nasal passages were made to traffic.
“Yes!” I lied, full of cheer and “I’m a normal lady who loves babies” subterfuge.
I actually broke a slight sweat, waiting for the babies to leave.