Babies!
Let me begin this post by saying I still have no idea what's to be done about babies. And now let me explain this statement:
This week, I was told a friend of mine in another area of the state was pregnant. My friend is very nuturing (almost to the point of insanity, as she has been known to rise at 6am to start some homemade bread for the day's consumption). But she's not necessarily the type of person you would expect to want children, especially since years ago we used to discuss what would happen if one of us were to become pregnant, and most of the discussions were a little something like "I don't know, I don't really want kids til I'm old" or some such variation thereof, and she is not old--only a couple years older than me. I, on the other hand, when asked if I want children, respond with a chipper "Hell no, no no no no no, not at all yet.." and usually get a "thank god, you're too young anyway" response. So if I'm not old enough, can she be old enough? At what age do you become baby-ready in the eye of the beholder?
So anyway, today I got the opportunity to go to a baby shower for a different friend--My first time! I'm a baby shower virgin!--and got to thinking about babies. Just because I didn't want one yet didn't mean pregnancy was a bad thing for everybody. The whole baby 'culture' is very foreign to me, but I saw the opportunity for an educational experience. I would just treat it like an anthropological research project; the stranger in a strange land who observes the breeding ritual in the interest of fostering intercultural peace...yeah, something like that.
The first thing you have to do when attending a baby shower is pick out a gift, something you think both baby and mother would appreciate (of course the former will probably spit up on it at some point, but it's the thought that counts). As it turns out, shopping for babies hasn't really changed much over the years. Girl's stuff is still pink, boy's stuff is still blue, and nothing is the proper color to match a tastefully decorated home. The biggest challenge in picking out a baby gift is knowing the personality of the mother. The LAST thing you want to have happen at the shower you're attending is for the mother to unwrap her unborn child's gift and go, "Oh! Well that's.......................really cute! Heh heh, thanks!" So I agonized at the store a bit and finally went with a jumper that had a dinosaur on it, but not a dinosaur that screams "I'm a boy present" but rather one that calmly stated, "I am cute, and at some point in every child's life, boy or girl, they become facinated with dinosaurs, even if only for 4 seconds, so buy me and get out of the store!" I think I did okay.
So now we come to the actual shower part. I was a little nervous, being a first timer for these sorts of things. I had heard horror stories of the shower game where you stick different types of chocolate candy bars in diapers and microwave them til they look like puddles of baby poo, and then the guests have to decide which candy bar is which by taste test. But this shower was actually nice. There were little baby gifts everywhere, a cake for the expectant parents, and a whole lot of pregnant or recently-pregnant women with small children. I tried to make sense of all the babies in the room, it was a shower, what did I expect? They were cute, but one of them started to cry. All the mothers in the room flocked to the crying child, showering it with praise for still being rediculously tiny and cute, but I couldn't really get past the crying. I don't really mind little kids, but I am clueless about how to make them stop crying when they start.
I don't know if I'd be a good parent. I once had a dream about having a baby; I was at a cocktail party with Ian, dressed in Prada or something and drinking expensive red wines, and people kept asking me where my baby was, and I kept telling them with all honesty that I had no idea. Is the baby with a sitter? people would ask. I don't know, I would reply. Later in the dream, the baby had micraculously become a cat, and run away. People went looking for it, but I just kept drinking the wine. Not good parenting skills, I expect.
Oh well. Maybe as I go to more showers in my lifetime, I will eventually decide babies are the best things ever. For now, I have a rat.
This week, I was told a friend of mine in another area of the state was pregnant. My friend is very nuturing (almost to the point of insanity, as she has been known to rise at 6am to start some homemade bread for the day's consumption). But she's not necessarily the type of person you would expect to want children, especially since years ago we used to discuss what would happen if one of us were to become pregnant, and most of the discussions were a little something like "I don't know, I don't really want kids til I'm old" or some such variation thereof, and she is not old--only a couple years older than me. I, on the other hand, when asked if I want children, respond with a chipper "Hell no, no no no no no, not at all yet.." and usually get a "thank god, you're too young anyway" response. So if I'm not old enough, can she be old enough? At what age do you become baby-ready in the eye of the beholder?
So anyway, today I got the opportunity to go to a baby shower for a different friend--My first time! I'm a baby shower virgin!--and got to thinking about babies. Just because I didn't want one yet didn't mean pregnancy was a bad thing for everybody. The whole baby 'culture' is very foreign to me, but I saw the opportunity for an educational experience. I would just treat it like an anthropological research project; the stranger in a strange land who observes the breeding ritual in the interest of fostering intercultural peace...yeah, something like that.
The first thing you have to do when attending a baby shower is pick out a gift, something you think both baby and mother would appreciate (of course the former will probably spit up on it at some point, but it's the thought that counts). As it turns out, shopping for babies hasn't really changed much over the years. Girl's stuff is still pink, boy's stuff is still blue, and nothing is the proper color to match a tastefully decorated home. The biggest challenge in picking out a baby gift is knowing the personality of the mother. The LAST thing you want to have happen at the shower you're attending is for the mother to unwrap her unborn child's gift and go, "Oh! Well that's.......................really cute! Heh heh, thanks!" So I agonized at the store a bit and finally went with a jumper that had a dinosaur on it, but not a dinosaur that screams "I'm a boy present" but rather one that calmly stated, "I am cute, and at some point in every child's life, boy or girl, they become facinated with dinosaurs, even if only for 4 seconds, so buy me and get out of the store!" I think I did okay.
So now we come to the actual shower part. I was a little nervous, being a first timer for these sorts of things. I had heard horror stories of the shower game where you stick different types of chocolate candy bars in diapers and microwave them til they look like puddles of baby poo, and then the guests have to decide which candy bar is which by taste test. But this shower was actually nice. There were little baby gifts everywhere, a cake for the expectant parents, and a whole lot of pregnant or recently-pregnant women with small children. I tried to make sense of all the babies in the room, it was a shower, what did I expect? They were cute, but one of them started to cry. All the mothers in the room flocked to the crying child, showering it with praise for still being rediculously tiny and cute, but I couldn't really get past the crying. I don't really mind little kids, but I am clueless about how to make them stop crying when they start.
I don't know if I'd be a good parent. I once had a dream about having a baby; I was at a cocktail party with Ian, dressed in Prada or something and drinking expensive red wines, and people kept asking me where my baby was, and I kept telling them with all honesty that I had no idea. Is the baby with a sitter? people would ask. I don't know, I would reply. Later in the dream, the baby had micraculously become a cat, and run away. People went looking for it, but I just kept drinking the wine. Not good parenting skills, I expect.
Oh well. Maybe as I go to more showers in my lifetime, I will eventually decide babies are the best things ever. For now, I have a rat.