Babies are not fun to be around

One of the most annoying things about babies is that it's not socially acceptable to dislike them. Apparently that is “wrong.” Worse yet, females especially are supposed to be able to interact lovingly with babies. Yet, I have almost zero idea of how to do this. They're terrifying! Sure you could do something really dumb like smile or hide behind a blanket, and they'll probably like it. But then they might make an ungodly noise -- like a squeal! Nothing cuts me deeper than the joyful squeal of a baby; it's like nails on a chalkboard. Worse still, if you do something the baby doesn't like then it starts to cry. Then, not only have you failed to entertain the easiest audience in the world, but the baby is making a loud annoying noise thus alerting the world to how bad you suck with children. Oh the shame.

Given how even making faces at a baby is stressful, you better believe I won't hold one. I'm pretty certain I'd end up doing it wrong. I could probably figure it out if I thought about it long enough, but the results would probably still fall somewhere between Britney Spears and Michael Jackson on the bad-baby-holder scale. Luckily, I have successfully avoided holding a baby since I was eleven, as I know that holding a baby would be incredibly uncomfortable and unnatural for me. It's the same way a cat feels when its crazy owner puts clothes on it: humiliated, frightened, and uncomfortable.




But my uncanny ability to avoid having a hot little diaper-dumper in my arms doesn't free me from the obligatory ooohing and ahhing whenever someone presents one to me at a coworker's baby shower or a family reunion. I have very little to say about babies that would be appropriate. Shocking, I know. And I'm very stressed by the entire interaction of heaping adoration on infants because everyone else in the immediate area seems to compliment the baby with ease, thus making my babyfear all the more apparent. And you know the baby's parents want to hear how special their baby is despite the fact that it seems pretty much like every other baby you've ever seen. Some things that usually pop into my mind when a baby and its mother come within in five feet of me: "Your baby boy is very tenacious -- I can tell by the way he insists on eating his own foot." or "Wow, she doesn't look like a wrinkly old dude. Maybe that means she'll be pretty some day. Till then keep velcroing bows to her head so people know it's a she." But in the end I have to say something that no doubt makes me sound like a babbling idiot: "Oh I love the duckies on his onesie." Is that even a complete sentence? Jesus, babies are stressful.