On Spiders and Babies.
October 31st, 2006 by Kevin
My child is trying to give me a stroke:
“Hey mom!! Look at this one! It’s a Fragarooga Spider!”"Not looking.”
“Look!”
“I AM NOT LOOKING AT THE SPIDER.”
“It’s just a book. Hey, look at this one. Ewwwwwww, it’s all big and red. It’s a Froogenooga spider.”
“J. I AM NOT LOOKING AT ANY GIANT SPIDERS. I WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.”
“Oh, come on.”
“NOT LOOKING.”
“Wow, look at the fangs!! Mom, look, it-”
“GO SHOW GRAMMA.”
“OK! Hey, Gramma!!”
Does he not know me at all?
I went to my friend B’s one-year-old’s birthday party on Sunday and was struck by the amount of tiny little babies toddling around the place.
Babies everywhere! All knee-high!
I cannot see the ground very well and was also trying not to trip over my sari, so walking was already exceedingly difficult, and I just knew I was going to step on a baby.
How the hell does one apologize for that?
“Sorry, I seem to have squashed your baby. Please take my slightly used eight-year-old as a replacement.”
They’re quick, those babies. They move like cockroaches. I would not be surprised if one zoomed right up the wall.
I finally had to sit down, so great was my fear that I would inadvertently stomp someone’s little pride and joy.
I think that, due to my gruff and seemingly baby-eating exterior, people assume that I am not a baby person.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I adore babies. I absolutely love them. I love them from the time they are newborns up until they are two, and then I generally can’t fucking stand them; because in this day and age (O, I am so old and wise), that is when they usually become spoiled rotten and completely unbearable until they’re about, oh, twenty-three.
I kid. But truly, I am not usually down with OPK (Other People’s Kids). Well-behaved, home-trained OPK, yes; but such kids are rapidly becoming extinct. If there was a foundation, I’d donate to it, but for some stupid reason people are more interested in saving the fucking whales.
Babies, though? Babies are great. It’s damn hard for me not to like a baby, and when people bitch and whine about taking care of babies I wonder what the hell is wrong with them.
Unless the kid in question is a colicky screamer, what the hell is the big deal? I could sit and hold a baby all day. They’re fun, they’re happy with very little, and unlike most people, they’re very up front about it when they’re babbling or full of shit.
There are a whole lot of people who angrily, vocally don’t share my opinion, but I could give a shit about the baby-phobic anti-breeders. I think babies are swell.
It’s the pregnancy part that completely fucking sucks.
I was holding the birthday girl, who must be the most gorgeous, mellow, “whatever”-ish one-year-old in existence, and she grabbed onto my (long) earring.
Normally this would be one’s cue to prepare for sudden and intense pain. I have had babies rip my earrings out, yank on my nose ring, stomp on my boobs, and the J-Man once pulled an eyebrow ring I had so hard that I thought my entire face would come off.
Babies can’t resist shiny, hang-y stuff. They’re like me at a craft fair that sells jewelry.
I froze, but the baby simply held the earring in her fat little hand and carefully turned it this way and that, examining it, and then let it go, smiling.
It was all very just so, just like my friend B., who is very soft-voiced and somewhat delicate and very just so, and in that moment you could see her in the baby so much that it made me tear up a little, the way I often get, a side effect of this yen for babies - a baby hazard, if you will.
Sometimes their funny little ways just break my heart for no reason I can think of.
And with that large helping of cheese, I will be off.
Happy Halloween, again.
Biff Naked wrote on 10/31/06 at 12:47 pm :
Halloween……………..Spiders………………..I wonder what Miss Trance will dream of tonight?
mish wrote on 10/31/06 at 10:27 pm :
thats why the j-man is such a great kid
mish wrote on 10/31/06 at 10:27 pm :
well, except for the trying to give you a stroke thing….
Eeyore wrote on 11/1/06 at 1:27 am :
I like cheese!
Allyson wrote on 11/1/06 at 7:11 am :
I totally agree with you on the up until age 2 love of babies. I found it so funny that you said you’re not down with OPK, cause I have always used that acronym. The other group of people I’m not down with? -OPP (Other People’s Parents) I have a hard time sitting by silently as my frineds and associates raise their kids in a manner that I know will turn them into whiney, uncontrollable assholes. Good parents are a rare breed in this day and age, and I am fortunate to know a few, but mostly, I shudder when my parent-friends complain about their kids.
Of course anyone who knows me knows that I only started to like babies after mine was born. Until then, I was sort of the camp that they were fine in pictures, but I didn’t want to get close to one. Now I work in a children’s hospital, and I could play with our patients all day.
dom wrote on 11/1/06 at 1:40 pm :
i just found out last night i’m going to be an uncle! i’m so excited. i need to take a crash course in TranceParenting so i can learn to torment this little kid, while maintaining the cool-uncle factor.
trancejen wrote on 11/1/06 at 3:08 pm :
Congratulations, Dom!!
i’m sure you’ll be torturing like a pro in no time.
bill wrote on 11/1/06 at 6:32 pm :
Of course, something like 80 years ago, W.C. Fields said, “There is no such thing as a tough child; if you parboil them for seven hours, they always come out tender…”
I think the problem is that those who understand what a huge responsibility it is to raise a child are not the ones who are producing tons of offspring; it’s the complete assholes who were raised by complete assholes who are knocking up/giving birth then abusing/neglecting/abandoning/letting loose on society waves of new complete assholes every day. (But yeah, they ARE cute when they’re little…that’s why we don’t eat them.)
Bozoette Mary wrote on 11/1/06 at 10:54 pm :
I just hate it when I step on a baby. They’re so squishy and they leave stains.
trancejen wrote on 11/2/06 at 11:57 am :
warcrygirl wrote on 11/2/06 at 5:46 pm :
Hubby taught Jr that it’s good fun to throw lifelike rubber spiders at me when I’m not looking. You want to see someone go from zero to freak-the-fuck-out in .09 seconds? Oh yeah.