Babies and I don’t seem to have good karma. The first time I had any real contact with a baby, I was about eight or nine, and my grandmother tried to plop the infant into my arms without any preliminary instructions. All I remember was that the baby was mighty heavy, and my arms not all that strong, and my short life flashed in front of me as I thought I would drop the poor baby and be put away for manslaughter. My grandmother laughed. Actually everybody who was there at the time laughed. Not me.
The next time I held a baby, I was in my thirties. No, that is not a typo. Let’s just say that I don’t have much contact with big families with children. This time I was smart and sat down while the mother placed the baby in my lap. After about three minutes the child was bored and turned into a screaming terror anxious to get away. Everybody else just smiled knowingly. I was just as perplexed as I had been 23 or so years ago.
Since then I’ve seen countless people with babies, but haven’t held or even touched one. The other day, a co-worker on maternity leave stopped by the building with her new son and older sister, who is about three-ish now. She looked glum, probably because everybody fawns over little brother and ignores her, so after I greeted my coworker and expressed my joy at seeing the new baby, I took a minute to talk to the girl, to let her know she was important. My coworker asked me to open the door to the office for her. I did, and off she went.
So much for my life with babies: an unsolvable mystery.
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