Baby Talk

If you were to list the things guys most hate to do, near the top of that roster would be being dragged to a hospital to look at newborn babies. I don’t care who the little tyke belongs to, a brother, sister, best friend; guys would rather give up possession of the T.V. remote than be dragged to the infant-care unit of a hospital to gaze at a baby.

We men have good reasons for our reluctance to visit hospital nurseries. You see, while there we’re always put in a tight spot because inevitably, and always in the presence of the baby’s loved ones, we’ll be asked the question, the one question that will make a guy’s knees quiver and a chill go up and down his spine, “Isn’t he just the cutest little thing you ever did see?”

Now, to guys all newborn infants look alike—a shriveled up, wrinkled, old caveman that has just been regurgitated by a large carnivorous dinosaur. But we don’t want to hurt the feelings of the relatives of the little tyke, so we have two choices, we can lie and agree the creature is cute, or we can turn to the baby’s family and say what we really think, “Here’s a banana for your monkey.”

And usually after the how-cute-the-baby-is comments comes the he-looks-just-like (insert either of the baby’s parent’s name) comments. A case in point happened a few years back when a niece of mine was born. With me kicking and screaming the whole way, former Mrs. Bagley dragged me to the hospital to take a peek at our new niece. As we approached the viewing window of the nursery, we saw a couple of men goo-gooing over a baby.

“She looks just like ‘er momma, doesn’t she?” One of them said.

“Nah,” exclaimed the other.

“Well, she’s definitely got Bumgrumble genes in her,” the other one said as they both walked away.

After the two gawking guys left, ex-wife and I sauntered over to the window to view our new niece, and wouldn’t you know it, those guys were gawking over the wrong baby. They were gaping over my niece!

Speaking of people always trying to figure who the baby looks like I remember when youngest son was little. A member of my family continually remarked how she just couldn’t figure out who in the family he looked like.

“He doesn’t look like a Bagley,” this person would continually say, never considering that just maybe youngest son favored his momma’s side of the family. Finally, ex-wife said, “He looks like the milkman.” That pretty much put an end to the I-can’t-figure-out-who-he-looks-like comments.

And don’t you just love it when people in the family pick out certain features of a little one and say things like, “She sure got her daddy’s ears, “ or “She has Aunt Harriet’s eyes.” When this happens, I have to fight the temptation to say, “So how’s his father getting along without those ears?” Come on for crying out loud, the kid has her own features. Why does she have to look exactly like somebody else? Can't she just look like herself?

Chalk it up to human nature or what ever you'd like, but it's amazing to me how a little baby can grown people to act so silly.

Of course, come December, when my first grandbaby is born, you won’t see me acting silly, gooing, gawking, and talking silly to my grandchild. If you do, I’ll never admit it. I’ll just swear it’s my long lost twin you saw acting that way.