A friend of mine just had her second baby. His name is Fraser, and he is hella cute.
I went to visit her in hospital today. I brought flowers. I didn’t visit her when she had her first, though I can’t quite remember why. Possibly I didn’t feel it was appropriate, but more on that in a moment. The flowers were appreciated, as was the visit itself, I think. It’s a bit unusual for me to do this sort of thing. Another of her friends was there, holding young Fraser and chatting. Apparently she had to be elsewhere and the timing of my arrival was fortuitous, so I was immediately offered the baby.
Pardon me?
I think the shock of being offered a baby within 10 seconds of entering the room, by a complete stranger no less, shorted out whatever parts of my brain would have caused me to protest. You see, I know virtually nothing about babies. I am not keen on having any of my own at this point. I do not have many friends with them, and I do not hang out with them much. I tend to spend a lot of my time with friends without long term partners, let alone any offspring. As a result, I was a tad… stunned, I suppose, that I would be offered a small and rather fragile person. Brand new, no less. Hardly any wear.
I am aware that babies need to have their heads supported as they are not really engineered with enough structural support for such enormous brains. Given that this particular instance is the product of two rather brilliant people, extra support would definitely be required. So I was very careful, without attempting to let on, lest I frighten the mother. She hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep, so a fright is the last thing she needs. I assumed the ‘holding a baby’ arm position and performed the transfer ritual.
Now let me say here that I’ve always felt a bit awkward around the mother of this child. I’m really more a friend of her husband, since we share geeky tendencies and like computers and photography and motorcycles and stuff. She and I are friendly, but I still feel like I’m just on the friend side of ‘aquaintence’. I would quite like to be friends with her, but I just don’t really know what to say to her. I always feel like a bit of a twit and that when I talk to her I’m somehow embarrassing myself in a way I don’t fully understand. I don’t seem to have this problem with other people. It’s quite an odd feeling. So I felt a bit awkward holding about her second born. It wasn’t something I would have asked to do, and yet somehow I felt honoured that I’d be trusted not to horribly maim her child.
Fraser is hella cute. I realise I said that already, but it’s worth repeating. I should also mention that he was fast asleep and appeared to be dreaming of becoming a champion kickboxer one day. His mother and I chatted about the weather, work, baby stuff, family stuff and just general chit chat. I kept looking down at Fraser and it hit me that this was the first time I’ve looked at a baby and thought it was cute. I must be getting old.
So there you go. Another friend arrived after 20 or 30 minutes or something, so I felt it best to leave them to girly chitchat. I’m not one for talking about baby stuff, since I have no idea what to talk about. I don’t know what questions to ask, or what sort of answers to expect. I figured the girls would probably prefer to talk about some things without a guy around anyway, so I made a polite, if somewhat awkward exit, and that was that. Most surprising.
I’m off to dinner tonight with single and semi-attached friends who don’t have kids, so I’ll be more in my element. Oh, and the photo has nothing to do with all this. It’s ski season here and I just felt like putting up something snow related. I like snow, and I suppose now that I don’t mind babies all that much either.
At least if they’re asleep.