Baby Love

For the first time in many years I attended a baby shower today.  Most of my friends aren’t really having babies anymore; these days they’re more likely touring college campuses than cruising the aisles at Babies R Us.    I happen to adore the mommy-to-be (daddy’s not too shabby either) and I love seeing her so happy.  I mean apparently she is getting a little…or a lot uncomfortable at this point, if you count not being able to bend over and the whole lack of sleep thing.  She is the biggest animal lover I know, and she usually twists herself into a pretzel to get in bed without disturbing the cats and dogs.  Today she mentioned that she kicked all the animals off the bed so she could try the body pillow that’s supposed to help her sleep.  It’s just that bad.

The shower was very nice, with an adorable giraffe theme, mommy’s favorite.

When my friend started opening gifts, I remembered how confused I get at these things.  I understand the clothes and crib sheets and bottles; I ooh and aah over the darling stuffed animals and little blankets.

I do know about the diaper genie, but I’ve never really seen one up close and I’m not exactly sure what it does.  To be honest, I really don’t like to think about it.

But at some point Mysterious Baby Stuff (MBS) starts to appear.  There is a huge wall of MBS in Babies R Us.  I just stare at everything and wonder what and why.  You know the wall I’m talking about?  There are a lot of maintenance tools-items that clean out baby’s ears and nose, little clippers for their tiny nails, lotions and powders for their newborn skin, wipes and wipe warmers and wipe cases (quite fashionable, as I discovered today), humidifiers; the list is endless.

That’s a lot of items for one tiny little person who does nothing but eat, poop and hopefully sleep.  I always think babies would be just fine for a while if you treated them like a puppy-a sturdy cardboard box lined with newspapers (the comics would be a fun theme), one of those puppy pad things, and a chew toy.

Then I remember when my niece and nephews were babies.  When CJ and Lisa came to visit their car was stuffed with strollers and pack-n-plays and clip on high chairs and sippy cups and jungle gyms and who knows what else.

In and out CJ would go, bringing in more armloads of MBS.  He started muttering under his breath a lot, which seems to be a dad thing, and his mantra was “30,000 cubic tons of sh*t.  I can’t believe we need 30,000 cubic tons of sh*t!”

I wish I could have helped him but I was super busy kissing and playing with the baby.  As their family continued to grow it seemed like the load grew exponentially, and by the time CJ hauled in all the stuff it was time for him to start hauling it all back out.  As a bystander, it was pretty amusing, but I got the feeling it wasn’t all that much fun for him.

I can see this happening to my friends very soon.  Today alone, their baby girl received at least 15,000 cubic tons of sh*t.  The rest is no doubt on its way.