A Single Dude and A Baby

I’m a single guy in my early thirties — the notion of being a father is about as foreign to me as being the owner of a pet giraffe.  Actually, having watched a fair amount of Discovery Channel I’d probably make for a better giraffe owner than father.  A giraffe needs relatively high-growing leaves and twigs.  A baby needs to be burped and fed and changed and, see, I don’t even know what else a baby needs.

That said, I’m a big fan of babies.  I catch their glances on airplanes and in supermarket checkout lines and can almost always make them laugh.  (I’m exceptional at peek-a-boo.)  I’m even pretty good with the basics of holding babies, which is to say I’ve never dropped one.  So when my brother and sister-in-law asked me to feed their daughter, my 15month-old niece, I was pretty sure I was up for the task.  After all, I’ve been feeding myself for thirty years.

So there we were, Eleanor and I, sitting alone in the kitchen with a tiny plate of various tiny foods between us. In retrospect, it seems Eleanor was simply not hungry.  Unbeknownst to me, she rarely eats a big dinner and had inhaled a relatively late lunch a couple hours earlier.  But at the time, the fact that I couldn’t coerce her into opening up for even one strawberry felt like a real failure.  The fact that the plate ended up on the floor didn’t help.

Eleanor and I sat in silence.  It was awkward, and we both felt it.  I attempted a quick game of peek-a-boo but she just looked at me, blankly, as if to say “Why do you keep covering your face with your hands like an idiot.” I was out of options.  And then, for some reason, I decided to blow her a kiss.  One of those really loud, puckering kisses.  I did it again and again, because I was beginning to get a laugh out of her.  Then, just as my brother and sister-in-law walked in, Eleanor blew a kiss back.  Well, not the blowing part, but she definitely kissed.  My brother, dumbfounded, said that was the first time she’d ever done that.  Then he asked why Eleanor’s dinner was on the floor.

One day I’m pretty sure I’ll have a kid of my own, and I look forward to it.  For now, let me just say how much I respect all you mothers and fathers out there — I look forward to making your babies laugh as you struggle to get through the TSA checkpoint.  Just don’t ask me to feed them.