Of salads and babies
Jun. 11th, 2003 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silversolitaireMy brother is away for the weekend on his spring camp thingy. So the parents and I went out to a nice restaurant that has a beautiful garden where you can sit and they serve the tastiest salads ever. I was looking forward to this a lot. Upon arrival it already promised to be an annoying evening.
The restaurant was all full and here we don't have this "Please wait to be seated" mentality. It's really a question of who runs to the table first when one is vacated. So we were standing there waiting when we met the daughter of friends of my parents'. She's a couple of years older than me and recently gave birth to a baby. Well, last year I think. 13 month old or so. She was there with her husband. They nabbed a table since they had been waiting a lot longer than us and she was really firm enough to yell at the kid that was making a dash for the table she's been waiting for. They let us sit with them, which was nice all in all, but somehow it wasn't very pleasant to share a table with a 13 months old baby...
I know I know, I shouldn't talk that way, but I just seem to be missing those genes that make me find babies cute. I was also looking forward to spending some time with the parents chatting, and instead I was stuck between two sets of parents all cooing over that baby >_<;. Mom was constantly messing with the baby. everyone was always looking at it. Every gesture and gurgling was commented. We were proudly told every single thing she can do already, Mom was feeding the baby, the baby was screaming a lot... meh
On the other hand, this is a baby you'd want to have. Seriously. Without any hateful thoughts I have to admit that she's an angel. Very friendly, very nice. She only cried when she didn't want to sit in the chair and her dad was scraping her knees against the table. She's really very nice and cute, but somehow I feel I'm lacking the instincts of a parent. I mean, if this had been a dog or a cat I would have been all over it for hours. But a baby? Leaves me cold.
I mean, what can you do with such a thing? She only had like... four means of communication: nodding or shaking her head, laughing and crying. And I know I shouldn't feel that way but I couldn't help but feel personally offended and annoyed every time she started to cry just because she didn't get the next spoonful soon enough. Dad later said this is their only way of communicating, so I shouldn't count it as the same thing as an adult crying. But it's kinda hard. Especially since crying usually makes me mad because it makes me feel manipulated.
But other than that it was kinda amazing to see her react. Like she saw her soup and immediately started nodding a lot. Then her mom took a spoonful and tested it and decided it was too hot, but she didn't understand that and got all cranky because she wanted the soup NOW! Then she got it and suckled it in and then she kept nodding. That was kinda cute. And she kept reaching into her mom's salad, taking out things, chewing them, then giving them to my mom... who ate it >.<; And dad was having the same kind of soup the baby had. When he was finishing it he took the bowl by the handles and drank from it, like you do. However, the baby had seen that and wanted to do that too! She insisted, so in the end two people had to hold the bowl for her so she could manage! *g* She was often copying things, only, she often mixed up the gestures. Like she'd learnt to throw kisses, but then she'd put the hand to her mouth, instead away from it. Things like that. It got annoying, because she kinda realized that adults found that cute so she did it all the frigging time... -.-;
I think after that evening I have reached the conclusion that it's not so much the babies that are annoying, but the adults that are all over it. Bleh. I demand someone to hit me with a hammer should I ever act like that! All I ever did was try to teach the baby to do the peace sign. Didn't work though... rats.
Then again... there are these obnoxious, annoying, constantly crying babies that ensure they will stay only childs forever... is it a biological imperative to secure your position in the house or is it just one of nature's little cruelties... who knows. But babies like that make me never want to have children of my own >_<. But if I knew my baby was going to be like this one, then maybe yes... But who can tell?
Ah I realize I'm started to get rambly... better post this now and go to bed... heh.
The restaurant was all full and here we don't have this "Please wait to be seated" mentality. It's really a question of who runs to the table first when one is vacated. So we were standing there waiting when we met the daughter of friends of my parents'. She's a couple of years older than me and recently gave birth to a baby. Well, last year I think. 13 month old or so. She was there with her husband. They nabbed a table since they had been waiting a lot longer than us and she was really firm enough to yell at the kid that was making a dash for the table she's been waiting for. They let us sit with them, which was nice all in all, but somehow it wasn't very pleasant to share a table with a 13 months old baby...
I know I know, I shouldn't talk that way, but I just seem to be missing those genes that make me find babies cute. I was also looking forward to spending some time with the parents chatting, and instead I was stuck between two sets of parents all cooing over that baby >_<;. Mom was constantly messing with the baby. everyone was always looking at it. Every gesture and gurgling was commented. We were proudly told every single thing she can do already, Mom was feeding the baby, the baby was screaming a lot... meh
On the other hand, this is a baby you'd want to have. Seriously. Without any hateful thoughts I have to admit that she's an angel. Very friendly, very nice. She only cried when she didn't want to sit in the chair and her dad was scraping her knees against the table. She's really very nice and cute, but somehow I feel I'm lacking the instincts of a parent. I mean, if this had been a dog or a cat I would have been all over it for hours. But a baby? Leaves me cold.
I mean, what can you do with such a thing? She only had like... four means of communication: nodding or shaking her head, laughing and crying. And I know I shouldn't feel that way but I couldn't help but feel personally offended and annoyed every time she started to cry just because she didn't get the next spoonful soon enough. Dad later said this is their only way of communicating, so I shouldn't count it as the same thing as an adult crying. But it's kinda hard. Especially since crying usually makes me mad because it makes me feel manipulated.
But other than that it was kinda amazing to see her react. Like she saw her soup and immediately started nodding a lot. Then her mom took a spoonful and tested it and decided it was too hot, but she didn't understand that and got all cranky because she wanted the soup NOW! Then she got it and suckled it in and then she kept nodding. That was kinda cute. And she kept reaching into her mom's salad, taking out things, chewing them, then giving them to my mom... who ate it >.<; And dad was having the same kind of soup the baby had. When he was finishing it he took the bowl by the handles and drank from it, like you do. However, the baby had seen that and wanted to do that too! She insisted, so in the end two people had to hold the bowl for her so she could manage! *g* She was often copying things, only, she often mixed up the gestures. Like she'd learnt to throw kisses, but then she'd put the hand to her mouth, instead away from it. Things like that. It got annoying, because she kinda realized that adults found that cute so she did it all the frigging time... -.-;
I think after that evening I have reached the conclusion that it's not so much the babies that are annoying, but the adults that are all over it. Bleh. I demand someone to hit me with a hammer should I ever act like that! All I ever did was try to teach the baby to do the peace sign. Didn't work though... rats.
Then again... there are these obnoxious, annoying, constantly crying babies that ensure they will stay only childs forever... is it a biological imperative to secure your position in the house or is it just one of nature's little cruelties... who knows. But babies like that make me never want to have children of my own >_<. But if I knew my baby was going to be like this one, then maybe yes... But who can tell?
Ah I realize I'm started to get rambly... better post this now and go to bed... heh.
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-11 10:52 am (UTC)>>>but the adults that are all over it.
gaaaaaaaaawwwd!! SO true!
i'm quite there as well.. not particulalry charmed by babies and rather annoyed by all the fuss and demented behaviour that the adults manage to make around them.
like one of my colleagues.. she was (or still is, but now it's a bit less intense) sooo in love with her 3yo son.. we had to listen every day to the odes about the little boy, who just must have been, like, the smartest little genius on the planet (or so it seemed, by the way she was saying it all).
and the fuss she was making and exaggerating every problem.. once there was a huuuuge problem whom to leave the boy with, so that they can go to the cinema in the evening. of course there were 65 options that we were suggesting (with both grandparents alive, etc.), but none was good enough because little Peter would this, and would that, and couldn't this and whatever, and no and no.. i swear, the greatest problem since cold fusion.
she so pissed me off in the end, that i told her to stick him in the fridge.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-13 06:43 pm (UTC)Anyway, thanks for that amusing anecdote! ^_^