The Susanne

Tonight, The Boy­friend and I vis­ited a couple we know who had a baby two months ago. The father is Nor­we­gian, we know him from uni, and the mother is German. He is really strong, wilful, and such a little man. He has loads of hair and it’s not like baby hair, it’s more like the hair of a thirty-year-old. Long, dark and thin­ning at the top. (Or is it filling in? )

Any who, he’s a pretty cool little guy. They tried to con­vince us he gets tetchy in the even­ings, but I didn’t really see how. They let me hold him and all I had to do was tell him how hand­some he is and say ‘boobies’ a couple of times, and he laughed his head off. Appar­ently you’re not sup­posed to talk baby talk to babies any more, but ser­i­ously, once you’ve got them there in your lap, look­ing so cute and baby­ish, how can you not do it? Beats me. We brought the camera but when we got there no pic­tures got taken, we were just so mes­mer­ised by the little fella.

And no, I’m not sold on the whole baby idea just yet. I don’t want a little man hanging from my boob all day, nor the inev­it­able house arrest which fol­lows the Mir­acle of Birth. Some day, though. And I hope whatever I end up with will be as cool as Vegard the Norweger.

Like seem­ingly just about every­one else in the civ­il­ized world, I have
yiel­ded to the pres­sures of soci­ety and joined Face­book. While I think
it’s bril­liant to get back in touch with old friends, I’m surprised(and
a little dis­gus­ted) to dis­cover that a dis­con­cert­ing amount of old girl
friends and acquaint­ances are about to have, or already have, babies!
Pretty much every time I visit the pro­file of and old friend I’m
con­fron­ted with pic­tures of puffy baby­faces or ginorm­ous preg­nant
bel­lies. Why this will­ing­ness to give up their own lives at such a
young age in favour of smelly nap­pies and baby­vomit? I can only blame
it on Eids­voll. Obvi­ously the Nation’s Cradle.