9/2/07 My New Crush

I have a confession to make. I have a crush on a younger man. I'm totally shocked, because I didn't think he was my type at all, but I met him Saturday in Chattanooga and we ended up spending most of the day together. He's a total flirt.

Tony and I met up with Nicole and Sara and Eli at the Chattanooga Aquarium on Saturday. I'm a sucker for giant fish tanks, and the penguins are an absolute hoot, but what really stole the show was Nicole's 4 month old son, Eli. Now normally, I have a very strict policy on babies...anything that oozes bodily fluids from every orifice is to be strictly avoided. I admired Eli's stroller, and his brightly colored stuffed animal/stroller decor, and his Spiderman chew toy, but I kept a safe distance from Eli himself. (Cause you never know when a baby is just going to get all upset because he saw you. Trust me, this happens to me all the time. Someone has a baby, the baby sees me, the baby starts to cry. The person holding the baby says something cute like, "Did she scare you? Did that big meanie scare you? It's okay, I won't let her get you". Now, I know that they're just joking around, but when this becomes a reoccurring theme in your baby experience, you realize that it's just better to hold back. Babies can smell fear). Anyway, things probably would have progressed the same way this time except that Eli is an exceptionally happy baby. He doesn't really cry at all. He laughs. And smiles at people. And I figured that if he's smiling, maybe he'll forget to scream when he sees me. (Plus, I was having an okay hair day, so that has to count for something). So I snuck closer. And closer. He was laying in his car seat, which was attached to his stroller thingie. Nicole was next to him, but she was looking at the giant sea turtle, so I figured that if things with Eli went downhill, I could put some distance between us before she could accuse me of scaring her child. (I've known Nicole since like, the fifth grade, but she's still a mother. I'm not putting friendship against motherly instinct). Anyway, Eli saw me, but he didn't really react, so I figured this was one exceptionally brave child. (Of course, if you regularly hang with/chew on a stuffed Spiderman, maybe bravery comes with the territory). I studied Eli and Eli studied me, and I probably would have been totally content with achieving that major baby milestone except that I noticed something. Eli has little tiny baby hands with little tiny baby fingers and little tiny baby fingernails. And I looooove miniature stuff. Miniature railroads, miniature houses, and apparently, little miniature baby hands. So without really thinking, I reached out and touched one of his hands. And not only did he not scream and flail as I totally expected, but he wrapped his little fingers around my finger. And we had this moment where time stood still and angels started singing and my brain went mushy and Eli no doubt thought, "This woman's insane". And then I remembered that he sticks his hand in his mouth and drools on it, and drool is definitely on my no thank you list of body fluid ooze, so I pulled my finger away and the moment was broken. But still, that was huge for me. HUGE! I actually touched the baby. Two major milestones in one day! Woo-hoo for me and my personal growth! I was stoked. Eli and me, we were pals. We had an alliance. He didn't scream, and I didn't run away.

We finished the aquarium tour and were standing outside deciding what to do next when it started to rain. We ran under an overhang to wait out the storm, and Nicole was holding Eli. And Eli was hanging out, just chillin' with us, except that he kept waving his arms in my direction. Kinda like what kids do when they want someone to hold them, but not really that coordinated. Just general waving. Obviously Eli didn't know that this was the signal to have someone else hold him or he never would have done it. He was probably just exercising. But Nicole saw it too and held him out to me so that I had no choice but to take him. I didn't know the proper way to hold him or support him or whatever, but I couldn't leave him dangling in mid-air like that, so I grabbed him. And the first though that went through my head was, "He's not heavy at all. You'd think he'd be heavier" followed closely by, "Oh no! Now what?" We were eye to eye, and I didn't know how to turn him around. He sent me a facial expression that was obviously "Jeez lady, get a grip" so I just settled him onto my hip the way I'd seen Nicole do, and we went from there. Eli is in what I like to call the sack-of-flour stage, where he doesn't really wiggle much. He just kinda sits around, posed in whatever way you position him, and watches what's going on. My kind of baby.

There's a strange thing that happens to your voice when you're holding a baby. It gets higher, and you repeat things a lot...yes, you do! Yes you do! And you make stupid faces, and you start referring to yourself as the baby's aunt, even though you really have no relation to him whatsoever. I'm shocked to say that I did all these things. It was a total out of body experience...like the baby drugged me with mushy brain pills. Except it was also kinda nice. He's a good baby, and he pretty much entertained himself. I'm amazed to admit it, but I really got a kick out of holding him. Even when he totally drool bombed my watch. (Nicole gave me a cloth to catch such oozing, but Eli's talented. He projectile drool bombs. Totally sneaky). I told him about the time his Mom was my roommate in college, and how she talked me out of going to half of my 8am biology classes. We debated whether the Ben and Jerry's people were deaf or if they had deliberately turned the music up that loud to annoy their patrons. We discussed whether or not all babies were as sweet and good natured as he was, and if not, how would he feel about just coming home with me? Because I'm not sold on babies in general, but I'd sooo take Eli home in a heartbeat. People always say that babies are either "good" babies or "fussy" babies. Snatching Eli would guarantee me one of the "good" babies, so it seemed like an excellent plan to me. (Nicole wasn't as keen on it though).

I said goodbye to Eli about dinnertime, and we went our separate ways. But apparently baby mind control has lingering effects, because I'm still totally hooked on him. Not all babies, but definitely Eli. Anytime you want to hang out, little buddy, you just look me up.