Aw, wookit the little babies.
Are those bats? :eek:
Well, I may not necessarily be the best spokesmodel for the organization, either; I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a strange specimen. I tend to habitually overshare, so when we were trying to have the baby, everybody knew about the doctors and the specialists and the tests and the collapsed vein and the whatever-the-hell. I was obsessed with having a baby, and everyone knew it. I wanted to be able to whip out my First Poop / First Tooth / First Haircut / First Hangnail pictures.
But now that we have the baby (we’ve adopted), I feel so … ignored. Maybe things would be different if I had given birth, but as it is, I just wish people would recognize that I did not stop being me when I became mom-me. I’m still the same person. I still have daydreams about pushing my boss down the elevator shaft and photocopying my boobs and licking the mail room guy. You know? That hasn’t changed.
So, like I said … maybe I am not the best representative of the co-worker-mom subspecies. It’s not that I don’t adore my daughter; I just want to try to remain professional as much as possible. (Which I why I don’t actually lick the mail room guy, even though he looks delicious.) Maybe I already got the annoying part out of my system?
yes, fantasies are nice, no?
Welcome to[del] mother hell[/del] motherhood, dear. You can join all of us on the back benches. We don’t matter, UNTIL said kidlet does something wrong. Their mistakes and sins are all ours, baby.
My favorite anecdote re this hell was when #1 son was ill. He was about 18 months old; took him to the doctor; diagnosed an ear infection. #1 son distinguished himself by always getting a high fever with any illness. He was scorching hot while I waited at the pharmacy for his Amoxicillin (with a 3 year old in tow, mind you). #1 son proceeded to throw up all over me–my hair, my coat, my purse etc. (one good thing, I did get to jump the line). When I told my mother this story, her reply was, “oh, poor baby boy! I hope he’s better.”
Mother hell. Start hiding your chocolate in the freezer now–someday soon Daughter will want whatever is in your mouth, no matter what it is…
Re the pets. God in heaven–spare me the pics of your pets. That’s nice that you have a great dog. I’m happy for you. And your cat brings you sublime joy Wonderful. I am even less interested in non-human companionship than I am in children. And the Pet People are not limited to Pet Threads or emails. No, I get to see pics of Fluffy and Windsor as often as I get pics of Amos and Imogene.
OMG, the albums. Somebody forced me to look at their baby’s album recently. I don’t have to, but to remain polite, I try to flip through them as fast as possible before I send them away.
In the spring one of our temps brought in her wedding album, even though nobody asked.
Ugh.
Guinea pigs, I think.
Oh, god. I’m so paranoid about this. My little girl is less than a year old, and of course her father and I think every little thing she does is the MOST ADORABLE THING EVAR!!11!! but I constantly have to remind myself that we are truly the only people in the world who feel that way. We do our best to keep the gushing confined to when it’s just the two of us. And the only people who get emailed the occasional picture are the grandparents, the aunt, and the great-grandmother.
I don’t even send pics to my girlfriend who had a baby about a month before I did, who is in the same boat I am. But I admit when we do talk, it’s such a relief to let all the “baby-talk” out, since all our other mutual friends are child-free. It’s nice to let the guard down. 
You are the Poster Child for Perfect Moms! I too love my kids, but not so much everyone else’s 
What Equipoise said.
I don’t mind pictures of anything. I post my pets sometimes, and the occasional video too. As long as the thread is marked, I don’t understand the little dig… unless it’s random photos inserted in unexpected places?
It’s not like the threads here have embedded pictures. You do have to click links to see any pictures.
Thank you all for your sage advice and words of wisdom, seriously. I am a paranoid schizophrenic lunatic crazy person, but: I am not alone. And, I am not nearly the worst of the bunch, evidently. Which is either reassuring or horrifying, I’m not sure which.
Huh, psychological help in a Pit thread. Who’d’ve thunk?
Now you just need to start a “Show your kid!” thread. I promise I’ll ask how you, specifically, are doing.
I don’t think folks here are talking about the Dope–I know I wasn’t. The same linkage stuff applies to baby pics here, afterall. I was talking about at work or standing in line at the grocery etc.
That is why this board is worth paying for, HD
I avoid all this by just telling people up front that I feel about other people’s kids the same way I feel about other people’s vaginas… my own is okay, but I don’t really want anything to do with anybody else’s.
That usually shuts them up.
You are in my head now. “I don’t have to pretend to be interested in anyone’s children, because rockle says it’s okay.”
Back in my Dilbert/cubicle days, I had a generic baby photo (the kind that comes in photo frames) taped to a 5" x 5" piece of cardboard. Underneath the photo, I wrote "Oh, How Cute!!"
I taped it to the end of a chopstick. Whenever any kind of “new baby” antics occurred, I would wave it conspicuously. This was one reason people hated me at work. Oh well.
Trust me, it can be done. It has taken me 3 years but I have most everyone on board now. I have two separate photo albums (one general, one family only) and people go see them when they want. Every once in a while someone asks again for pics. I just send the link.
My mom is subverting the process a little bit. I know she emails pics to a couple of my aunts, but hey, at least it is not me.
Tidbit the First: The Nephew “played” the Baby Jesus in the “living nativity” at Mom’s Parish when he was 3 months old. Slept like a baby through the whole of it, too, very appropiately.
Tidbit the Second: every year since he was born, his Proud Parents have sent homemade christmas cards with a pic of the kidlet.
The first time, there was much rolling of eyes. The second time, several people remarked “do they think they really gave birth to the actual Baby Jesus, these two?” The third time is, for now, the winner for Most Embarrasing Picture Ever Taken of The Nephew.
We await this year’s monster (there is a brand new Niece as well) with bated breath and much trepidation. Will it be even worse than last year’s “angel wearing only wings, covering his parts with his hand and looking like he wants to know what the Bloody Hell is going on”? How sadistic can a parent with a digital camera get?
Stories and pictures of babies are like stories/pictures of vacations.
Nobody who isn’t integral gives a flying fuck.
You and your annoying family posing in front of Beautiful Locale X are just as fascinating to me as pictures of paint drying. Same thing with pictures of your annoying spawn.
Show me one picture. Hell, show me two.
Beyond that? Jesus Christ.
Does anybody want to see pictures of my dishwasher? No, seriously, it’s awesome…it’s stainless…it does everything…it’s a miracle…I don’t know how I lived without it…I can’t believe I’m so blessed…my life will never be the same…
I actually think parents who have kids around 40 are even worse. They expect you- also in the same age group- to be enchanted with them having a child- and will do so for ten years. At that time I was well beyond any interest in children.