No, no, I relate fine to other humans, thank you. The problems my baby causes are more of the “doesn’t let me sleep/destroys everything in reach” problems.
Does she look like Ernest Borgnine?
I was asking, not mocking.
Don’t kid yourself, cmkeller. If a baby ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about!
Yeah, what’s the deal here? Did that really happen??
I guess I’m sort of one of those people.
At a gathering preceding my niece’s wedding, I found myself holding Charlie, her 6 month old future nephew in law. Who, after a brief one-sided conversation, fell asleep in my arms, thereby evading all the females who wanted to hold the lad. Charlie’s mom came by to make sure he was okay. I told her that Charlie seemed to be a really good baby, that I had been to an ATM the night before, and I was prepared to offer her $60.00 cash money right there for the boy. She rejected my offer, so I upped it to $80.00 right there. She paused and told me Charlie was a pretty good baby and was not for sale, but we could talk about his older sister and/or brother.
Drunky Smurf is never as serious as his username sounds.
Little plum,
said the mother to her son,
I want to bite,
I want to chew,
I will eat you up.
Little child,
little nubkin,
sweet as fudge,
you are my blitz.
I will spit on you for luck
for you are better than money.
Your neck as smooth
as a hard-boiled egg;
soft cheeks, my pears,
let me buzz you on the neck
and take a bite.
I have a pan that will fit you.
Just pull up your knees like a game hen.
Let me take your pulse
and set the oven for 350.
Come, my pretender, my fritter,
my bubbler, my chicken biddy!
Oh succulent one,
it is but one turn in the road
and I would be a cannibal!
[Edit: I hope this length of an excerpt is all right–it’s from a longer poem.]
My brother and I are one year, one month, and 12 days apart. Mom would push us in a carriage with seats in front and back* when I was an infant.
“Are they twins?!”
Almost as good as at a friend’s house when someone brought their actual twins over, a boy and a girl.
“Are they identical?!”
*Yes, my brother would clamber out of his seat, sending toddler me flipping out of the carriage onto my face. I have a knot of scar tissue on my forehead to prove it.
If nobody ever commented on your baby wouldn’t you start to wonder what was wrong with it?
From the sounds of it this is your first child. If so, and you don’t like mindless social prattle directed your way, you have no idea what gates of hell you have opened up for yourself. 
First, there’s the interaction with other parents at the pediatrician’s office, whether you want it or not. Then there’re the babysitters. Eventually arranging play dates (when you better make nice or nobody will let their kid play with your kid) and birthday parties. Pre-school, when you yourself will start sounding inane as you try to reinforce what’s being taught and then relay that to the teacher. Kindergarten, real school, sports, and as mentioned above, graduate school…
Just like “there’s no crying in baseball,” there’s no personal space once you’ve had a kid. You have to become social or your baby will grow up making bombs.
And they weren’t even adorable.
Oh Jesus Christ yes. Just wait until your baby sneezes in public. You will hear dozens of home remedies for the common cold, the flu, pneumonia, asthma, pleurisy, and possibly rickets.
Look, having a really cute baby is like having your leg in a cast. It’s not that you don’t want to talk to people, it’s that you’re really tired of saying “Stress fracture, half marathon training” for the six millionth time.
Frankly I was glad to go to the four month checkup today so now I have a new weight to tell people. (I get it, there’s really nothing else to ask about a baby. It’s just, I mean, I’ve told six people already this hour.)
ETA - also, my mother keeps him when I’m at work, and she lives in a senior living community. I finally just gave her a hat to keep for him.
I hope you realise that you will never ever again be able to say “Those celebrities should not complain about paparazzi, they should know that it comes with the territory!”.
I think this type of conversation just goes with being out in public with a baby.
When people say, “How are you?” they don’t really want to know and will be annoyed if you decide it’s time to fill them in on your medical history.
If they ask, “What’s new?” they don’t really want to know you just bought six cans of cat food on sale and are on your way to buy Ex-Lax at the drugstore.
They are making conversation, and most don’t care how old your kid is, and would rather do anything than have to take care of him.
Don’t worry. It won’t be long before he is the average toddler screaming at the park and no one will give him a second look.
Babies are social objects. They’re things strangers are “allowed” to talk about without (too much) weirdness or awkwardness. There’s not very many social objects in the world - if you’ve ever walked a dog, you’ve had strangers chat to you about it. The cast on a broken leg example above is another one. Some museum exhibits have been built to deliberately fill this role.
So be polite and think about the social capital you’re building.
if you offered to rent the kid out then you would stop getting kidnapping comments.
Pretend it was an lengthily elaborate set-up for a trivially imaginary problem…
Nitpick: Given that you have brown eyes and your wife has blue, if it’s possible at all, then the odds would be 50%. The fact that you have brown eyes means you either have two copies of the brown gene, or one copy each of brown and blue. If you had two copies of brown, then all your children would be brown, regardless of their mother’s eyes, so the fact that you have any blue-eyed children at all means that you have one copy each. Your wife, with blue eyes, must have two copies of the blue-eyed gene. So your kids definitely get a blue gene from their mother, and either a brown or a blue from you.
I also have a newborn. So far we are doing the shut-in thing so not much public interaction with strangers. We have been told many times that she is extra-cute and I can see it. All the same, no crazy aunt, I did not immediately fall in love like you did and a blood covered squirming… thing… was not immediately cute.
Yeah, babies are conversation starters but usually the conversation is awkward. I don’t even know what to say and I have one. I’m still not accustomed to asking dog questions. “How old is he?” (shit did I ask the owner that last week?).
The question I dread: breast feeding shaming. No, I don’t mean the en vogue telling people to not breast feed in public and resultant outcry. I’m talking about people saying things like “don’t you know that Hitler was formula fed!?!?” She was born 5 pounds 3 fucking ounces and she is formula fed because that’s the only way she will remain alive.
The internet is crazy about this, but I can trust you guys, right?
Right?
Great, now her crying is in lamb voice.