Babies Make Me Cry
I have come a very long way in this baby business. Last week I emailed my friend Nile and mentioned how excited I was that I was going to get to hold the Grs goils soon. “Did they have kittens?” he wrote back. “You don’t like babies.” And I have a dim, dim memory of that being true. Not having anything against them, particularly, except their horrifying apparent fragility and their squalling. But that memory’s buried deep enough that I was surprised by his surprise.
This weekend, I got to hold and feed Fiona Beatrice, sister of the equally charming and prehensile-toed Ruby Amelia. Greg put her in my hands and it was an immediate shock to my system. My hands nearly flew up into the air – apparently I’d been expecting a 43 cm long baby with the mass of a black hole. Or at least my cat. How could she be so small and still be a person? And she is very definitely a person. I started crying. I fed her, trying not to drip on her face, her entire head resting in the palm of my hand. It was all a bit wobbly and odd at first, until the nurse gently moved my hand aside, gripped Fiona’s head, turned it side to side and said “See, not breakable! Hold her firmly.” I twisted the bottle in Fiona’s mouth when she fell asleep at the wheel, little milk dribbles out the corner of her mouth.
I think people have babies because you can’t properly describe how it feels.
In other news:
Today, one of my coworkers, in listing the similarities between Edmonton and Ottawa, listed “dying downtown core as an example”. Bank St. was one of her Ottawan examples. Almost everything I do revolves around Bank St. Same for many of my friends and acquaintances. She lives in the suburbs and I guess sees something else on her occasional drives up Bank. How could she know that the poutine place at MacLaren is hopping with wobbly bar goers at 3 am? Or that when you grocery shop (1. Herb and Spice, 2. Big Buds (cheapest chick peas you’ll find) 3. The Hartmans) you need to factor in at least a half hour for talking to people you know?
Dying my ass.
2 comments:
She probably thinks it would be better if it looked like Sparks Street or something. Pretty, but with no substance and none of that running-into-people-you-know factor. People are weird.
We were hoping you'd be at the running clinic last night! It was fun. Next week is "bring a buddy for free" night so if you want to come check it out, you should.
J.
Funny, Sparks Street was her other example of a dying downtown. I think she's just used to a lot of lawns and no sidewalks.
It was odd, that's for sure.
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