Baby boom

Christmas was full of babies. My cousin has one now, and so does one of my sister's best friends. I feel like I haven't seen a baby up close for awhile, having lived in this weird babyfree post-college zone for the past five years or so.



During that time, my older friends have been threatening me with the impending wind-up of my biological clock. "Just wait and see," they've said. "You'll hit age 26 or 27 and -- boom! -- you'll want one."



The thing is, I've never been much of a baby person. I've always been kind of embarrassed about it, the same way that I'm embarrassed about not really liking dogs or cats enough to deal with the annoyance of caring for a pet. It seems like a character flaw, somehow, like if I were a real woman, I'd just love cute little mammals so much that I'd have to get one for myself -- a puppy, at least, if not an actual pocket-size human.



This year, however, I have noticed a small change. Horowitz pointed out to me one day as we were walking through Back Bay that I look at babies now, whereas before, people would hold up their offspring proudly and my gaze would slip right off them, like eggs on teflon. "Nice," I'd say, nervously. "He looks just like you."



And the mother would frown. "He looks like his daddy, actually. Don't you look like your daddy, Ashton? Yes, you do! Here, wanna hold him?"



"Oh, dear God, no! I mean...I have a cold. Yeah. I'd hate to give it to him."



But now, in my maturity (har, har) I will actually hold a baby if he's handed to me. The thing is, though, the baby usually starts to cry right away. I think they know that I'm not totally in control of the situation. I mean, seriously, what's with the wiggling? They can't hold still? Babies are like teensy little crack addicts, or very old men. They've got the shimmy-shakes all the live-long day.



I still say it's progress, my newfound willingness to hold one of the little rugrats. If they can extend the female breeding age to 50 or so, I think I might just be able to have one someday.