Revealed

Several days after the arrival of my sister and nephew and I'm still alive. I've been aunt, baby sitter, bottle heater, rice cereal maker, diaper changer and baby-sitting-bottle-heating-rice-making-diaper-changing woman all in one. Who is also an aunt.

So yeah, I'm thinking I've got this baby thing going pretty good. I have remembered what it's like to eat a meal with one hand and to somehow navigate through downtown traffic with a child who will not stop crying for anything. Already fed, napped and changed, he was still quite upset. Seriously, I promised him everything from ice cream to a Corvette to an NFL career and now I know, sometimes babies just cry. AND WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THEY ARE GOOD AND READY. Everyone has survived and is doing quite well. I'm thinking maybe, just maybe there is a chance of me doing this someday.

Along with all the fun and hard work, it's also been a huge wave of emotion for me. Having a family-like house has been better than I could have imagined. It's revealed to me that yes, I might actually want chaos, joy and sleepless nights of my own one day. I know a little more about me now.

Well, for everything you think you know, there's always something you don't know.

Like our trip to the mall today. Boy, was that interesting. Did you know that ten o'clock on a Thursday morning is Designated Stroller Time in the mall? This is the time when all the baby momma's that don't work on Thursdays go to the mall and push around single, double and, oh yes, even triple strollers and chat with each other in Old Navy about how they just can't lose that last ten pounds. I felt a little out of place having gained my "last ten pounds" from burritos and Starbucks and not incubating a child for nine months but, you know, I nodded along in the most empathetic way I could.

So we're standing just inside the door of the store and I notice several gawkers walking by looking at me through the store window. What could it be? Am I holding the baby upside down? Is it there spitup down my back, again? I readjust, everything looks okay.

I think.

Yet, people still stare. And I have no idea why. I look around for something, anything. Food in my hair, maybe I've dropped something, I don't know.

I'm getting a little irritated, thinking there are some really rude, judgmental people in this town when my sister comes around the corner, quickly pulls the baby's hand off the collar of my v-neck shirt and proceeds to recover the left side of my chest.

Watch those strong little baby hands, they will pull more than your hair.