I have spoken with all concerned parties and the general opinion so far is that baby D is The Cutest Baby Ever. I cannot find anyone who has seen him to disagree with this title. Of course, so far everyone who has come into his presence has been a grandparent or parent so this may have tainted the results. Nonetheless, I feel quite confident in bestowing upon my nephew the title of The Cutest Baby Ever.

For those of you, like myself, who have not yet been saddled with children (or have not yet experienced the joy of parenthood depending on your outlook on kids), let me give you a very big piece of advice. In fact, go ahead a get a pencil and paper and jot this one down because it will save you a lot of heartache later on.

I’ll wait.

Ready? Ok, here it is. When it comes to babies, it is ok to lie. I know, I know, the Bible and Moses and a whole host of men in robes will try and convince you otherwise but trust me on this one. When it comes to babies, lying is a-ok. I have learned this lesson the hard way.

My fellow co-worker, Laura, had a little girl about a year ago. She would bring her into the office every now and then and every time she would stroll into my office, hoist the child in the air in my general direction, and ask me point blank – “Is this the cutest baby you have every seen???”

Normally, I could avoid a confrontation by answering, “she’s pretty darn cute!” At which point Laura would wander off to elicit a response from some other person. However, Laura is also and attorney so it wasn’t long before she began to notice my tactful evasion.

The conversation started out like any other. “Good morning Chrissie. Look at the baby, isn’t she the cutest little girl in the whole world?” Laura asked me with a smile. She thrust the child in front of her and I looked the baby over nodding and smiling.

“She’s pretty darn cute!” I replied and began shuffling paperwork in an attempt to look too busy to talk. Laura re-settled her child on her hip and paused, squinting her eyes at me.

“Yes, but she’s the cutest baby in the world, right?” she said again, this time with a bit more iron in her voice.

“Yes, yes, very cute.” I mumbled, panic rising in my chest. Laura stepped fully into my office, sensing my pathetic attempt at evading her question.

“But you do think she’s the cutest baby in the whole world, don’t you.” I was trapped. Unable to think of another way to divert her attention, I attempted one last maneuver.

“Well, I haven’t seen every baby out there so maybe I’m not the best person to judge who’s the cutest in the world.” I threw in my most charming smile, hoping she’d wander off in search of another opinion. I was out of luck.

“Ok, fine,” she replied, all warmth gone from her voice, “but you have to admit she’s the cutest baby you’ve every seen, right? Right???” As if to help my answer, I found the child held right at eye level so I could examine and pronounce my verdict.

Here’s were I caved. It was the pressure of the constant questions or the kid drooling on my desk. I don’t know what possessed me but next thing I knew, I said, “Well, if you must know, I have seen cuter.”

There was a sharp intake of breath and the child was quickly withdrawn from my view as if I had just tried to bit her. For a moment, everything held still as Laura processed the thought that I didn’t agree that her child was the cutest. In that silence that seemed to stretch forever, I found myself babbling in an cowardly attempt to back pedal.

“Not the cutest but definitely in the top 10. I mean, she’s no Shirley Temple and I have this cousin whose got these dimples that are cute and your baby doesn’t have dimples so of course she can’t be as cute as my cousin but she’s really really cute for your family not that your other babies weren’t cute but this one is definitely the cutest so far…….”

At this point, Laura turned on her heel and took her child out of my office. In fact, I believe she didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. Instead, she emailed/called all of our friends who have children and recited the horrendous statement I had made. All day long, I got emails from people telling me what a meanie I was for calling Laura’s kid ugly. They all vowed when I have a child and ask them, they will reply that the kid is the ugliest they have ever seen just to get me back.

The child in question is over a year old and Laura still reminds me of my fatal blunder. So trust me on this one. If a mother thrusts a small child in front of your face and demands that agree that this child the is cutest you have ever seen, don’t look at the kid, don’t even hesitate, just answer YES. You won’t regret it.

I think my mother is mocking me.

You see, I went to her blog today and read her entry about her new grandson, Daniel. It started out innocent enough but then she made the following comment… “What is special about Dan and Suzy is that they know how to work together.”

To the untrained eye, this may appear to be an entry about my sister and her husband. I, however, know that this comment is directed at Kevin and myself. Do not let the use of proper names fool you.

You see, my mother has witnessed what happens when Kevin and I try to work together. It’s like watching a bad comedy skit where two people try to walk through the door at the same time over and over again and are continually baffled that they can’t get through and neither person is willing to let the other go first. That is exactly what happens to us. Each wants to lead and each gives the other’s ideas/plan no credit whatsoever. It is so pathetic it is funny.

Long long ago when I was living in my little apartment, my mom came up to visit. Kevin came up for the weekend to hang out with us as well. During this time, I noticed that my toilet was continually running. The seal inside the tank had gotten old and wasn’t settling properly so we stopped at the store and picked up a replacement part. What follows could easily have been an episode of some comedy sitcom except it was really happening to me, and so, it wasn’t quite so funny.

Here’s the scene…. Kevin & I are crammed into my apartment bathroom with the toilet tank open, peering into its watery depth. My mother is sitting on the sofa listening to our conversation and, I’m sure, choking on her laughter.

“I think we have to remove that plastic thing and attach the new seal to this chain here.” I state dictatorially to Kevin who only hears the phrase “I think..” and they blots out the rest because he is too busy fiddling with the new seal and he secretly believes that I know nothing about plumbing so why should he listen to my amateur opinion. As I reach for said chain, he stops me by saying, “Wait! What are you doing! Why are you going to remove the chain!?”

“I just told you,” I reply unhappily, my hand submerged in icky toilet water. “I think we should remove the plastic thing….” My thought is cut off in mid-sentence.

“No, no the plastic is what holds the seal in place. If you mess with you’ll ruin everything.” Kevin replies angrily.

“How do you know?” I quip back. “It looks like the new part already has the plastic part attached.”

“Fine, do it, but you’re going to ruin it.” He grumbles in disgust. This sort of banter continues for at least 40 minutes punctuated by frequent flashing of the toilet to test if the new seal is working. Its not. So we take turns trying to fix it since we cannot agree on a plan of attack. I’m sure it has to do with the length of the chain so I will adjust the chain shorter. Kevin will snort in disgust and say, “that won’t make a difference.” I will throw him a sneer and flush the toilet. We both wait for the bowl to empty, refill, and begin running at which point Kevin will give me an I Told You So look and push me out of the way. He’ll play with the plastic thingy and try a flush. We’ll wait and watch the water empty, refill, and continue to run so I’ll push him out of the way and try lengthening the chain this time. Flush, fill, run. Kevin fiddles. Flush, fill, run. I fiddle. Flush, fill, run. All the while we are bickering back and forth. At some point, we realize the futility of our mission and decide to follow the directions which finally allows us to complete the installation. Of course, at this point we are not speaking to each other but my mother is laughing like crazy on the sofa.

Now if this is how we approach the toilet, imagine a small child. It makes me shudder. And people ask us why we haven’t had kids yet. Um, hello! You have obviously not seen us work together. We’d be luck to get diapers on the kid without some major argument about how to properly angle to sticky tape so as to achieve maximum stickiness without cutting off circulation to the child’s lower torso. Lets just say we have our hands full trying to figure out whose method for getting the cats into their carrying cage is best. We’re not ready to take on the issues involved with another human.

So mom, I’m on to you. Don’t be thinking you can pull a fast one past me!

Dogs + Newpapers = Funny.