Women, babies and Googlie goo!

 A friend on FB has this status message on Monday-
 
“Someone somewhere must be uploading 150 photos of a baby crawling across a room. Scary Monday
morning thoughts.”- Courtesy Shubho Sengupta
 

 
There are many of us, who may have had similar thoughts from time to time, but not expressed it as aptly. Parents behaving strangely when it comes to their babies is of course not a new phenomenon. Many of you would have grown up to the pain of doting parents making you recite ‘their’ favorite poem, every time a guest had the misfortune to come home. Or sing all the songs that you as a child have had the misfortune to ever learn. All this is of course, irrespective of the boredom that others might go through.
 
Add to this is the catastrophy in the name of certain onlookers, who will say anything at all and behave any which way at all at the mere sight of a baby. Sample this, “Oh your baby is so cute, I want to eat him”. Others will go to the extent of pulling at the baby/child’s cheeks till the poor little one has completely lost it.
 
Many are the torture sessions I have witnessed where over enthusiastic guests/friends and their ilk have, in the name of affection and enthusiasm drooled so much at a child or behaved so stupidly, that the child is left with little option other than snarling.
 
What is it about babies that sometimes make us behave so strangely, even stupidly at times? As a father of one such child once put it, “Do you know how much this baby costs? How little sleep I get? How my life is completely topsy -turvy? And you want to eat my baby? Hell no, if anyone has the right to eat that baby, it’s going to be me!”
 
Interestingly, you will notice that those indulging in such comments, are usually new mothers themselves, who share the same experiences, or are about to be mothers, or are those who’s kids are so grown up that they need a grandchild, but are not quite there. Most of those parents, who are in the struggle period, with their growing children, with a regular dose of spats, arguments and regular lugging at different school activities are less prone to such enthusiastic comments.
 
There are of course no defined reasons why babies attract comments like ‘Goolie goo’, Gee (followed by salivating and many unwritten exclamation marks) or smelling the babies bum or teaching the child all the songs you had learnt in some prehistoric age. Perhaps to the guests and onlookers who indulge in such behavior it is an expression of what they have experienced themselves or think is the expected behavior around children.
 
But then like many things undefined about women, this is also one example of why women are women and to give them credit where it is due- Chocolate and women and babies, no one can have enough of them!
 
Image Source : www.happybabysite.com