Little Girls

In which our Hero is reminded of a baby he once held. Despite her loudly indicated preferences.

I am absolutely certain, Gentle Reader, that I’ve told you about most of the babies in the family, and that the fact that I can’t find the reference to my niece-of-a-sort just means that I can’t find it, not that I haven’t told it. But cute stories with babies are frequently worth revisiting, even if only for me.

I have, as you may recall, a weird magnetism when it comes to little kids. Most of the family has noticed that kids just attach to me, especially the little girls. It happens less now, partly with the interregnum between generations taking me to an age where there’s too many younger folks clamouring for the baby, and partly because maybe there was a window where it worked and the magic is fading. I don’t know. But one of the most vigourous examples supporting the case for my superpowers failing was a tiny, resonant baby who would *loudly* request evacuation from the arms of anybody who wasn’t mom or granddad. Loudly. Car alarm loud. Despite almost fitting in my fist.

So what happens when an irresistible man meets an uncharmable baby?

I’ll tell you what. Tears. And wailing. And the gnashing of… well gums, teeth weren’t an option. Till mom or granddad came and rescued our waylaid girl. I remember that. I remember mom holding a beautiful cooing baby girl while lecturing me about how despite being my junior, she was now entitled to elder relation honours because she was a parent and I was not.

ANd I remember one time, when a group of us had the baby in the front yard, feeding her, when mom was called into the house, and baby was handed off to grandpop. Who smiled a gentle trickster smile and turned his baby to face away from him while he spoke, and then snuck away to see if she’d notice and cry. And then my mom already laughing that the baby hadn’t figured things out yet, handed me the food and wandered away.

Leaving just me and the baby who couldn’t stand me if only she could remember that fact. But the food was tasty, and she was hungry, and we got more than a few mouthfuls down before she heard her mother’s voice from inside the house and realized that something, somehow, was eerily, dreadfully wrong.

I remember that moment of quiet with her. I think if I’d had more than the handful of hours, I’d have won her over. But I remember that baby, in that moment. I remember sitting with that baby’s mother, my cousin, as I laboured over the math textbook that somehow came with us on our overseas vacation.

And I had flashes of both of those moments as I sat with my mother, talking into a phone that connected me to my cousin. We don’t speak much, my command of the language is very limited an d that lack makes me shy about trying over the phone. But here we were, catching up. And then she mentioned the baby’s name. Her oldest child’s name. Who was in the other room, studying for her 10th grade exams.

It was one of those moments where the world kind of shakes for a moment, just inside your head. Correcting for new facts evidence, that remembered baby has been gumming food out of my hand for 15 years now. And my younger cousin, that girl who teased me, who sat with me, she’s a middle-aged math teacher. She’s already become her self, however it is evolving.

And if she’s a middle-aged something… what does that mean for me?