Baby Language

So my grandmother became a great-grandmother a month ago. I am pleased to inform the audience that I was not the mother, I think, but I’m not so sure: I think about babies so much, if one just appeared tomorrow morning, I would be upset for three minutes (mainly worrying about how it happened and when I got so drunk as to..), but generally go on being pleased about it.

I became an aunt instead. My brother is not a father now, either. Our cousin was.

They say she takes after me � specifically because her favourite hobbies are sleeping and yawning, in that order (and as in that picture, sticking her tongue out). When she isn’t sleeping she’s yawning about being awake, and when she’s sleeping she’s, well, yawning and sleeping. Family folklore has it that such characteristics mean it takes after me; they seriously mean it too, as my grandfather has been known to describe a particularly lazy dog owned by our the cousin-who-is-now-a-mother, to be in my likeness, as well.

Only one month old, she has already acquired eight pairs of shoes. All of them either Adidas, or Converse � my sneaker-mad brother and I ever ready to buy baby sized versions of shoes we love (Chuck Taylors and Stan Smiths are next; no baby Air Force Ones, so pity). I took a far longer time to acquire footwear of similar quantity and quality, so I’m a little sore about it.

I love everything about babies (am too maternal for my own good). But listening to baby talk has this effect on me: I feel sick, I want to throw up, I get a throbbing pain in my head. When I was a kid I used to think every adult who talked to me in a silly voice, made strange faces, was certifiably insane. Maybe I slept so much as a kid because sleeping was a good way to escape having my cheeks pinched and tummy tickled. That’s why I refuse to do all these things to her.

Giving a baby a nickname that will haunt her for the rest of her life is an evil thing to do. Speaking from experience, being known as “Little Miss Yawning”, “Wu Po” (“Witch” � don’t ask � they made me play the role of a witch at the end-of-year kindergarten performances) � and I’m sure many people thought it but never said it, “Little Miss Smarty Pants slash Cry Baby” � scarred me for life. Only one month in the world, and she’s known as “Peanut”. I’d like to hear her stories when she’s grown up.

Being an aunt makes me feel much older. It also makes me worry about how I will be perceived, eighteen years from now when she’s 18 and I’m 38. I couldn’t care what my cousins think, since at least within the generation I could pretend to be on equal footing. Most likely, I’m going to be that “strange aunt” of hers she never knew well, living in (insert some other country here), but always heard stories about her being the weird one who never married a man, and instead lived with a “very, very, very close friend”.

You know, that weird aunt all of us have, or have heard of. I’m just heading down that street, if I’m not already “weird daughter”, “weird sister”, “weird cousin”.