My Baby Revelation

So last week, I had the joy of meeting my 5 month old niece for the first time.

She is the cutest little thing and I had some good auntie bonding time. 

And after meeting her, I've come to a realization.  Babies TERRIFY me.

Now, I haven't come around that many babies in my life.  I was going on 11 years when my baby brother was born.  There was a novel interest to see and play with him, but honestly, at the time, I didn't care.  All I knew was, there was this little creature taking away my limelight and I didn't have time for that! 

Once Will, my brother, became a toddler, I warmed up to the idea.  Toddlers are just fun.  They can talk, walk, and are all around entertaining mini humans.  During a year in college, I had a job providing daycare at a martial arts studio.  It was easy money and I got to play with kids for a couple of hours.  So, don't get me wrong, I love kids.  I'm such a kid at heart, I feel like I can relate to them.

Babies, on the other hand, are a different story.  I can't relate to a baby.  I don't know how to interact with them.  As cute as my little niece was, there were moments, I had no idea what to do with her.  But I will say, there was an odd sense of calm within me when Lola fell asleep in my arms.  Which just proves that there's a sensitive person somewhere in me.

The biggest reason why babies terrify me is best explained in the following scenario.  My brother, his wife and the baby arrived at my parents' house pretty late.  The baby was asleep in the car seat and ended up waking up in the commotion of unloading everything.  The poor thing slowly looks at me, my little brother, mom and stepdad, who are essentially strangers to her and are crowding around her carseat trying to get a look.  Then searches for her own mom and dad, and when she realizes they're not around, she starts crying.  And not just soft crying, but loud crying, which progresses into top of the lungs crying.  At least that's how I percieved everything to have gone down.  And to her credit, anyone in their right mind would've started crying if waking up to strangers right in their face.  It was during her crying fit that I had my revelation.  The Holy Spirit left my body and I was terrified.

I think this scared me so much because when a baby cries, you don't completely know the reason for the crying.  I mean, you have an idea, but you're not 100% sure.  It stresses me out to have something happening and not knowing why.  That and the noise of the crying itself would be stressful enough.

I also feel I have no maternal instinct.  And I'm too rough.  And I'm too clumsy.  I AM the reason we can't have nice things.  I can't even count how many things I've dropped because of my butter fingers.  I've dropped the cat and dog plenty of times.  What's stopping me from dropping my own baby? 

I've voiced this concern to other people and they all say, "It's different with your own baby."  Well, I sure hope so.  You know those videos of those dads that ends up throwing a ball, and smacks their kid right in the face.  Yep.  Pretty sure that will be me...