Baby Talk!

I need to change the subject!

Are any of the people out there experiencing a new life in their family? Has it affected your life in a serious way? Have you found that a baby is at the beginning of your conversation with people, and often at the end as well?  Are you experiencing a lot of baby talk?

Is it ok to talk about personal things to people I haven’t seen for ten, twenty or never years? It could be the epitome of boring what I am attempting here, taxing your patience. Sobeit, the die is cast.

I am looking forward to my ninetieth birthday, a few life experiences behind me. The truth is I am rather full of myself. I have plenty of stuff I want to talk about and I am not at all put off if the conversation turns around to a discussion of my exploits, current and past. But since I became a great-grandfather to my great-grand-daughter, the air is full of baby talk, some of it even initiated by me.

There is something so exciting about a new life.  I don’t know about you, but I feel a drive to get an imprint of myself imprinted on that new mind. I know my kids will remember me, so why does that excite me? Is it a subconscious desire to be even more immortal? Is it the potentiality of being a part of an extended future? Is it just that new babies can be real cute?

We are taking advantage of the wonders of new technology. The pictures we get, like the snaps of our old days, we are printing out in living color and posting them on all the wall spaces of our apartment. All the curios that we used to display in our glass-fronted cupboards, the collected treasures of a lifetime, are now hidden behind pictures of family members who live far away.

Pride of place on our walls is taken by pictures of our new baby. I say our baby even though we are letting my daughter and granddaughter take care of her immediate creature comforts. We know the baby really belongs to us. Maybe they don’t know that yet.

I guess this is not the first time that a baby has been born. Yet, somehow, it does seem to me to be a really special event in human history. I know I am looking at this in a really balanced way, not letting my personal association with this event expand it out of rational proportion.

It is the first time this has happened to me. That counts for something I know when we look at this event dispassionately. Nevertheless, I understand that there are many people who are not as excited about this event as I am. How could that possibly be, I ask you? People are not always rational.

I haven’t actually seen this creature in the flesh. That is yet to come. We are going to travel around the earth to experience that reality. She may cry when I get to hold her. I may get the privilege of changing her diaper. I may have to fight with others to attract her attention. She may not have the slightest interest in me (Could such a thing be possible?) Will that bring me down to earth? I doubt it.

I find it amazing how changes in the simple processes of our live can so markedly change our outlooks and perspectives. And it sure depends where you are in the process. I am not on the front line.

During our visits by Zoom I have seen how totally exhausted my grand-daughter has been, rousing herself at all hours of the night to feed a crying, (dare I say, screaming,) infant. I only get to see the baby when she is happy and smiling. I can remember some of that way, way, back.

In the end it is great to talk about such things rather than all those things that bedevil our lives on a daily basis. The headlines and the breaking news on television exercise our minds, our hopes and fears, every day that we are alive. I think it’s great that we find an occasion for baby talk.

Are you still with me, or have you left me without a goodbye?