ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

I’m in Michigan this week and today we went to this office where the lady was supposed to be off that day but had to come in unexpectedly because of us (due to a sort of SNAFU with another office we had to last minute pick hers instead). Because she didn’t have time to make alternate child care arrangements, she had to bring her young toddler to have lunch with us. Her toddler is almost two but she was premature so she is still very tiny. The regional lady with me said she is about the size of a one year old. Not that I would know the difference.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have zero experience with babies and they kind of make me uncomfortable. Partly because when I see babies in the store I smile and wave at them and 80% of the time this makes them cry and their mothers look around quizzically and I pretend to be closely interested in a nearby product so I won’t be taken for a baby tormentor. We all went to lunch and I was kind of wary of the whole thing because what was THAT going to be like, having lunch with this…baby there?

When we got to the restaurant the lady from the office went into super engineering mode and started setting up this high chair stuff and she picked up the baby and was basically like Here You Go Have This Baby and I had never held a baby before. So I was like, Hi Baby, I Hope You’re Not Too Uncomfortable and I expected it, I mean her, to start crying right away. But the baby did not cry. She was cool with it. Even though I had no idea how to hold her and so I opted for that sort of posture where in 1950s wedding pictures they have this picture where the groom is carrying the bride over the threshold. Except the baby wore a bib that said “Diva” instead of a wedding gown.

So the lady from the office had me put the baby in the high chair and then she got a plate from the salad buffet and started giving stuff to the baby and she told me I was allowed to feed her if I wanted. And at this point I started to take this immediate scientific interest in the baby. And I quickly figured out that a baby is WAY more fun to play with than, say, my dog. For one thing, the baby understands English much better, and is just much more interesting in general. Like if I tell the baby, “Don’t throw the cracker on the floor, please,” she understands it and if she throws it on the floor anyway it is in direct defiance of my command. Which totally fascinated me. Like, this baby is smart enough to understand what I told her AND to make the decision to disobey me. Babies aren’t stupid and boring like I thought! They are smart and devious!

Here’s this other thing. I don’t really know how you are supposed to talk to babies. I feel silly trying to do baby talk because I don’t really know how. So I just talked to the baby like she was a regular adult even though that felt weird too. I think the regional lady and the baby’s mom got a kick out of that, because it does sound weird, talking normally to someone who doesn’t talk back. But that is basically how I talk to the dog, except the baby understands real words and stuff unlike the dog, which only knows its name and “outside” and “bad”. So when the baby threw crackers on the floor and held her hand out for more, I asked her where the other crackers were. She looked at the floor and pointed. So I said, “That’s called consequences. When you do something and have to deal with what happens because of what you did.”

I doubt the baby really cared about my ridiculous cautionary tales, so I shut up and gave her a pepperoni, which turned out to be totally hilarious because she sucked on it for an unusually long time. But I totally get that - if I didn’t have to worry about what people thought, maybe I would go around sucking the grease out of pepperonis too. I thought the baby had sophisticated taste. She could have had other beverages but she wanted my unsweetened iced tea and when I gave her some she was completely unfazed by the bitterness. I gave her the lemon from my tea and she gummed it happily. Impressed, I offered her a slice of green olive, which she gummed down just like the rest. That’s one tough baby. I give her till four before she can handle mint juleps and whiskey sours.

After lunch I got to give the baby a bottle, which is easier than I thought it would be. The baby held my thumb with one little hand and stared into my eyes as she drank the bottle, which was a little intense. She started to get a dreamy look and then she fell asleep. I was like, “OK. What do I do with this baby now?” and the baby’s mom came and got her.

When it was time to go, the baby was awake again and going around my legs and holding onto my pants and laughing. I let the baby zip my bag because I guess when you’re going on two, zippers must be WAY fun. Then I looked at her and I didn’t know what to say again so I said, “It was nice to meet you. I think you are a nice person.” The baby’s mom began to laugh because that is probably a pretty weird thing to say to a two year old, in retrospect.

And the baby was like “Baw baw baw” so I totally knew she felt the same way. Her mother picked her up and the regional lady said “Bye bye!” and I realized that was a more normal thing to say to a baby so I said that too. The baby waved at us and we waved at the baby.

A week ago, if someone had offered me a choice between a free baby and a free parrot, I probably would have chosen the parrot, assuming I would not be allowed to sell whichever one I picked. But I now understand that a real live baby is a way better toy than a parrot. This baby has opened my eyes. Those babies in the market, well, they were clearly all haters who were trying to get me in trouble with their soon to be soccer moms. Forget those babies. This baby is what it’s all about.