This morning I’m eating a damn fine breakfast of veggies and eggs scrambled with queso fresco and a side of pinto beans (why yes, I am in Texas. How could you tell?) and generally getting my head on straight before I go into conference mode for two days, when a woman with a super cute baby in an Ergo walks in.
Since you’re going to wonder – as people do, often aloud – no I’m not planning on having a second child, nor do I particularly want a baby, but I do enjoy adorable babies because I’m not a monster. So I’m smiling at the little one, who’s holding her mama’s credit card, and as they walked by I joked to her, “Are you buying coffee for your Mama? How nice of you!”
The woman turned to me and hurriedly said, in almost an apologetic tone, “She’s a she, although you can’t really tell because she has no hair.” And she ran her hand over the little girl’s head, which had a good covering of long wisps of hair.
This made me so incredibly sad.
I made no comment on the gender of the baby, but even if I had I’d have to be a moron to miss that the carrier was covered in little pink tulips. And that the baby did, in fact, look kind of girly. But the truth is that my boy would have loved to be carried surrounded by little pink tulips, and all babies have big girly eyes and baldy boy heads because they’re frigging babies. Who cares? Who seriously cares?
Mama, I’m not trying to judge you, I’m really not. You deserve to go easy on yourself, and on your little one. She’s a doll and you’re doing a great job. Nothing else matters, not her hair, not when she learns to walk, not whether or not she’s potty trained before anyone else.
Hang in there.