Larval Humans

My father sent me a picture of a friend of his' new grandson. He sent it because in our family, our bonding is mostly done by being snarky (it was an ugly baby).


Remembering an email Ryan once sent me: 


Alice!  I don't know what to do.  I've been invited to the first
birthday of that pair of larval humans we met in the Baylands
yesterday.  It's in Sunnyvale.

I feel like I have to go because Jeff is just beyond the cubicle wall.
 But a baby birthday party?  In Sunnyvale?  Thrown by the guy who
accused me of being a food snob for not wanting to eat at some fresh
Mex trash chain?  Sounds questionable to me.

-Ryan



I responded by saying I thought it looked like an old man, but then again, I don't really think babies are cute. Once they leave their "larval stage" and hit about two or three, they become much more interesting to me. Five and six are my favourite ages and then it's all down hill.

I laughed for hours at the term "larval humans" in Ryan's email and still giggle about it. The larval humans in question were drooling red headed twins that seemed half asleep and one had a cheerio stuck to its cheek (also: what is it with little kids and Cheerios in this country? Why do they seem to always be covered in them?)

I am not one of those women that coos or gurgles or squeals or spontaneously combusts when they see tiny babies. I have no interest in holding them and often find it seems disingenuous when other women perform that silly baby dance because I just cannot fathom how anyone can be interested in a baby that isn't a direct relation. They aren't cute or soft. They don't enjoy particularly enjoy being held anymore than they enjoy existing - at least when the are really young, being held is the only non-bodily function related of which they are capable and it doesn't really count as "action" now does it?

I'm not saying that women are actually being disingenuous, it just seems that way because I am completely unable to sympathise/understand the emotion. I'm sure it's me projecting my own feelings on the situation.