I don’t like babies. I never know what to do with them, and that’s just it. So you can’t blame me when Aunty Norma hands me her fifth child and I hold him (or her, or it? Whatever!) at arm’s length, and stare like it’s an alien from outer space. The squirmy little thing curves into a huge C-shape and I am anything but awed.
“Aunty Norma.” I clear my throat to hide uneasiness. “How much time are you going to take doing what you’re doing?”
I have my uses, and they are plenty, and they are great! But they don’t involve handling babies, nor pretending to like them.
“Abeg hold pikin, I dey come,” she says.
“Okay.” My heart, instead of melting, begins to throttle. My palms sweat, my arms ache, and I swallow. I really don’t know what to do with the baby.
Everyone I know coos at the sight of a baby and gets excited. They carry them, and feed them, and kiss their soft baby cheeks while murmuring a lot of gibberish nonsense that adults love to mutter when they hold babies. I’m sorry, I’m just not made that way. There are babies all around me, from friends and family. Heck, two of my sisters have babies. So I meet them all the time, but my interaction ends on the naming day when I drop off a gift, peek in the crib and wave at the little tots. I usually do not carry them, and no, I never want to.
The baby gurgles and I bite my lower lip. There is curly black hair slathered in copious amounts of nice smelling oil, and a little pink bow by the side. So it’s a girl. My arms are aching, but I can’t put her down.
As we examine each other, we both admit one salient truth. The feeling is mutual. We don’t like each another. While I am good at hiding my feelings, my rival is not. She turns down the corners of her mouth and her eyes glaze over.
‘No!’ I murmur as I watch the face crumple into a state of descending protest. ‘Don’t even… don’t cry.’
She opens her mouth, whimpers for a moment and the sound fades into oblivion. I’m not deceived, there is more where that came from. The sound is coming, and it will be huge.
“Aunty Norma,” I yell and look over at her, “come and take your baby!”