not a baby person.

My son Phineas is just over six months old now. I think he's cute.

 

You should know, though: I'm not a baby person.

Never have been.

One of my biggest concerns when I was pregnant was: will I LIKE my baby?

You might laugh, but that was a legitimate concern for me. I haven't been a fan of babies my entire life. When I was three and a half and my sister was born, I asked my dad if we could throw her away.

Three and a half.

The older I got, the more my feelings for babies... stayed the same. Whenever a classmate announced their mom was going to have a baby, I felt a deep pity for them. I never played house. When I was a senior in high school and the newspaper asked the classic "where do you see yourself in ten years" question, I said I saw myself being rich and living in a mansion. (Didn't happen, by the way.) The vast majority of my classmates said "married with two kids." 

Never in my life have I asked to hold someone's baby. When offered, I typically said something like, "Oh, there are lots of other people who would love to hold your baby!" I was terrified of breaking the baby. Also, there WERE plenty of people wanting to hold babies.

The first non-family baby I ever held was when I was 26. No joke. 

Then I didn't hold another baby until Phineas was born when I was 32.

It's not that I don't like kids. Kids are funny, especially when they hit 4 or 5. It's just toddlers and babies that I'm not so good with... mostly because I have no idea what to do with them.

And don't get me wrong: if you are my friend and you have a baby, I TOTALLY want to meet your baby. I TOTALLY want to hang out with you and your toddler. I just don't want to babysit them.

That's why it's so bizarre to me to now have a baby and encounter baby people out in the wild.

Phineas was in the NICU for four weeks, and when we got out, we were still mid-COVID quarantine. The NICU nurses were all baby people, obviously. But we didn't take Phineas out really at all besides visiting my family and close friends and/or them coming over.

Our first real outing with Phineas was over this past Labor Day weekend in Lincoln, Nebraska. Wherever we went, people exclaimed, "Your baby is SO CUTE! How old is he? What's his name?"

Those are the exact same questions I would ask someone about their dog.

So even though I now have a baby, I am still not a baby person. I am a Phineas person. And it's working for me.