Our Friends Are Starting to Have Babies

Logan is traveling for a wedding right now, so I thought I’d chat with Adam (who covers movies here) about this time in our life when our friends are starting to have children.

Adam: We both made a great new friend last night.

Mike: The tiniest friend!

Adam: I have never seen a baby that small! I mean I have, but not so up close. And not as a grownup.

Mike: The baby was just over five pounds when she was born. Adam, do you know what you weighed when you were born?

Adam: What? Why would I know that. What kind of person knows that. Wait do YOU know???

Mike: Uh, YES. That was something I immediately wanted to know once I knew that babies were weighed when they’re born. I was 7 pounds, 2 ounces.

Adam: So you were normal sized. And you are still normal sized. A significant correlation?????? Does baby size predict adult size? IF ONLY THERE WAS ANY WAY TO KNOW. Anyway. Can we talk about how I was called out for staring at the baby while I held her?

Mike: We were all staring at the baby! Though, true, there was a moment when we stared at you while you were staring at the baby. It was all very sweet. We’re in this phase of our life right now where everyone we know is starting to get married and have children, or deciding that they don’t want to get married or have children.

Adam: 1) I was afraid that if I stopped looking at her I would forget I was holding her because she has no mass, so I was not being sweet I was being SMART. And 2) Yes that is true. What is your wedding count so far this year?

Mike: 1) Yes, it was sweet, and 2) six, and next month will make it seven. What’s your count for the year?

Adam: 6 and I think I am done for 2012.

Mike: So, I actually created a wedding fund to make sure that I could afford to go to all these weddings. Is that what you did?

Adam: Nope. I did what you might call “not doing that.”

Mike: Haha. Well, I’m guessing that most people do what you do! Okay, I don’t want to think about weddings anymore. Let’s talk some more about this baby. When the baby was born, we got sent a schedule and were told to sign up for specific dates to visit the baby, which I thought was super smart.

Adam: This was a genius idea, yeah. Big ups to Doodle.com. How did you ever even see a baby before email and Doodle.com? (That’s their slogan by the way.)

Mike: Right! Because when you are one of the first of your friends to have a baby, everyone wants to come over to look at the tiny human you produced, and I’m sure it can be a nightmare having to field phone calls and answer e-mails to tell people when they can come over.

This made things so much easier, and I liked that the idea was if you were coming to visit, you also brought the parents food, because who has time to cook when you’re spending all your time staring at a tiny baby?

Adam: Any system that makes it easy for me to do a nice thing for another person without having to do any of the hard thinking or planning is great and very welcome.

Mike: This was my first friend in this city to have a baby. Do you have other friends with babies in the city?

Adam: I do know other people who have babies in the city, but this is basically my first too. Like it’s been, “oh cool, so-and-so made a baby, rad.” But this was more “WHEN DO I GET TO SEE HER?”

I also have baby friends in other parts of the county. Where the barriers to successful babydom are sort of lower.

Mike: Yeah, the cost of living here is so high. It’s like, I’m barely paying my way here, how can I pay for another human being! But people find a way to do it. My parents raised three kids on practically nothing. Also, we kept saying how awesome this baby was going to have it because her parents are just so cool.

I’m sure this kid is going to LOVE having me and you around, too, reminding her how tiny she is.

Adam: Haha. I think I commented more than once last night on how lucky she is that her parents will always have good music playing in the house. It may have come off as condescending but I meant it with all my heart.

Mike: Yes! What kind of music did your parents play around the house when you were a kid? Mine did a lot of ballroom dancing, so we always had music to accompany the Tango or Rhumba or Foxtrot or Paso Doble, which I guess is sort of a cool origin story to have, but it also meant I didn’t know who The Beatles were until high school. (But I did a mean waltz as a third-grader!)

Adam: For me it was James Taylor, Peter Paul and Mary, and also a lot of Jewish music.

Mike: Well, hey: James Taylor!
Adam: Yes! But as a result I grew to hate James Taylor and only decided I liked him again later in life. Also I think I assumed he was Jewish.

Mike: I forgot that my cousin bought and gave me my first CD when I was in the sixth grade. It was Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” which was AWESOME. That’s one thing I’m looking forward to doing with all these friends who are having children now: Introducing them to stuff I love. What do you buy for a baby? What do you buy for a kid? There are so many cool things kids should know about!

Adam: I am very scared that the next generation is going to hate all the things we love.

Mike: Oh, they will, because kids like to rebel against whatever their parents like, but then they learn to appreciate it. Like you and James Taylor.
Adam: True. Or like my grandkids and Skrillex. They’ll come around.

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