Ok. I have a confession to make. I'm not that crazy about babies. I could take them or leave them, and more often than not, I'd rather leave them (I mean that in a completely non-negligent parent kind of way). The fact that I had two of my own has little to no bearing on this; I liked my own babes fine but I prefer them now that they're older and argumentative and independent and funny, rather than when they were drooly and whingey and shitty and needed changing and feeding all the time. That's not to say that I have no maternal instincts (hey, well, actually, maybe I don't, I don't know) or that I'm going to footy kick the next wee bairn that's handed to me, rather that... I dunno... babies don't really do anything, except become really cool little people (which is exciting, right) but until they do that... meh.
So I kind of enjoy other people's babies, certainly in the capacity that I like making them smile and coo and then handing them back when they start to emit strange odours. I've done my nappy duty x 2, so I'm not revisiting that ANY time soon (read: at. all). And I don't see any reason why I should.
So... it is perhaps completely incongruous that I am making things for a mate's baby, but really and truly, I like making stuff, and making stuff for babies is cool, you know, because they can't complain that they look kinda lame in the daggy home-made cardigan that you painstakingly knitted for them (and went near blind in the process).
The problem is, I've been googling patterns and have found that my judgement about whether or not a pattern is cute or not is severely clouded by whether or not it's on a, well, funny looking kid. It seems a large proportion of babies bear a very strong resembelance to Winston Churchill, and this is not the most appealing look in the world. Quite fine if you're Winston Churchill's wife, I guess, or in the kid's case, its parents/grandparents/direct relatives, because you love the grunty little thing so damned much you can't tell whether or not it's a bit odd looking. But to me, a slightly anti-baby-partial observer, they're not really all that. And mine were no different - being prem, they were a little on the lean side, and this gave them an appearance not dissimilar to the long skinny potatoes I see in the grocery store occasionally, you know, they're kind of unattractive but you figure they're great for mash or chips or whatever?
Yeah.
That was my kids.
Skinny, lumpy potatoes.
They grew out of it quick enough, once they start getting longer and bigger they invariably become cuter and more person like (less potato like) but up until that point I was frequently bothered by the cooing that inevitably occured by some strange old lady you met on the street and "oh, isn't this one cute!" and "your little boy, look at him!" (I had 2 girls).
The good news is, they do grow up in to adorable little miniature people, with opinions and dreams and ideas about stuff, you know, and eventually once they start talking in semi-complete sentences, they make great conversation. But up until that point, kids seem to be more of a conversation topic rather than a conversation holder - which reminds me of the classic Seinfeld episode, "you've got to see the BABY!" (although we never actually saw it, I'm sure it was quite Winston Churchill like).
