Village people

I firmly believe that it takes a village to raise a child.

If not, Miss Dub is in serious trouble.

However, I sometimes wish that her particular village didn’t include cashiers and/or random strangers.

Most of the time it’s great: Everywhere I go I am suddenly friends with everyone by virtue of my adorable daughter. Scary men turn into cooing teddy bears at the sight of her goofy grin. Elderly women stop and chat with me about their mothering experiences during various world wars. Cashiers stop clamoring for my store discount card long enough to play a game of peek-a-boo with Miss Dub.

OK, so that last one sort of crosses over into the not-so-great realm. Because my once-efficient cashiers are suddenly slow as molasses. “Harry, what’s the price on these … Hello there, honey! You’re awfully cute. Can you wave at me?” And thus the lemons go unchecked for another five minutes until Ms. Cashier remembers that Harry and the rest of the line don’t care if Miss Dub waves at her or not. (And she usually doesn’t.)

But I can handle the delay. I mean, baby Dub adoration is one of my favorite pastimes, as well.
It’s the random chit-chat and unsolicited advice that I’m not so fond of, especially when I can’t understand what they’re trying to say.

Just yesterday at Target the teenage cashier went on and on about how she doesn’t know why she likes “the really young ones.” And then went on to insist that Miss Dub, who can confidently wear 12-month clothing at seven months, couldn’t be more then three months old. And how she doesn’t know why but she really likes that age. And a bunch of other stuff that was really hard to understand either because she had a foreign accent and/or I was just pretending to listen but really thinking about other more pressing matters. (Like whether or not my haggard feet are responding to my latest lotion.)

Another Target cashier saw me buying some girly dresses for my lil’ one and proudly proclaimed, “Wow! You sure had them close together.” Befuddled, I asked, “Um, what?” She then went on to explain that she could tell by the gender and age range of the clothes I was buying that I had a baby girl in addition to my male toddler. (Who, of course, was none other than an infant Miss Dub.) But rather than clarify that there was no other baby girl hiding under the cart (or wherever else she thought I was keeping her), I just played along. I nodded and um’ed in all the right spots until the awkward exchange was over.

And they are awkward. And they are frequent. And they inevitably end with me or Mr. Dub saying something in baby talk like, “Can you say bye, honey?” to appease their baby-drooling and bring our cashier chatter to a close. But, of course, she never says bye. In fact, we’re still lucky if she makes legitimate eye contact. But it’s like an unspoken rule that we have to engage her in the whole conversation.

Still, I’ll take strange conversation to random advice.

Just the other day at the airport, a very chic woman came up to me and asked, “Do you have anything warmer to put on that baby?”

Knowing that an unseasonal cold front had set in, I nodded and said, “Yeah, I’m sure glad that I brought a blanket with us.”

To which she said, “Well, I think you should put it on her right now. She must be freezing. Seriously, you should put it on her.”

For the record, she wasn’t. She’s inherited my sweaty tendencies and was clammy to the touch. But I put on the blanket to please the woman with indie jeans and great highlights.

Because I don’t have it in me to tell her to bug off. Because I don’t have it in me to tell the cashier that red is a girl color, too! Because I don’t have it in me to tell the well-intentioned teenager that everybody likes the little ones because they’re, well, little. And because I don’t have it in me to ask Harry to check the price on the freaking lemons already!

Because the reality is it’s touching. Even when it’s annoying. Even when it’s unsolicited.

Because I like the idea that in our crazy, disturbed, conflict-ridden world, people still like babies.
And they really, really like mine.

It’s good to have a village.





(Who are some of your village people?)