They say it takes a village to raise a child, an adage i generally agree with. But sometimes, the village should shut up and die.

When you have a baby, that personal bubble of anonymity that protects you from people talking to you, touching you, or making eye contact with you, is exploded. Suddenly everyone in the world sprouts an opinion on childrearing, and if your child happens to be crying, you’re gonna hear those opinions. All of ‘em.

No one likes hearing a baby cry - that’s what’s at the root of it. Baby crying is an obnoxious sound. It’s higher on the obnoxious sounds list than most ring tones, nails on the chalkboard, and whatever the Hell dolphins are trying to say. So when your baby is crying in public and people give you advice on how to calm her down, i really do suspect that they’re more concerned for their own comfort than for the baby’s safety and security.

My wife has been collecting stories from her own adventures into the city, along with hair-raising anecdotes from the other mothers she meets with on a regular basis. One day, my wife was on the subway and our baby was crying. A lady was standing by the door, and as people got on the train she’d say to them “Um … you’ll probably want to move to the back of the train,” rolling her eyes toward the baby. Another time, my wife was trying to buy some groceries when the baby started crying. The lady in line behind her said “what are you doing to that baby??”

One of the stories a fellow mom related to my wife had her poised at the top of the stairs to the subway train, ready to carry the stroller down to the platform. A passenger kindly helped her lug it down, but then lectured her all the way about how she should have bought a lighter stroller that was more manageable and what a big mistake etc etc.

It’s that kind of story that i like to edit in my mind to include a full roundhouse kick to the face from the mom with the stroller, after having armed her baby with some kind of pellet gun or blow dart or something.

But this kind of incident doesn’t compare to what i went through today.
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Every baby is ugly except for mine.

i jumped to this conclusion after seeing two babies yesterday who were both ugly. Now you may criticize me for not putting in the proper amount of research, but i think that’s exactly how surveys are conducted. You start with a sampe of respondants and then you extrapolate the results. In this case, my sample was comprised of three babies. From this, i suppose i could logically conclude that two out of three babies are ugly. But i won’t. The fact remains that my baby is beautiful, and other babies are not.

You’re probably already one step ahead of me in thinking that most parents have a skewed opinion of their baby’s beauty. Too many times we’ve been asked to coo over a baby who churns our stomachs. Finally, we are released from our confinement with the filthy thing and are free to go vomit into the nearest potted plant. But while i often overstate a fact, know this: i am the proud owner of one sexy-ass baby.

Other babies who aren’t mine are ugly for a number of reasons, mostly because their heads are too big. They have these huge gross ugly melons that make them look like Krang from the Ninja Turtles, and they have these beady little eyes and squishy little faces that make you say “Oh, my! What a cute … what a … oh MY! Oh … oh God. OH GOD. Oh merciful God, NO! Oh G…hrrrOOOORRROORORLWWFFFF!!” Hopefully you made it to that potted plant in time.

In contrast, my baby makes you want to slap a kitten, because kittens are repugnant. My baby makes you want to set flowers on fire and punch angels in the tits. When i take my baby out in her stroller, i have to keep the canopy up for fear that the shining white layzzor rays of appealingness don’t beam out of the carriage and melt people’s faces.

Whenever i try to take a photograph of my baby smiling, she ain’t having it. i think it’s because she knows how to read, and she sees that my camera has five megapixels and she decides that’s not enough. Five is not enough megapixels to capture her nut-punching radiance. Try seventeen. Go get a seventeen megapixel camera, and maybe we’ll talk. And turn off the damned flash. This is why there are no existing pictures of my baby in her full glory.

When my baby coos, your heart melts. i’m not talking figuratively here. The left ventrical of your heart actually catches on fire and the organ tissue begins to seep into your chest cavity. Only by jamming your fingers in your ears and humming loudly can you escape the devastating physiological damage that my baby’s coos will wreak on your insides.

i fear that some day soon i will have to build an industrial triple-walled containment unit for my baby. i may also have to submerge her nightly in a pool of heavy water to discharge her cuteness. It frightens me to think of what may happen if my baby falls into the wrong hands. In the grasp of a cruel dictator, my baby may be harnessed, and her adorable energy concentrated into a beam of such unstoppable, unrelenting innocence and magic that it will make unicorns explode in its wake and render the world helpless to do anything but stare and fawn over its majestic adorableosity.

Except that she drools a little, which is kind of gross.

Today’s events presented me a unique opportunity to say something controversial - an opportunity i rarely pass up.
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