H.O.O.B.

Funny thing about babies...they seem to be magnets for strangers with touchy hands. Every mom has been in this uncomfortable position before:

You're in wal mart, minding your own business when suddenly, two aisles down, a sticky-fingered stranger's baby seeking alarm goes off. And here she comes.

Ohhh, a baby!
yes, a baby.
My next door neighbor's cousin just had a baby!
what are the odds of that? Two babies born around the same time.
how old is he?
I'm sorry, what is it about the pink dress and butterfly blanket that screams 'I'm a boy'?
What a cute little baby!
At least you got that part right.

At this point, the SFS (sticky fingered stranger) can no longer resist the urge to touch your newborn child. They always go straight for the baby's hands, which in turn go straight into the baby's mouth. Sometimes the SFS may even mention that they "just washed their hands" before they left their house. So it's totally okay that they're playing "gotcha nose" with your infant.

Oh, well that makes me feel so much better.

Let's see if we can get a quick list of what you have touched since then:
front door handle
car door handle
keys
steering wheel
probably your phone
and the WAL MART CART you are currently handling.

I'm sure there are no germs on any of those things. Please, touch away! Why don't you just let her suck on your wal mart cart while you're at it?

PLEASE PEOPLE!!! HANDS OFF OUR BABIES

I was at the pediatrician's office last week. We were just there for a regular check up, so we were in the "well child" waiting room. As opposed to the "sick child" waiting room. A clever division meant to keep the sickos from contaminating the non sickos. One lady in our waiting room didn't get the memo. But she wanted us to think that she had. Her son was hacking away in the corner, and she kept announcing, "He's not sick! He just has asthma." Right. I sat with Annie on the opposite side of the room, just in case his "asthma" was contagious. This did not keep this woman from yelling at me across the room.

"How old is your baby? Can I see him? (her) He's so cute! (she) I have four kids...." She went on and on, but I was distracted by her daughter who had crept up behind her and was eyeing Annie with itchy fingers.

She started by picking up Annie's stuffed animal rattle and shaking it in her face. Then she started adjusting her blanket and even picked up her pacifier. At that point, I suggested sweetly that she might not want to touch Annie's stuff because Annie spit up a lot and all of her things were probably covered in it. And I really didn't want this SFS to get spit up on her. That worked for about 2 minutes, and then she started again with the touching. It escalated to Annie's favorite hand, which promptly went into her mouth. At this point, I was ready to call in Seal Team 6 to come and extract this tiny terrorist from my baby's car seat.

I announced it was time for a diaper change and swooped in to rescue her myself. When we came back from a very long diaper change, I held Annie instead of putting her back into the car seat, sat in a different corner, next to the wall, and I barricaded us in with my purse and diaper bag on the chair next to us. I even pretended to be extremely busy with something on my phone. No eye contact, no conversation. The girl promptly moved into the seat next to the diaper bag, leaned across the chair between us, and started grabbing Annie's hands again.

I blame the mother, who was still yelling at me from across the room about how her son wasn't contagious; he just needed an antibiotic because he had asthma. She should have known better, as her daughter obviously did not. Finally, the question came. The one I had prepared myself for during the very long diaper change... "Can I hold your baby?"

The words just kind of spilled out, "Oh thank you, but I don't think so. But thank you so much for offering." Mercifully, her brother's name was called right then so they went into the doctor's office to get an antibiotic for his asthma.

So a message to strangers: If you see a baby, by all means, tell the mother how cute the baby is. But please refrain from touching. Think of a stranger's baby as a museum; it's something nice for you to look at while imagining an invisible red velvet rope surrounding the child. No touching and no flash photography.