Weird Shabbos Walking Thoughts

Walking to shul in the blizzardy snow yesterday...

Gavriel Zev was in the Moby, all wrapped up, inside my jacket, with the poncho on top. Because it was snowing so heavily, I had to pull the poncho right over his face, which I hardly ever do, so there was just a little triangle of baby-blue knit hat peeking out the top. But still, everybody who saw me walking was like, "ohhh... such a sweet baby."

Which kind of bothers me, because if all they can see is a triangle of hat, how do they know he is a sweet baby? I mean, how do they know he doesn't have some kind of deformity, a cleft palate or Down syndrome, or something. But then I thought he would still be a sweet baby if he had those things - to ME, but they might not think so ... they might recoil if they pulled back the poncho and he was not normal in some way (or maybe even if he had a surprising skin colour).

So I decided what it was was that I want people to appreciate him for HIM, not just for the superficial thing that he's a baby and all babies are cute. I don't want them seeing a baby-blue hat and making a snap judgement that he's sweet. I want them seeing him smile and shriek and THEN conclude that he's the most amazing baby ever.

I remember when YM was a baby, and a very pretty baby he was, I had a similar thing... everybody telling me he was beautiful and being worried, very worried, because as Judge Judy says, "beauty fades... dumb is forever." I get uneasy when people praise a baby for its looks - because it's not going to look like a baby for very long.

I guess I should just not worry so much. Babies are cute, and by the time they lose their baby cuteness, they'd better have developed some other redeeming quality for people to praise. And at shul especially, people are very heavy on the praise... even I am, even when I don't particularly like the baby or child I'm praising.

I must be the curmudgeonliest one at shul, actually... I really don't like other people's kids. I hope when Sara / Abigail have kids, they are the kind I enjoy but it's not likely... I will have to fake it, I fear.

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