An Older Childfree Woman Meets Her Tiny Nemesis

She hated me on sight. Stared at me like she’d interviewed everyone I ever hurt and vowed to make me pay. If she could speak, she would have cursed me, my family, and the fool who dressed me that morning. But since she was just six months old, all she could do was stare.

I met Murder Me Baby when my friend, her Nana, held her like a rustic farmhouse milk jug to introduce us. Within seconds, it was clear that baby knew I was an awful person. And she didn’t understand why Nana let me in the house.

I’ve never been comfortable around babies, but this was the first time I actually felt threatened by one.

I decided not to have children when I was twelve. Right after my one and only babysitting gig ended with a terrible thunderstorm, three screaming girls hiding under the kitchen table (including me), and Snow White playing in the background like a horror soundtrack.

Since I never shut up about not wanting children, friends keep them away from me. As if not wanting my own children means I want to eat theirs.

But the problem isn’t hunger, no matter how biteable those chonky baby legs look. The problem is that I don’t know how to handle babies. They can’t chat about pop culture or quantum physics. They can’t catch a frisbee. They’re no damn fun at bars. What exactly are you supposed to do with them?

From what I’ve seen, you should repeatedly ask babies what they want in a high-pitched singsongy voice. Then, when they do whatever you wanted them to do in the first place, you should raise your voice two octaves higher and 30 decibels louder like you’ve witnessed a miracle and want everyone on Mars to know about it.

Not knowing what to do with Murder Me Baby, I just stared at her. And she stared right back. Probably plotting my demise.

The trouble with babies is that they are made like a safe — no way to see what’s inside and no guarantee that the effort will be worth the trouble.

Jeanette Winterson

Dogs are so much easier than babies. It’s just eat, sleep and play. They’re housebroken in weeks, not years. Nobody cares if you lock them alone in a room for a few hours. You rarely have to worry about them becoming serial killers.

As I stood there watching the baby, I thought about a trick I use with my dogs. One is a border collie, so he’s at least as smart as this six-month-old.

Whenever the dogs misbehave, I stare them down and imagine taking an ax to their faces. They roll onto their backs in terrified compliance so fast, they’re like furry clairvoyants who just witnessed their own deaths. When I want to cuddle, I imagine licking their faces until they leap into my lap in slobbery burst of love and gratitude for surviving another ax-less day.

Might this tactic work on a baby?

I looked at Murder Me Baby again. Only this time, I imagined kissing her puffy cheeks and strawberry blond head. I wished her love, happiness, and a lifetime of perfect comebacks at the perfect time.

And do you know what she did? She smiled and did a peekaboo from her nana’s shoulder. Then she looked back at me and giggled. So I did it again. And so did she.

Is this why people gush over babies?

Making Murder Me Baby laugh was the drug I’d been missing all these years. One hit and I was hooked. Have I been giving babies the ax eye my whole life? I started to get angry with myself for not having children. Here I was, mid-fifties without a uterus, and I only just cracked the baby code.

If I’d figured it out sooner, I’d have had a child to annoy with my endless opinions. Someone to fix my future broken hologram device. Someone to take care of me when I’m old, feeble, and wearing socks on my hands.

So I tried a few more faces. What if I blow out my cheeks? Another smile! What if I tilt my head and make a fish face? More giggling! What if I raised my arms and said, “boo!” — 

— whoops. Nope. Wrong move. Now she wants me dead again.

Damn. Just as I started to think I might be a baby person after all, I made one tiny mistake and she glared at me like she knew what I did in 1992.

I wonder what else she knows. And how long I have before she squeals.