What am I, a freak magnent?
I met up with a new friend, Monique, and her nin-month-old baby the other day. We strolled our kids around the park while bonding over the usual new-Mom issues such as back pain, mother-in-laws, and the joys of going to the grocery store solo. Plus, her daughter had reflux for the first few months.
We got onto the topic of bizarre comments from strangers and I ranted a bit that being a Mom of multiples apparently makes you fair game for intimate questions about your reproductive past and future. She said even with only one, perfect strangers want to know when sh’es having another – and when they hear she’s not, they are astounded and borderline angry that she would condemn her daughter ot such a lonely, painful life.
We strolled on a bit and ran into another acquaintance of mine who I hadn’t seen in a while (who happened to be a friend of the friend who introduced Monique and me – sometimes even Miami is a very small world). She looked the boys and said “Oh yeah, you had twins. So are you having more or are you all tied up?” (making motions around her abdominal region)
As soon as Monique and I were a few yards away, we started laughing. “See what I mean?” I asked. “It’s crazy!”
The odd thing is that I still get weird comments even when I only have one of the boys with me. Admittedly a lot fewer, but take this for example: I took Benjamin with me to pick up a package. Because it was on a street, I mad ehim sit down to wait while I signed some papers. A middle-aged woman came up to us…
“Oh, how cute! How old is he?”
Me: “16 months.”
Benjamin started to get up, but I told him to stay until I was finished. (yeah, the boys are kinda like puppies right now)
“He walks already?” she asked, astounded.
Me: “Yes [LIKE I JUST SAID] he’s 16 months old.”
“Make him walk! I want to see him walk!” She went on and on as Benjamin held my hand and we walked away. “He’s so small to be walking!” How adorable!” Not realizing she regarded him as a circus animal, Benjamin happily told her “bye” several times as we left.
Okay, Benjamin is not that small. If she saw Jonah walking she’d have a heart attack.
Jun 21, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Reader Comments (1)
A good friend of mine has twins, a boy and a girl, and she's always getting weird questions. Like "Are they identical?" and since she got pregnant through IVF then that opens up another can of weird questions!
People are funny. Funny-odd, that is.