Stopping traffic
Ken and I have gotten used to not being able to go places without people stopping to talk to Gardner. It's a given. I'd better be ready for the small talk and questions, cause it's coming. It has yet to get old.
Ken jokes that Gardner literally stops traffic. It actually happened that way one morning. One beautiful spring Saturday morning last year, we were walking around our neighborhood, Gardner strapped in his stroller, gazing around. An SUV drove by, stopped, reversed, and pulled up beside us. "I just had to get a better look at your beautiful baby," the female driver said. Cars started to line up behind her as she went on and on, Ken and I being cordial yet curt so that she would see the drivers in her rearview. We laughed and laughed about that morning....still do.
Even today, as he was thumbing through coupons he'd snagged from my purse as I stood in line at the post office, people were whispering to him and cooing to him. He would lean back, open his mouth, and give one of his snobbish little "aaahh--hhhaaahh-hah" laughs he's so famous for, and I would just be content with the fact that he has built-in entertainment wherever we go.
Funny how a baby can stop traffic...literally, or figuratively. An entire room will break into a chorus of "awww" if an infant enters their company. At a dinner table, all eyes are on the littlest person, not able to look away, as if everything he or she did was the most amazing thing everyone had ever seen. It is fun to watch, and a little funny when you realize you're just as guilty as everyone else in that respect.
Well, actually, I wasn't, until, that is, I had Gardner. Mom-radar, I think it's called.
Ken jokes that Gardner literally stops traffic. It actually happened that way one morning. One beautiful spring Saturday morning last year, we were walking around our neighborhood, Gardner strapped in his stroller, gazing around. An SUV drove by, stopped, reversed, and pulled up beside us. "I just had to get a better look at your beautiful baby," the female driver said. Cars started to line up behind her as she went on and on, Ken and I being cordial yet curt so that she would see the drivers in her rearview. We laughed and laughed about that morning....still do.
Even today, as he was thumbing through coupons he'd snagged from my purse as I stood in line at the post office, people were whispering to him and cooing to him. He would lean back, open his mouth, and give one of his snobbish little "aaahh--hhhaaahh-hah" laughs he's so famous for, and I would just be content with the fact that he has built-in entertainment wherever we go.
Funny how a baby can stop traffic...literally, or figuratively. An entire room will break into a chorus of "awww" if an infant enters their company. At a dinner table, all eyes are on the littlest person, not able to look away, as if everything he or she did was the most amazing thing everyone had ever seen. It is fun to watch, and a little funny when you realize you're just as guilty as everyone else in that respect.
Well, actually, I wasn't, until, that is, I had Gardner. Mom-radar, I think it's called.
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