Baby Clothes and Their Unusual Effect on Women

I wish I had some sort of scientific equipment that could monitor the chemical impulses and brain waves that occur in women when they see baby clothes. I'm pretty sure that we have exceeded the legal limit of "cutest outfits ever" for our newborn. The women in my family will quite literally collapse with excitement if one more blue coverall pajama set with booties crosses their line of sight. While in Walmart, I have purposely thrown myself between them and a particularly heinous baby-clothing aisle in order to prevent their spontaneous combustion. This reaction to baby clothes has always puzzled me so I explored the matter quite extensively.

The following is a scenario that has occurred time and time again at households across America.

1. Some considerate person will arrive with an "adorable gift bag" or package wrapped in "the most darling wrapping paper" anyone could ever imagine. The females in the room will hum and haw, getting about as worked up as a German in a strudel factory. 

2. The pastel tissue paper is slowly and meticulously separated from the now "cutest bag ever", and all parties, the giver, the giftee, and any onlookers, experience a deep connection related to the threshold of anticipation that they are all feeling at that exact moment. It's similar to the symmetry and togetherness of a pod of dolphin's seconds before feeding on a giant school of sardines. 

3. Then a hand reaches into the bag and extracts, "the most fabulous" piece of cloth that could ever exist, unequivocally. I've examined several of the said pieces of cloth under a microscope with a black light and a whole host of chemical forensics only to find 100% cotton. No inhalants, no dust particles, maybe a tad bit of ink laid out in a clever saying about mom or dad or dirt or princesses, but nothing out of the ordinary.

4. Then the unthinkable happens. A sense of euphoria is physically palpable within the room. The atmosphere physically changes, and I feel like I'm only one fingertip away from being raptured into heaven. A tiny bib with miniature whales on it and an outfit that says, "Future Rockstar!" creates a sense of exhilaration that has no equal. Most bystanders would have thought that we had just witnessed an albino bengal tiger reciting the pledge of allegiance. Women scream at the finite cloth, and it is dubbed "the most fantastic outfit ever". Eventually things calm down, and the cloud of bliss dissipates, but it leaves a residue of intoxication that can easily be felt by any woman within 100 feet.

*********************

So what just happened? I have a hypothesis: As a result of the anticipation and eventual visual stimulation that occurs, an inordinate amount of estrogen is released. In single doses this estrogen is unharmful, but when mixed with one or more other females releasing the same amount of estrogen, it begins to feed back on itself growing stronger and stronger as it bounces back and forth, similar to the ear piercing sound that occurs when you hold a hot microphone in front of a live speaker. But instead of an intolerable sound, this event creates a vortex of stimulation that sucks the women in and *bonks* their spirits and souls together until they reach a controlled madness. Then the estrogen runs out and their consciousness is rebooted to a more tolerable state.

I can only smile then cringe at such an event because I haven't been bestowed with the appropriate amounts of estrogen. The testosterone that flows from these glands does not allow for such levels of exultation. Congratulations women, you win the ecstasy award. Never again will I claim that I have experienced the awesomest thing ever. At the air show when 6 planes fly in tandem, I will think of your adorable baby clothes. When Planet Earth shows me a snow leopard hunting in the wild on the cliffs of the Andes Mountains, I will think of your adorable baby clothes. As I'm filled with adrenaline during a tandem sky dive at 15,000 feet, I will think of your adorable baby clothes.

You Win.



At the behest of my Inner man I have provided a few pictorial examples of said pieces of tiny clothes (WARNING: I cannot confirm or deny that these examples will produce the same amounts of bliss in the female brain as it would if they were to see them in person. What ever you do, do not witness this in groups of 3 or more women. VORTEXES OF STIMULATION COULD OCCUR.)

The Polar Bear Cub has arrived!

John Rhea Hornby was born this evening at 5:05pm. He is a healthy 9lb 2oz hunk of cuteness. Stay tuned for a late night post tonight, so I can fill you in on all the details.
Here's a quick video for your viewing pleasure.

The Once and Future Jack

He was almost here then not. You can't blame him. He's just chillin', doing his thing in the womb.

Jack, also known as John, also known as the baby, has pulled the sword from the stone of our hearts and earned the title of the Once and Future Jack. He was scheduled to take his position on this day, Wednesday, May 30th 2012, but his training has not been made complete. Therefore he will stay behind and complete his training for one more week before being thrust upon this world.

This whole event has been a series of events that is clearly leading to a significant event. It started a year ago when we began taking steps to make an adoption. Adoption was our sword in the stone, and we began looking for the anointed one who was destined to pull the sword from the stone. Jack is the destined one, and it has been revealed in more ways than one.

The first sign came 9 months ago when God sent a "telegram" to my wife via a Southwest Airlines logo. The telegram said, "Your baby is on it's way." (Thank you, Jami, for reminding us). It was clear as a bell, however, the telegram didn't include a time table, unless it was somehow encoded inside the Southwest Logo, which we didn't pick up on. The timetable came 5 months later when I dreamed Jenny was 5 months pregnant. All things being equal in the dreamland of Tel'aran'rhiod we took it to mean we had 4 months left. That was the second sign.

So 4 months later almost as if on cue we got a call. Someone who knew someone who knew someone called us. (Thanks, Sarah, for calling at the exact right time). Sarah connected us to a young woman who wanted to connect us to the life growing inside of her.

Third sign: The night we planned on meeting this amazing and unselfish young woman we were encouraged by my sister to buy some chocolates for her (Thank you, Steph for your suggestion). Target was the chocolatier of choice, so we grabbed the yummiest looking box in the candy aisle and got in line directly behind an uber-pregnant woman and her very generous parents. The courteous red-shirted attendant swiped and bagged everything she had and gave the receipt to her father who paid and then proceeded to cart their new belongings to a shady spot in some pretty nursery near by. We did our thing with the chocolates and the swiping and the bagging and the have-a-nice-daying to the attendant, when suddenly the woman with child and parents waddled towards us saying she was missing a baby boppy cover. How they ever figured that out before getting home and unpacking, I will never know. I mean, I can be halfway through a jar of peanut butter before I realize I bought some bananas a week ago that I never ended up bringing home from the grocery store. Poor bananas.

The red-shirt asked us to check our bag for a baby boppy cover and there it was. As if irony wasn't ironic enough, when we handed over the said baby boppy cover to the father standing there with his pregnant daughter, he looked both of us in the eye and said, "Maybe it's a premonition."

We almost had to be carried out to our car.

Needless to say, we held our chocolates tight before handing them over to the blessed birth mother of our once and future son Jack.