The Not-so-Happiest Rant on the Block

For some time now, I've been trying to figure out why people don't just gush over my precious little baby. At least, her gender isn't constantly being edited by well-meaning strangers anymore (i.e., "Is 'Noah' wearing his big sister's clothes?" -- comments like these not only made me want to add more frills to her clothing, but made me wonder if I had one of those annoying voices that always sounded a bit like I had a cold. Nola? Noah? I dunno.)

People either don't notice her, like, when I take her and the dog on walks, old ladies -- lemme repeat that, OLD LADIES will stop me and say, "What a lovely dog!" with not so much as a peep about the frilled-out infant riding on my chest.

I've even taken her to highly populated places, like Costco, and donning the cutest possible hat I could find in her collection, I had three strangers tell me, "What a cute hat."

I think the final straw broke last week when I went makeup shopping for the first time in about a year, and the saleslady said to me, "Oh, look at your baby! How old is she?"

Proudly, I tell her that she'll be six months in a couple of weeks. To which the saleslady replies, "Oh, you should have seen the cutest little six month old boy just came through here with his mom."

GAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

I know that I'm probably being a little bit too touchy with this whole, "Isn't my baby cute?" issue, but I just hate the thought that I'm actually one of those parents with a not-so-cute baby who is in blind denial of the fact. In fact, I'm going to stick to my instincts with this one, and claim that people do find her to be beautiful, but they just don't have the nerve to tell her to her face.