Petting The Baby

Petting the baby…we all do it. Your parents are already established, have a few kids running around, and just about the time they think life has already handed them all the kids they can handle………..BOOM!

I remember when Momma found out she was pregnant with my little brother. I was around ten or eleven, so I knew what was going on, but I didn’t like it. How dare my Momma and Daddy make another baby? Nasty!!

Momma was a little thing. She was no bigger than a minute, even pregnant. I recall her little outfits, showing her little belly. She sat at the sewing machine for hours, as we were pore folks, and couldn’t go to town and buy a lot of fancy maternity clothes.

I would see her at her sewing machine, humming a Whispering Bill Anderson song, and I would think, “This baby ain’t even here yet and he is already specialer than me.” (I realize specialer is not a word, but it fits when a ten year old is jealous.)

He was so little and cute, a lot cuter than my other brother, who you may recall looked like Kermit the Frog when Momma presented him to me on that blue blanket. This one had a very round head, a cute bowtie mouth, and a lazy eye. He was perfect.

We took to the petting and prioritizing right away. My sister and I fought and argued over who would get to “tote” the baby. We both got in the habit of walking lop sided, even if we didn’t have him on our hip.

We fought over who would change him, feed him, rock him. We painted his nails. We put him in the doll carriage and pushed him around. We changed his clothes twenty times a day, and put our doll bonnets on him. We stood by, on guard, in case he whimpered.

When he could walk, he danced. All we had to do was start clapping our hands, and he would begin dancing. While he danced, he would have a really big smile on his face. We were so in love.

Even friends, neighbors, and outlying family were in love. People dropped by our house just to see “the baby.” His little lazy eye only served to make him more precious.

Our great uncle would come over with a bag of candy, hand it to our baby brother, and say, “You give every other kid one piece and you can have the rest.” We never argued with this, but we all knew we had never got to hold that little brown paper bag!!

We made the ultimate southern sacrifice for him…He loved the bottom crust on cornbread, so Momma would peel the whole thing off and hand it to him! Now, I love the bottom crust, too, but I lived for years without getting one!!

Daddy would play his fiddle so we could watch the baby dance and smile, and eat the cornbread crust… Although it was free entertainment, it was starting to get a bit disgusting, but in a sweet way!

Then, he learned to talk. We had already spoiled him so much, that I imagine his first words were an order..an order for a milkshake or for one of us to change the channel on the tee vee, or to bring him a cookie. He was starting to get on my last nerve.

But, a baby brother is always a baby brother. Ours is at least six foot five now, with adult kids of his own, but still our baby brother. If he shakes his empty tea glass now, though, my sister and I just laugh, roll our eyes, and say things like, “You ain’t got a broke leg!”

When he hugs me, my head only reaches his chest, and I’m tall… but he is still a little boy to me. Only now, I can’t find a baby carriage big enough to put him in, and he would probably fight the painting of his nails. There would possibly be a fight if I tried to put a bonnet on him now!!

The best thing, is when he comes home from work, he smells like Daddy, like oil and sawdust.

Oh, and he rarely dances. It may be because he once got his head caught in a low ceiling fan at my house, when we were all singing, “You don’t have to call me darlin, darlin…you never even called me by my…………………………..” WHOMP, WHOMP, WHOMP! I watched my baby brother as his cap flew across the room. I imagined a concussion, a broken skull, a fractured neck, a 911 call.

But, he picked the cap up, put it back on his head, and continued to sing and dance……awwwww….precious!!

If you have a little brother, you know how I feel. Sometimes, he makes me want to cook him and eat him on a bun with hot slaw, but most of the time I just want to hug him. He is, to me, still that little cute boy with the lazy eye. Now, though, he is NOT getting my corn bread crust… I will fight to the death………….

He ain’t THAT precious!!