April 26. Day 116. Baby face

 One of the high rotation stories from My Mum's Collection of Family Classics - an audio anthology that gets tapped into regularly especially after a few wines - involves her taking her three lovely toddler daughters, all dressed in identical outfits, and the dog out for a walk. She was stopped by a stranger who commented on how beautiful the dog was. Oh the shame. I was too young to be hurt by it at the time but I choose to feel the hurt now both at the cruelness of the stranger's comments and at the fact that my mother would dress us in identical outfits. Shame.
Anyway while I am presently totally devoted to my new puppy I still love a baby. Let me be perfectly clear, I do not want a baby, I feel in no way clucky when I see a baby but I am still overcome by their baby faces and their baby smell. I immediately start talking baby speak and going all goo goo.
So it was a delight this afternoon to walk into one of our student newsrooms and find my colleague Faith had brought her little one Cariad (Welsh for Darling) to work.
I was supposed to be printing out a bundle of marking to keep me amused for the weekend but instead I found myself  coo-ing over the bub. And then I handed her back and went home to my puppy. My new baby may poo and wee all over the floor, many have fierce teeth and chew everything but I'm happy enough with that. This little one is indeed a Darling but I am more than happy that's she's someone else's darling.