Yep, over 16 years since I’ve held a newborn baby, and that was my little brother. I was 8. Yesterday, Dave & Alex from work finally had baby Zoe. Amy, Adam, and Mitch joined me after work to go visit them at the hospital. We went prepared with flowers, balloons, and food.

Dave was as expected—the ecstatic father showing off his child. And she is a site to show off! She’s the cutest, tiniest lil 6lb thing I’ve seen that hasn’t been a puppy :) She was literally the size of a football even after wrapped in all her blankets.

So finally, Dave was like “You guys gotta hold her…after using the sanitary foam.” I passed, as I knew baby holding was more Amy’s deal. Dave asked if I were a “baby-phobe” and I was like “nah, I just tend to drop things”. He replied that he was a baby-phobe until the moment he held Zoe yesterday. This is the second man I’ve seen changed firsthand by the arrival of a child. Mitch took his turn after Amy. Amazingly, he seemed to be more enthralled with playing with the baby than Amy. The rest of us got a sneak peak at Dave’s masterful home videos of the past 2 days. They were amusing to say the least.

And Adam passed, sharing my “eek, kids!” mentality and no one challenged him. And yet, Dave said I had to hold the baby before I could leave. And since I was already sitting on the couch, he said there was no way I could drop her. I said he’d be surprised :) But Mitch and others chimed in…I don’t remember what they said. My mind was racing. I was literally scared to death.

And so Mitch carefully delivered Zoe to me as I had a private freak-out in my head. She was so light—my fingers could support her head. I couldn’t look at anyone else in the room or I would have panicked. I had to pretend it was just me & Zoe. Meanwhile, Dave decided it was film worthy, and so I had to ignore that, too.

She would start crying and I felt so ignorant. She finally managed to find her comfy position and latched on to my thumb. Damn good grip for a 2-day-old girl. And while I was having this life-altering moment, Adam & Amy bow out and leave!! I know my eyes got huge as I watched them leave. And so I looked pleadingly over at Mitch trying to say “please don’t leave me alone here…” And so Mitch stayed around for me, and I finally managed to say I thought she was ready to go back to her dad, since they seemed in no hurry for me to stop holding her, as Mitch also pointed out on our walk out.

Dave is so much like my dad. It’s unreal. And I’m sooo much like my dad, so I do know that on a basic level, Dave gets me. He knew that was something I needed to do. And like I told him as I was holding her, “I guess you just have to take a little time to get to know one another.”

And so that was my big moment for the day. I’m still petrified of holding babies, but it was a nice feeling…not nice enough to make me want to have kids, though ;)

And another first I should share…I got my first street holler yesterday. I was crossing the street to my car after work and a guy jogging was running towards me. After he passed, he either said “Damn, you’re hot” or…“What are you looking at?”...I couldn’t tell. I turned around to look at him and he was looking back at me. All I could do was give him the most confused look in the world. haha and then as Amy & I were going for a run later that night, I saw him and it turns out he lives in the same apartment complex. Great. And unrelated word of the day “shortpants”