A bachelor and a baby

"Ngyamaooonyamaeee"

"Look! Look! He is calling you mama."

I hastily wiped that incredulous look on my face and put on a suitably impressed look, as my friend's wife turned to me. Impressed look, it had to be, considering that this child prodigy of a three month old had taken just a nanosecond to look at me, divine our relationship and find the word to express it. Meanwhile, my mind was working feverishly to identify exactly how that screeched set of syllables meant mama ('Uncle', for those of you who know not what it means in propah English; 'maternal uncle' to the offspring of a sibling or just generally 'uncle' to the rest of the babes of the world.) I parse those vocal syllable and, hey yes, there was first a 'ma' and then a 'ma', separated by what Divine Providence equips parents to identify as nonsense syllables.

Hmm! When I had agreed to host these new-born parents and their baby for a few days, the only problem I had envisaged was an issue of insomnia. From what I had gleaned, babies did not particularly care if you slept when they slept, but took grave objection to your sleeping when they are awake - and have no compunction about screaming their objections lustily. Looks like there was a lot more to it than just that.

For one, the entire day was awash in baby-talk. No, not from the baby, it was quite content to do it infrequently. The parents, though, were at it all day - as though they were learning a new language and had to keep practicing it lest they forgot how to speak it. The baby looked as though it was bemused at having its role usurped by them.

If they had only kept it to themselves, I may have found a way to ignore it. The problem was that they WOULD try to get ME to converse with the baby, despite the fact that the baby showed a singular disinterest in discussing the thusness of things with me. Then, they would give me wounded looks at my refusal to learn this new lingua franca. When it got to the point where they started talking to ME in this mystery tongue, I had to throw my hands up and claim illiteracy.

"Look! Look! What he is doing now...the clever imp"

THAT was on the second day and, by then, I had stopped rushing to their room in a hurry not to miss the latest miracle wrought by the little one. The miracle would, I complacently thought, be the twentieth time in the day when the little tot had gone on all fours and butted the pillow. I had no clue how the pillow felt about it but I was all done feeling amazed by the feat.

I should have! I should not have waited till the screaming started again - as it did and would continue till I had duly gone over and stood witness to the acrobatic feat - before walking over leisurely. If I had, I may have saved my new laptop from getting drooled over, with the parents ecstatically clapping their hands and beaming with pride at the sight.

I jumped as though a red-hot skewer had been stuck up my...fundament, shall we say?

"Cute, isn't he?"

Cute, I assure you, was not the specific adjective that was on top of my mind at the moment. Unfortunately, there are social norms about hosts and guests, not to mention certain irrational social prejudices about committing verbal or physical mayhem on babies, otherwise...AND the caterwauling that resulted from my rescuing my laptop from its totally unnecessary bath...these modern kids...even for something to drool on, they prefer electronic devices!

Suffice to say that every time there were sounds of ecstasy from them, my BP shot up and I took a hurried inventory of my belongings. Yeah, my phone was supposed to be unbreakable and all that but when the irresistible force meets the immovable - or, in this case, unbreakable - object, who knows what the result would be? Especially since the irresistible force, when resisted, would merely shrug its shoulders, metaphorically, with a 'Nyanyanya' and move on to try its powers on the mirror. If the unbreakable object fails in being so, though, I may...MAY...also say 'Nyanyanya' but THAT would only be because my rage had rendered me inarticulate.

You must be sure then that I heaved a huge sigh of relief when their visit came to an end. You know what...I actually ended up missing that little mite, its smiles, its caterwauling and even its drooling. I am as irrational as the rest of humanity!