Honestly, I Wonder About People Sometimes

Our church does their infant dedications on Mother's Day. On the one hand, I think this is pretty close to brilliant because if you're dealing with infertility, you tend to hate both of those Sundays (infant dedication and Mother's Day), so lumping them together means less missed church for you! On the other hand, it makes it hard to do much celebrating with any family that comes to see the infant dedication special, because, well, have you tried going out to eat on Mother's Day? Even if one has the forethought to make a reservation, you still have to deal with crowds and waits and all the things that tend to make eating out with a large group of hungry people, some of whom are inevitably beginning to suffer from the effect of low blood sugar, an absolute joy. (Having diabetics in the family is a gas, folks - remind me to tell you about our wedding rehearsal sometime when there were 3 of them.) (Also, by "absolute joy", I pretty much mean exactly the opposite of that.)

Despite that, we went ahead and signed up to have the newest little Sleepy dedicated on Sunday. One of the other moms participating was someone from MOPS. And her mom, who is a mentor mom for MOPS, leaned over the row to smile and chit chat just before the service and it went something like this:

Her: I haven't seen this little guy yet!
Me: (angling him toward her): Here he is.
Her: He's adorable. (pinching his cheeks) Doesn't look like he misses many meals.
Me: (clearing throat) Oh, hey, looks like they're getting ready to start. Nice to see you.

Really? REALLY?! I have never been so close to swearing in church before. How many infants do you know who DO miss meals? Honestly. The whole job of an infant is to eat, sleep, poo, learn, and grow. Not necessarily in that order, but what else, really, is he doing? Yes, the baby is a little rolypoly. You know what? It's called baby fat. I don't think childhood obesity starts at 3 months.

Note to people of the world: It's ok to comment on how cute a baby is, how adorable, even how chipmunk-y his/her cheeks are. It's not ok to make thinly veiled statements that suggest you think said baby is fat. How about we not label kids fat until they're old enough to eat for a reason other than biological need. Grr.