Post 1: Babies and Freshmen

It is an incontestable fact that babies are vampires. No, not sparkle in the sunlight, fight werewolves, Mormon vampires, but life sucking, sleep inducing, energy vampires. I believe this as a fact because the more tired I get, the more energetic he seems to get. Although this has nothing to do with this post specifically, I thought it best to say what happens on a day I am feeling 100%, as opposed to the story about the day I watched William during my girlfriends freshman orientation for college.

The day started early. I live over an hour away from my girlfriend and so to get her to a 10 o’clock event I had to wake up around 7. I know many of you may not pity my 7 o’clock woes, and may persist that I will need to get used to it, but it’s summer, and as a student in the summer I stay up late and wake up late. It’s all part of the college student circle of life.

I woke up with a headache and a sore throat, the beginning of a continuing summer cold that has dogged me for days afterwards. I made my way down to her house, and from there to her school. Her school is nothing new to me. She is taking summer classes before her freshman year, so we know the ins and outs of the building rather well. The typical school day would go like this. We’d get to school, hang out with each other in the student lounge until her class started, she’d go to class, and then William and I would hang out in the student lounge as we waited for her night classes to end. The people at the school were great about it, and seemed to understand the plight of a college student trying to find a place for his girlfriend’s baby to run around out of the summer heat that didn’t involve indoor fun parks or fast food purchases.

Again, on a normal summer class night this worked great. No one was there on a summer night, and the ones that were there on average were pro-baby, finding the somewhat annoyance of a babbling baby offset entirely by the adorableness that is William. Freshman orientation was not a normal day. My girlfriend and I parted ways as soon as we entered the door. With a kiss she went to orientation, William and I went to the student lounge.

            In the student lounge we stayed until something happened I should have expected: the catering came in.  At first, like anyone who is not one year old would think, I thought nothing of it. It was a guy, doing his job, and I was much happier playing “Please nap so Scotty can read” with William.
        That was not at all what William saw. To his mind this man with the cart full of boxes was a wizard who could make sandwiches appear from cardboard boxes, magic sandwiches that he placed upon the magic tables that he could reach using magic chairs, by means of magic.

William made a dash for the tables that were now filling with sandwich platters. His short, chubby legs propelled him with a speed that I had not thought possible until I had met this solid baby behemoth some months before. I was used to it now, and knew I could reach him before any of the magic sandwiches he so desired ended up falling upon his noggin. I sat and watched as he touched the platters, an occasional “No William” coming from my lips if he happened to get his hands too tight around one of the black, plastic bottoms. This could not go on though, because the freshman began to pour in, eager to take the sandwiches, stealing the magic from them that William wanted so dearly. I grabbed him and smiled, trying to take his mind off of the treasure he wasn’t going to have. I asked if he would like to go outside, to which he responded “uh” which I assumed meant yes to the question he assumed I asked of “Would you like a magical magic treasure?” because when I took him out he began to fuss, grabbing backwards for the goodies he was leaving behind.

 His fussing stopped however when we entered the hot Virginia outdoors. His face lit up as I removed him from his stroller and down upon the grass. I watched him run around and play, chasing him, picking him up and tickling him. For the majority of the time we had a blast, and it probably tired him out so much that the following was inevitable. William found a metal plate, shiny and hot. He touched it with his feet and gave a grimace. He stood up and stared at the plate, a look of “You dirty rat” on his furled brow. I began to move closer and said “William, stop, get away” and was right beside him when he decided he would rather run than be picked up by the brute who had earlier denied him his magic sandwiches. He started to run, but stopped as his feet booth came in contact with the plate. His face went from a smile to neutral, and then it slowly became one of “I rather wish I was anywhere but here right now.” I picked him up and went inside with him, much rather having sandwiches on his head, then burns on his feet.

 When we got inside about 2 hours had passed since when we had first arrived, another 2 still looming ahead. We found my girlfriend in the lounge; her groups turn to feast upon the smorgasbord of bread and meat. I, pretending to be an upcoming freshman, went and grabbed some sandwiches for William and myself. His eyes lit up as he finally could eat the treasure he desired, the cookie his mother had just given to him. My girlfriend told me of the people she was with, how she already knew most of the things that were being told to her, and that the people she was going to school with were as immature as the high-schoolers she had left behind. I laughed, glad to be hanging out with William over the company she was keeping. Babies and Freshman have a lot in common, but babies are smarter.

to be continued