On the Town.

I find myself constantly surprised (and, I will admit to being a little disappointed) at the lack of attention Cael gets on outings. Surely, this is mostly a *new mother!* thing, but there is a part of me that thinks objectively that babies should draw at least a little attention. I mean, they're adorable. If guys rubberneck at ladies in short skirts, can't the rest of humanity be bothered to look at a passing ball of cuteness?

When we go to the store, even when Cael is making cooing and bubbling noises, no one looks at him, waves at him, or makes cooing noises back. Not even the people at the register can be bothered to acknowledge his existence. I feel bad for the little dude, because he is so used to everyone he sees (read: the flood of relatives) turning into his own personal entertainment system the moment he walks into a room. On outings, when there are tons of potential playthings, they all ignore his advances. He's constantly being shot down. It's kinda heartbreaking.

That is until we encounter that random person (usually a woman) who goes in the complete opposite direction. Instead of ignoring him, she throws herself at him and launches into full on, in depth stories about her life, tells us the names, ages and tooth-counts of her grandchildren (always a grandparent), and is totally inconsiderate about the fact that when we planned our excursion to the store we didn't factor in a thirty minute conversation with a stranger.

On Friday night the sales lady at Macy's stood at the register with our purchases and didn't ring them up for a good 10 minutes, holding them (and us) hostage while she told us grandmothery things. Then, after she rang them up, she decided there were things in the store Cael had to have and said, "Stay right there." She proceeded to rummage through the Christmas decorations and find every stuffed animal, test its beady eye strength, and bring it to the register. Once she had piled up enough, she asked which one we wanted to buy. It was an entirely new degree of salesperson purchase pushing and it made me very uncomfortable.

If Ryan hadn't been there, we would have come home with at least one over sized plush ornament with a holiday scarf. There's no doubt about it.

Oh, and then there was the guy at Fred Meyer who pinned me against the sour cream and told me about all nine of his grandchildren, showed me all of their photos and described in what ways they looked like their parents. When he got to the youngest, newest babies, he told me the story of their births and how he almost didn't live to see it because of a terrible car accident. The accident killed the other driver, hurt the man and his wife, and would you believe their HMO didn't cover it, and he's been to six hospitals in order to find someone who can diagnose, and the pain is right there when he turns his neck like so...

So, maybe I'm not really that upset about the lack of attention Cael gets at the stores now. Huh.