Is it just my experience or do babies turn otherwise normal people into semi-creepy stalkers who think they are justified in asking the most intimate personal questions? I'll be traipsing through the bean aisle idly comparing species and price per ounce only to look up and find someone nose to nose with my daughter in her car seat in the shopping cart. Or unloading my hard won legumes at check-out only to have the guy behind me barraging me with personal questions while literally touching my child's cheek instead of attending to his own groceries. Or the fifteen different old ladies who ask if she's for sale at the thrift store, which is rather disconcerting when you are in the middle of an adoption and she's not even legally my kid yet! I won't even get into the tips, hints, advice, and questions about any and every aspect of birth, conception, infertility, adoption, and parenting from complete strangers! I don't know what it is, maybe it's just me, but this has happened with both my kids. A baby seems to act like a full moon on a werewolf: people just mutate into semi-rude enthusiasts who have never heard of boundaries or tact.
What do you say? What do you do? You don't want to be rude but you also don't want strangers in your kid's face. How do you answer impertinent questions, especially when it's an adoption and you'd rather not get into the gory details with a random person in the checkout line? It's bad enough when the relatives go a little batty, but do I really have to deal with it at the grocery store from complete strangers too? Maybe I should just be like the guy in 'The Emperor's New Groove,' and start shouting, 'no touchy' at all and sundry and set my myrmidons on them when they throw off 'my groove.' Me likes! Remember: 'Do not meddle in the affairs of mommies, for they are subtle and quick to anger.'
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