I don’t understand babies.

in Random Crap

Hi.  Are you here for the giveaway of super-cheap things that make me happy?  It’s over here.  You should probably go there now because I’m about to start saying shitty things about babies.

So, the royal baby was just born and I know this because I’m alive and on twitter and so I’m forced to know way too much about The Duchess of Windsor’s successfully expanded vagina.   I’m very happy for them that they have a baby because that’s awesome if you’re into that sort of thing, but I totally don’t understand the fervor of people wanting to see pictures of the royal baby so desperately.  It’s not a spider monkey or a slow loris.   It’s not a hedgehog taking a bath or a cat playing the keyboard.  It’s a fucking baby, y’all.  They look like babies.  I realize that I’m in the minority at not wanting to see famous babies (or really any babies) and I think that says something about me.  Something bad probably.  But I can’t help it.  Babies look pretty much exactly alike except in slightly different shades.  It’s like when people want me to look at their new car and I’m like, “Oh.  I thought that was your old car” and they get all pissy because I didn’t recognize that it’s slightly more bronze and has heated seats.  Honestly, I can’t even pick my own car out of the parking lot.  I’m forever trying to open doors of cars that don’t belong to me and the car alarm goes off and I have to run away before I get arrested because there are too many brown cars in America.

This is not to say that I don’t want to see your baby.  I mean, I don’t want to see your baby, but I totally want to see how happy you are to show me your baby and that’s a good thing and I love it.  Feel free to show me your baby.  But frankly you could be showing me pictures of some famous baby and I’d still react exactly the same way because I can’t tell them apart.  It’s like I have face blindness, but for babies.  If there was a Pepsi challenge of babies I would fail it every time.

And this is not me just being selfish.  My baby looked like everybody else’s baby too and when I’d take her to daycare I’d doodle pictures of angry cats on her foot so that I could be sure that they gave me back the right baby at the end of the day.  Because I couldn’t be trusted to recognize my own baby.

There might be something wrong with me.

PS. Also, I’m feeling totally inferior because Will and Kate whatever-their-last-name-is had a town crier in full costume to announce their kid’s arrival and I barely handed out birth announcements.  In my defense though I sometimes scream my exciting news down the street when I’ve had too much to drink, although I almost never get lauded for my home-made patriotism, unless “lauded” is code for “threatened with” and “home-made patriotism” is code for “public intoxication charges”.

PPS.  This would scare the shit out of me if I was a baby.  Also, I’m pretty sure some of the pins on his cape are from DisneyLand.  I could be wrong.

Christ. He looks like he's more likely to eat babies. I'm sure he's very nice though.

PPPS.  In all sincereness?  Congratulations, England.  Your new baby is awesome and probably already has more twitter followers than me.  Keep him away from the town crier because I’m pretty sure that man could unhinge his jaw and inhale a baby whole.  Better safe than sorry.

475 thoughts on “I don’t understand babies.”

Read comments below or add one.

  2. Meh…I’m with you. I don’t get it either. Big fucking deal…yawn….zzzzz. Let’s talk more about things that make me happy. Like Amazon Prime! I forgot that one.

  4. I don’t care about the royal newborn either. I have never really cared about the royal family. Maybe I should, because I’ve discovered now that we share common ancestors… Although I’m pretty sure everyone with Western European heritage can say that.

  5. I feel bad for Kate. Who wants the whole world to know you had a vaginal birth? Ew.

  6. That town crier is scary.

    I never even managed to get baby announcements sent out. My daughter’s 10th birthday is next month. I should totally send them out before her birthday. The etiquette rules say to send out baby announcements within the first decade, right?

  7. i tried to find out what William and Kate’s last name was yesterday and they literally don’t have one.

  11. Holy Shit! Who knew you could hire Captain Feathersword for birth announcements?! *hiccup* I don’t miss the Wiggles years….

  12. That was probably one of the proudest moments in the town crier’s life. Or the most embarrassing. Most photographed, that’s for sure.

  13. I wonder if the baby gets his own Tower of London raven? Because that’d be awesome, as long as it didn’t go all “The Birds” on the Prince and stuff.

  14. LOL. Birth announcements! Now that’s a bit fancy. I sent an SMS to each grandparent and let them do the rest 🙂
    I wanted the royal baby to be a girl.

  15. I came for the baby-hate, I stayed for the free stuff.

    I can’t find any free stuff.

  16. I… didn’t do birth announcements after having my kids. And to be honest, I don’t care that much about Will and Kate’s baby because, well, it’s not my baby, or someone I knows, so… I just… don’t care? I mean, yay for them and all, but… yeah. You’re definitely not the only one though!

  17. For some reason my brain really wanted “home-made patriotism” to be “home-made patronus”

  18. Of course I wanted to write some witty and humorous about the English baby, but you stole all the words right out of your mouth. I should just stop blogging and be the obnoxious person who shares your shit everywhere.

    That guy is CREEPY.

  21. It’s refreshing to hear a parent say what i’ve always thought about babies. I smile and put on a happy show when shown baby pics, but the thoughts going through my head are more like “dude, wtf is that?? Why are you showing me this (especially the naked pics.. that’s just wrong!)? It looks like.. a baby.. (unless if it’s all new bornish in which case it looks like a grumpy raisin).” Very rarely have these thoughts slipped out.. and i never heard from those “friends” again..

  23. Well, in defense of the baby, he will someday rule the UK. Okay, so, not really, and he’s just a figurehead, but he will one day be their most wealthy welfare recipient. WHOO HOO!

    (I say this, but, really, I was checking the news all day to see what he/she was, and I was WAY too excited about it….frick…I need to hand over both my passports, because I suck at being both American AND Irish.)

  24. Both of my boys were slightly hideous at birth. My baby boy looked like those people with that ‘no chin’ deformity. He outgrew it. I also learned telling him that story when he was 5 will make him cry.

    He’s over it now.

  25. All babies look like very tiny Winston Churchills. Seriously. Stick a cigar in a baby’s mouth (maybe do this out of sight of the parents). Voila! Winston Churchill.

  26. I had a friend tweet he hoped she had a baby dragon. I did too. Instead she had a totally normal baby boy. I have one of those.
    And that cries could totally eat a baby! Not a baby dragon, but a normal baby for sure.

  27. Didn’t I see that Town Crier in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie? You know, the one where he opened his mouth during a storm at sea and swallowed the ships? Or was that Calypso? I can’t tell them apart.

  28. I understand, while I adore babies.. and am happy for them, that their baby is here, I’m not all a twitter over it. I know at some point I’ll see a picture.. but I am far more interested in my great nephew than the royal baby.. I mean, I get to hold my great nephew, and I will likely never even breathe the same air as that baby.. 🙂

  30. Frankly, I’d rather not see the new baby. Not that I hate babies. I love them. I love pictures of them. IF I KNOW THEM. Unless it glows in the dark, it isn’t all that special because a.) they all look the same and b.) he will never be my king. Because we fought the Revolutionary War. I assumed we did that so we didn’t have to be inundated with all of the royal baby photos. Clearly, I was mistaken. Something about tea.

  31. Sky News wouldn’t shut up about it.
    Twitter wouldn’t shut up about it.
    A baby-obsessed cousin on Facebook just would not shut the flaming Cthulhu-damned hell up about it.
    I honestly considered cutting all cables to my router and going to sleep for the rest of the day, but the problem with that plan would be, if I managed to reconnect the next day, everyone will still be harping on about it.

    Seriously, humanity, it’s a newly-spawned human to add to the 7 billion already here. 😐

  32. I completely agree. Both of mine looked like babies to me and my cousins wife asked me who I thought their 3 month old looked like and my response was not appreciated.

  33. I only found out she was pregnant like a week ago. So it was kind of a big deal to ME that she was having a baby this week. But only because I was kind of flummoxed and had to hide the fact that I was completely ignorant of her “condition” previously.

    Other than that, I looooooooove babies. All babies are awesome. I’m happy for the young couple, being young, in love, rich and having a baby is probably a really fantastic experience. Especially when the whole world adores you. They are probably the happiest most naive couple on the planet. Can’t last. But yay for them!

    (I usually tell people that there are essentially six models of baby and they come in two eye colors so I guess that’s twelve models)

  35. It’s not a Jesus Christ Lizard either, although the media is treating it like the Second Coming. It would’ve been much cooler if Kate had given birth to a JC Lizard. My daughter apparently has seen one on her trek to Costa Rica. I had to wikipedia the damned thing. It can walk on water.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_lizard

  36. Oh my gosh – that’s the first time I’m seeing the town crier. He is kinda scary – at least in that picture. I totally searched for the royal’s last name the other day too because I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know it (being Canadian, I thought that I should) until I realized that they don’t really have one.

  37. I’m not a baby fan either. I think all babies look like hairless pink monkeys. In fact, I’d bet that hairless pink monkeys are actually cuter.

  39. My husband doesn’t understand it either. He was baffled that he couldn’t find a news link he wanted because it was buried under news about THE BIRTH. Also, it would completely freak me out if millions of people knew I was trying to push a baby out of my vagina while doing it.

  40. I’m happy that their baby was born healthy, but yeah, I’m not that super excited to see photos. I’m not that fanatic about the royal family in general, but I suspect people confuse them with fairy tale characters.

    Now, that slow loris? I must needs have one. That is the cutest animal in existence, and I’m already a big fan of baby pandas.

    That town crier is going to be in my nightmares. He looks like he’s been locked in Davy Jones’ locker for a long, long time.

  41. So, when you said, “Feel free to show me your baby”, I burst out laughing. It might have something to do with the time I went to get a Brazilian and the woman tweezing every last stray hair down there kept patting my pussy saying, “see…doesn’t your baby look pretty? That’s a pretty baby”! I promise I won’t show you my baby.

  42. I don’t care if I ever see a picture of the royal baby. The only thing I’m curious about is the baby’s name. I don’t know why. But that’s not because it’s the royal baby. I’m that way with EVERY baby. Even fictional babies. I was really pissed off that, at the end of the movie Knocked Up, we didn’t learn the baby’s name. Seriously, I turned to my husband when the movie was done and shouted at him (more loudly than was necessary) “I JUST SAT THROUGH THAT ENTIRE MOVIE AND THEY DIDN’T EVEN TELL ME THE BABY’S NAME?????”

    And you think there’s something wrong with *you*?

  43. Know what sux.

    When your therapist has a baby. And they go on maternity leave saying that they are 99% sure they will be back to work. And everyone’s all excited for them and your happy that she had a baby that made her family whole but like wtf. You know my secrets and saw me ugly cry. And then they announce that *** isn’t returning.

    Baby’s steal your therapist. Be warned.

    (I am happy for her but upset as Fu€% that she’s gone)

  44. Seems to me that after all the waiting around today the least they could have done was told us the name. And the town crier made my child cry. I am just saying.

  45. Uh, a couple of people commented that they didn’t know what Will & Kate’s last name was. Thought I’d clear up the mystery for anybody who super-cares. Will and Harry go by Wales. Catherine can as well. The baby may have one of three possible surnames (it’ll be up to W&K to choose): Cambridge, Wales or Mountbatten-Windsor, which both Prince Charles and Princess Anne use when they’re slumming it with the plebes and need a last name.

  46. I’m not so much excited about the new baby details, as I am happy to be distracted by something on the news that isn’t horrific.
    Ps Hedgie Bathtime gets less cute and more frantic and pokey as Hedgies grow and learn to climb out of their formally spacious Rubbermaid tote tub.

  47. Umm their last name is Mountbatten-Windsor & Kate is the Duchess of Cambridge.

    #yesIknowtoomuchabouttheroyalfamily

  48. almost all baby animals are cute but not all of them are Royal (whatever that means) 😉

  49. I’m trying to get pregnant, so I’m all “SHOW ME ALL THE BABIES! BABIES ARE THE AWESOME!” I’m sure that will change in a few months/years.

  50. LOL, don’t feel bad about the car thing. When I still had the Cursed 4X4 of Death (seriously, cursed vehicle) I came out of a grocery store one night and repeatedly tried to open my car, wondering why my bleepy thing refused to work. I tried my key in the door, nothing….yeah, not my car. The owner just happened to be behind me and asked me what I was doing trying to get into his car. I stammered that I had the same exact car (it really was the same make, model, and color), was really sorry, etc. He still looked at me like I was a lunatic while I tried to find my own vehicle.

  51. Babies don’t just all look alike, they’re also pretty boring for at least the first 6 months (personal experience x2). It would be a huge saving on all that false gushing you have to do to new parents, if they could be born at 6 months when they’re starting to be real people. If something of a logistical challenge.

  52. You know when someone says exactly what you’ve been thinking but SO MUCH BETTER?

    That.

    Also, I’m fucking TERRIFIED of that town crier. I’m pretty sure he’s a painted weeping angel.

  53. The only part of the royal birth that I found remotely interesting is that it is related to Dracula. And now I want to know if it can go out in the daylight. I mean, the Vampire Prince. That would be very cool.

  54. All babies look alike to me too, pretty much, except for this one friend of mine from college who together with his wife has produced the single most unattractive baby in the history of copulation. I mean, that thing is terrifying. And it’s not like you can ever let on to someone that their baby is terrifying…you have to smile and say “awww…” and pretend like you’re not alarmed at all by the fact that apparently a baby can have a unibrow….

  55. To answer the question about the last name, see this:

    “The Royal Family name of Windsor was confirmed by The Queen after her accession in 1952. However, in 1960, The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh decided that they would like their own direct descendants to be distinguished from the rest of the Royal Family (without changing the name of the Royal House), as Windsor is the surname used by all the male and unmarried female descendants of George V.

    It was therefore declared in the Privy Council that The Queen’s descendants, other than those with the style of Royal Highness and the title of Prince/Princess, or female descendants who marry, would carry the name of Mountbatten-Windsor.” (http://www.royal.gov.uk/thecurrentroyalfamily/theroyalfamilyname/overview.aspx)

    So the new baby will be a Mountbatten-Windsor, I believe.

  58. Face blindness, but for babies! I had no idea this was a thing. I feel SO much better knowing I’m not alone.

  60. All babies DO look alike, inasmuch as they are all sort of wormy-looking aliens. But redder.

  61. I like babies when they are 5. Until there can be some kind of philosophical discussion, they are just boring.

  63. Totally with you. I’m not on twitter, but the news has been all over my friends’ Facebook pages. I don’t give a shit about the birth of a child that isn’t born to someone I know personally. I just don’t care and if that makes me a horrible person, then I’m a horrible person. I will be blocking friends who post pictures or supposed pictures of it on Facebook.

  64. I figured it out. Because kings and princes and princesses are fairytales to us. And fairytales are magical. Therefore a magical baby was just born. He will probably ride a unicorn and grant wishes. That is why we are so interested in this particular baby.

  65. Yeah, I’m happy for them that they have a baby because they totally wanted one, but as for what it looks like, or what gender? Don’t really care. I’m sure it looks like a baby. And they’ve already said mom & baby are doing well – that’s all you need to know, right? Everyone happy & healthy = good.

  67. someone once said there are only two kinds of babies, ones that look like Winston Churchill and ones that look like Woodrow Wilson. I’d guess it’s a Churchill baby, but what do I know.

  68. I’m with you on the baby thing but I’m about to HAVE a baby. And it’s sort of a bummer because I keep seeing these babies and thinking ‘meh.’ I think in 1,000 babies I’ve only seen one I would actually LIKE TO HAVE. So I sure as hell hope that my baby is that kind of baby or oxytocin is a hell of a drug.

  69. My husband says all babies look like slugs. Thanks for speaking up. Babies are not all that. Glad you’re happy if you have one, but I don’t need to be in the boat with you.

  70. Aaaaahhh, I am right there with you. It’s like when a new Twilight movie would come out and I couldn’t wait for it to finally be released, but only because it would mean that I would finally have a moment’s fucking peace without seeing any more of that bullshit. Except, I don’t think this baby business is going to end after opening weekend with a brief revival when he comes out on BluRay. I think the insanity’s here to stay. Goddamn it.

  71. I think the crier might actually BE from Disneyland. He’s looking pretty animatronic to me. When I come across a friend’s post that says “Congrats to Will and Kate!!!” (of COURSE there are too many exclamations points. Which is any), I stifle the urge to respond, “Oh, are you guys Facebook friends?”

    But also? I don’t really care when some old person from a sitcom I watched when I was 10 dies. “Oh, she was still alive? Good for her.”

  73. I’m with you on this one, I mean at least they are a famous couple I actually believe can be good parents. But I don’t understand the crazy everyone has gone since they got engaged. I can say, with absolutely no doubt in my mind, that there are many women who cared more about the royal wedding than I care about my wedding.

    I love babies but really it’s just another adorable tiny person, I’ll wait to be excited until he does something fantastic

  75. Jesus, people. The baby is not personally attacking you. (Unless its a Wolverine baby, and Kate and Will are feverishly trying to figure out what they are going to about those first pictures outside the hospital, because his wee little Wolverine claws will rip right through the baby blanket, exposing him to the world as a mutant. Then maybe he would personally attack you. But probably not, because Wolverine is a good guy. So I’m thinking a Wolverine baby would also have some kind of moral code.)

    (Great. Now I’m going to be all disappointed if the baby pictures don’t include adamantium claws. ~ Jenny)

  76. You know what babies DON’T look alike? HAIRY ONES. Hairy babies creep me out. I’m sure if I ever had a baby, it would be hairy because of karma.

  77. I live in London. I have been all run out of patriotism since we won the Olympic bid and then terrorists blew up the tube. Since then I’ve pretty much existed in a stable state of ‘This is definitely going to fuck with my commute’ grumpiness.
    I thought my baby was beautiful. In fact, the first words I said after I gave birth were ‘Oh thank god, she’s pretty!’
    She looked like fucking *Voldemort*. I was so, so high.
    I think everyone in London should have been given a cannister of entinox to ‘celebrate’ the birth of the royal baby. And by ‘celebrate’ I mean ‘cope with tourists’.

  78. I don’t get the rabid-ness of it, but following the royal baby is fun. I spend all day reading about racial inequality and how Russia is being terrible to gay people, its nice to have something nice to read out on occasion. I do however, have a bunch of people being really smug on my feed about how they don’t care about the royal baby because there are better things to be focusing on. Sure there are, but I can’t focus on something nice for like, 5 minutes? Plus, Kate and William are really cute together.

  80. “unless if it’s all new bornish in which case it looks like a grumpy raisin”
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

  82. Newborn babies are blobs, easy peasy. It’s when they start needing amusement that stuff gets difficult.

  83. Oh, how completely I agree with you! I thought I was the only one. I had a great-uncle that was a country politician, and when people showed him their babies his reply always was, “Now THAT’S a baby!” It still works.

  84. Mr. Spouse was once presented with a photo of a newborn baby. “What do you think,” says his friend of 10 years, with no explanation.

    “Um.. it looks like someone sat on it’s head? Sorta looks like a squished tomato…” says Mr. Spouse, turning photo sideways. “That’s my DAUGHTER!” says friend, highly offended, “and you say she looks like a freaking SQUISHED TOMATO???”

    “Um… umm… ” says Mr. Spouse, “What? NO ONE else noticed the tomato resemblance??”

    We’ve done our best to keep him away from baby photos ever since.

  85. You make me laugh… That picture and all your comments seriously made me crack up!

    And no worries on the baby thing, I don’t understand the appeal of newborns either. I still haven’t seen and pictures of that little North West baby and it doesn’t even faze me in the slightest.

  86. I don’t understand the hype either. However, Doctor Who did show that the royals are werewolves so it might be a werebaby.

  87. I picture that man saying, “Bring me your babies!” instead of “Bring me your dead” like in The Holy Grail. He looks hungry!

    I agree about babies. I usually stay away from them until they have some personality. Plus parents are always so paranoid at first. They want you to get shots and stuff. I don’t even want to hold one in case i accidently give it the plague or something. I visit right after it’s born and then wait a year and come back again. By then they are so desparate for someone else to hold the child they don’t care what you have!

  89. Whatever’s wrong with you that you don’t want to see babies, that’s what’s wrong with me, too. Maybe. I mean, I could probably tell them apart, maybe, but I just don’t want to see babies. The depression grabs the babies and mocks me with them.

    Toddlers are okay, though, but only if they’re Mini (who’s my sort-of adopted daughter’s daughter) or Lil Man (who’s my sort-of adopted sister’s son).

  90. Well, my babies were the most speshulest snowflakes ever, but I totally understand the car thing. If it weren’t for the fact that I live in the South & drive a Prius, I would never find my car.

  91. I’m currently not talking to my parents. I feel that I may have been far more successful in life, had I been referred to as “The Royal Baby” I’m not sure how they’re going to make this up to me… It’s gonna get ugly.

  92. I like babies. I don’t much care about pictures of celebrity babies, but lots of people seem to. Therefore, Will and Kate should totally charge People Magazine for pictures of the baby to bolster the economy of Great Britain.

  93. wth, she was in labor for only 8 hours with a first baby? took me forever and then when they realized i really needed a c-section, the kid was stuck..they had to use salad tongs to get him out. so i really gave birth to a watermelon with a body attached,, not cute

  94. All newborn babies look like little monkeys. Except for mine. She was gorgeous. Mostly after she started looking like a human being, instead of a simian.

  96. I’m really glad you said this first. I. Don’t. Care. I’m still pissed at them for getting married on my birthday, because for the rest of my life, I’ll have to hear about the Duke and Duchess celebrating their whatever anniversary by jetting off to wherever and I’m over here sad because jetting anywhere is beyond my means. They’re assholes.

    *NOT REALLY. They’re probably lovely, lovely people. They had fun at the Harry Potter thing. Bad people just don’t do stuff like that.

    **But I am a little irked they hijacked my birthday.

  97. Yeah, ew babies, wtf? Enough already with all your babies. And you’re totally right about the town crier. Although maybe I’d feel differently, or at least sympathetic, if I’d ever had babies? About the babies, that is. Pretty sure I’d feel the same about the baby-ingesting crier, regardless.

  99. I have ALWAYS thought that newborns resemble some wrinkly, lizard like creature. The first pics are not flattering with the open mouth and red eyes from the drops to prevent disease, or whatever, the clutched little fists scheming something…..I have only seen ONE in hundreds of first pics where the baby was SO CUTE….only one…I always warn my coworkers that I will not gush over the first pic of their babe….

  101. She’s probably already lost the baby weight, the bitch. I’m still trying to lose my baby weight and the damn babies are 22 next month. Sigh. And I still haven’t gotten the birth announcements out.

  102. You know how everyone says all babies are cute? I don’t see it. They all look kinda fugly to me. Don’t tell on me. I think there are people who would hurt me for saying that, though probably nobody on here 🙂

  103. Ha ha, drawing angry cats it’s like seeing faces of babies too (they all look the same). Hopefully, no othe mom starts the same mechanism to recognize our kids, or we all be in trouble.
    Ha ha

  104. Public intoxication reminds me of that Ron White bit where he responds to a charge of “drunk in public” by reminding the officers that he was trying to be drunk in a bar, and that they threw him into public. Ron White reminds me of Texas, and Texas reminds me of you, so there is some circularity here, although I am pretty much just rambling as per usual.

    I don’t have a ton of experiences with babies. Whenever I am in close geographic proximity to one the odds are good that they will vomit on me, so I am happy to hear of the arrival of one in England, or anywhere else sufficiently far away to be out of the strike zone.

  105. Social Media Age meet Royal Obsessors. (is that a word? I’m not sure. it should be)

    Also, most babies look like aliens crossed with old men.

  106. My Twitter feed today has been all ROYAL BABY ROYAL BABY BRITISH PEOPLE HAD SEX LAST YEAR #TableToplessGames ROYAL BABY, which lends an interesting sort of circle-of-life quality to it.

    Also, being British, shouldn’t William and Kate both be mortified that the entirety of the world’s media is essentially reporting on the fact that they had sex?

    Also also, the most relevant article I’ve seen on this story: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/britons-urged-to-enjoy-last-few-hours-before-explosion-of-baby-bullshit-2013072276456

  107. I was terrified I wouldn’t recognize my baby when I had to pick him up from daycare the first day. I needn’t have worried. Mine had a tiny pin head, and all the other babies had gigantic melons for noggins.

  108. I can’t stand looking at babies. I work in a print shop and I always have to stare aft those creepy newborn pictures where the babies are in a basket or a pumpkin or have angel wings photoshoped behind them AND I DON’T GET WHAT THE BIG DEAL IS. It creeps me out. Don’t worry, you’re not alone!!

  109. I’m not the only one??
    I mean, I love babies. I do. And I do want to have one one day, but I’m not sure I can tell them apart either. My friends’ babies, sure I want to see them and I’m curious whether they’ll be this or that shade, but strangers’ babies? Even if the strangers are royal, it’s a baby. And since both parents are more on the pale side, I’d imagine the baby will look kind of like that. But you know what scares me the most? People who say the baby has someone’s nose. Really? You can tell whether that tiny bit of thing of a nose looks like Dad’s? Or if the baby has mom’s chin? Really? I always nod, because telling them I saw a kid the other day that looked the same is apparently not the polite thing to do, and if I say my neighbor’s cat makes the same sound their baby makes they usually throw me out, but I honestly can’t say I agree that a baby’s nose can look just like a grown up’s nose. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I just hope I can recognize my own. Or I’ll makes doodles on his/her foot. Thanks for the tip.

  110. Well, I guess I am in the minority. I am thrilled to hear about the baby. Babies are sweet and make me smile, no matter who the parents are. After all the horrible, depressing, mind numbing news we have had this summer, hooray for baby! And yes, I got up at 4am all those years ago to watch Prince Charles wed Lady Diana.

  111. HAHAHA! Totally laughed out loud at “inhale a baby whole.” Fabulous.

    I’m totally with you. I can’t really tell babies apart, either. And I have never, ever, ever cared about a celeb’s baby pics before, until the news broke this morning. Then I was thinking “ooh! I have to find a baby pic online.” Why? I don’t know. And as soon as you posted it, I was thinking “shit, I really DON’T care. Why am I even looking?” Weird. Somehow the media got me on that one.

  112. I saw a meme that captures my feeling exactly:

    “We fought for independence so we wouldn’t HAVE to care about the royal baby”.

    Also, all babies look like ET right after they’re born. ET covered in marinara sauce. Particularly royal ones.

    BTW, that town crier? I can tell by the way he’s using his facial muscles that he’s straining his voice by shouting and not properly supporting the sound with diaphragmatic breathing. I once saw a town crier competition in York, and it was painful to hear the ones who were just shredding their vocal cords by screaming. You want loud? Ask an opera singer….we love to deafen!

  113. When I was pregnant with Baguette, we were very organized and frugal and ordered our holiday cards in advance. And then, because I was pregnant with Baguette, and apparently when you’re pregnant in your 40s you do not get that second trimester energy surge, I was always too tired to send out the cards. Even though everything is professional printed (photo cards!) or on labels or a stamp and there was no actual writing involved. Too. Tired.

    We kept saying we needed to get them out, and then finally I said, “No, we need to wait until the baby is born, because now people will expect that whatever is in the envelope is a birth announcement, and if they get a holiday card we’ll have to field a bunch of calls and emails asking if everything is okay, and it is, but who wants to deal with that?”

    So we sent our holiday cards and birth announcements in the same envelope. In May.

    Also, I’m not sure that I would send birth announcements now. Not that a second child doesn’t deserve the same attention, but because hello? Facebook.

  114. Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (and their last name is officially Cambridge). But I’m with you on the whole what’s-so-special-about-babies-they-all-poop front. Still, I’m glad people are happy 🙂

  117. I’m with you. I love babies, and the way they smell, but I don’t need to see every single one, especially not one I will ever meet. Congrats and all that, though.

  119. I would hate to be famous. Imagine the whole world wanting to know about the state of your vagina. That ain’t nobody’s business. This poor kid’s gonna have body guards for his whole childhood and will only get to play with other overprotected, body-guarded, high-kidnap-risk kids. The paparazzi are going to hound him from woe-to-go.

  120. I find it hard to get excited about friends’ babies ’cause I don’t DO babies. So I was over this royal baby frenzy as soon as they announced she was incubating.

  122. I am soooooooo glad that I’m not the only person in the world that really, really doesn’t want to see people’s babies. When people ask, I tell them I love babies, I just can’t eat a whole one myself. Most people only make the mistake of sending me photos once.

  123. “My baby looked like everybody else’s baby too and when I’d take her to daycare I’d doodle pictures of angry cats on her foot so that I could be sure that they gave me back the right baby at the end of the day. Because I couldn’t be trusted to recognize my own baby.

    There might be something wrong with me.”

    I’m not sure that there’s something wrong with you. I think you’re just brave enough to admit what most of us fear.

  124. But this baby could be full-on lycanthrope! Germinated through the years from the single cell transmitted when the wolf scratched Queen Victoria in the Doctor Who episode Tooth and Claw…in fact, I bet that’s why we haven’t seen him. He came out furry and they have to wait till he transforms to human before he can be photographed!!! (ok, maybe I watch too much sci-fi)

  125. I think the Town Crier earned those patches at Scout Camp. He can start a fire and is certified in first aid, I’m sure.

    I also don’t care about babies. They all look the same, even mine.

    I just get jealous of people with new cars. Fuck them.

  126. Jenny, I TOTALLY agree with you. What the eff is all the fuss about? Babies all look the same – like giant turds wrapped in fuzzy blankets. The only difference with the royal baby is that the turd might be laced in diamonds or something else that screams “future entitled prick here.”

  129. I am TOTALLY exactly the same about babies! NOT INTERESTED in them at all! They DO all look the same and who the f- really cares about a royal baby? I don’t even get why the British get so excited about the royal family in the first place, or why they are okay with paying for their lavish lifestyle! Like they are a real dress-up set of queens and whatnot, and the whole country is just gaga over them and every move they make. Seriously, people.

  130. Now I want to buy you a car painted like a tardis so you never have a hard time finding it again. (Also, I typed that with a British accent in deference to the royal vaginal exit.)

  131. I am so with you. I am missing the gene that makes you think all babies are cute and want to pick them up and hug them. I rarely think that babies are cute and I definitely don’t want to touch your baby. Ick. I always feel like such a fraud when my friends have babies because of course you have to say how beautiful you think the baby is but what I’m really thinking is “Yep, looks like a baby. Can we talk about something else now?”

    What I apparently have is the kitty gene because I react to them the other women react to babies. LOVE pictures of cats and kittens. Love to see my friends’ cats and totally want to pick them up and hug them.

  132. About losing the car in parking lots – this is why I put a turquoise blue pool noodle on my antenna. Bonus: everyone sees me in traffic so I never get sideswiped. (I used to have a hot pink one, but too many people asked if I was happy to see them)

  133. I’m with you. I was lie, “yay for them, having a baby.” But have no interest in seeing the baby. It is just a baby. They are usually indistinguishable blobs until about 7 months, and then they’re mobile blobs. A royal baby isn’t born with jewels in its mouth or purple.

    This comment brought to you by pain medication and a sneaky gluten migraine. I may not remember this come morning.

  136. I lurve babies of most species (screw you, baby cockroaches! You’re gross!) and could look at pictures until my uterus explodes with the wants, but I don’t care about famousness in babies. If the royal baby dumps a bowl of spaghetti on her head or dresses up as an Ewok or something, then I’ll care.

  137. Was the Royal Baby born wearing a little crown? That would hurt.

  138. Y.A.N.A.

    When we see a birth announcement and my husband and I just blink at it a moment, then say, “Yep. Looks like a baby.”

  139. Man, it takes so much energy to oooh and aahhh appropriately at people’s baby pictures. I just do not care. I’ve got two of my own, and I STILL don’t care about someone else’s.

  140. you know what i want? the feathers on that guy’s hat. actually, i want his entire hat. do you suppose you need to actually be a town crier to aquire one of those? because i can think of lots of things to CRY while wearing that thing and if it was on my head i don’t think people would notice that i was naked, thus serving TWO purposes.

    i have to sort out how to get one of those. thank you for sharing the photo!

  141. This. So, so much! Plus, thank goodness I’m not the only one that thinks that the dress uniform of all royal dudes look like bling-y Halloween costumes!

  142. Great.

    Now I want a loris.

    If only to put colored contacts on those crackhead wide eyes.

  143. Didn’t we fight for independence so that we WOULDN’T have to give a shit about the royal baby? And yes, I believe those are totally pins from Disney.

  145. That guy is terrifying.
    I must say I love other people’s babies. Kids, not so much. I have two of my own and that’s plenty, thanks.

  146. Didn’t even think my own two babies were cute when they were born. They are all shriveled and icky and stuff. Love them now…..but don’t show me pics of your kids unless they are kittens or puppies or foals!

  147. Mountbatten-Windsor. Prince Philip’s family name was Battenburg but that was too German sounding during WWI os it was changed to Mountbatten. He chose to use that name because he was closer to his mother’s family. His father’s family was the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (I shit you not).
    William actually used “Wales” as a last name in college and in the military as well.

    I love babies and names. But pictures of newborns all look the same. This is coming from someone who can happily spend 30 minutes just gazing at a brand new niece/nephew.
    But holy crap, this has this been a spectacular month to be a name nerd.

  148. I don’t want to be a jerk but I thought you should know that the Duchess of Windsor was the American woman who Edward VIII gave up the British throne for. She never had babies as far as I know.

    The Duchess of Cambridge is married to the man who is second in line to the British throne.

    An important difference, I think.

    P.S. As a Canadian, I’ve always wondered why Americans are so interested in the British monarchy. Didn’t you fight a war about that?

  149. Science fiction.

    Also, my cat’s fluffy tail, which is currently in its summer cut and it’s like a little puffball on the end of a snake.

  150. Really the first thing that pops into my head when I see a new baby is, You had sex and now everyone knows.

    Maybe that’s just me though.

  151. OMG – I NEED a slow Loris. I would trade 7 royal babies for just one slow Loris

  152. The only reason I knew Kate shot a baby out her vagina today was through a single post from my friend who is from Britain. I had been gloriously unaware until about an hour ago.

  153. I have a confession to make. I don’t care about babies. I don’t like babies. I have NEVER liked babies. I am pretty sure that (because I am female) that means there is something really, really wrong with me.

    When people I work with bring their babies in, I find something in the corner of the basement of the building to do to avoid having to hold, coo over or be in any sort of proximity to the baby.

    I’m pretty sure I have some biohazardous genetic anomaly and should probably have been locked in an attic long, long ago.

    But it makes me feel slightly better that you don’t really understand babies, either.

  154. There is not one part of this that I don’t TOTALLY agree with. How DO people actually tell babies apart? The doodling on the foot was a stroke of brilliance on your part Girl!

  156. agree on the babies thing. i don’t enjoy looking at babies. they don’t look like mom or dad, they look like great-grandpa. always. even my kids. the only reason i enjoyed them at infancy was because they were mine and they had me completely hypnotized with their giant eyes and smelly heads. they weren’t in the least bit fun until they were 2, but i was absolutely driven to make sure they were loved and healthy and thrived, as i am now. only now we actually have fun.

  158. Well isn’t that is just disturbing?? I was at work…working…and a co-worker took it upon herself to give us 30 minute updates on the pending birth. I was not minute by minute informed when I had my two children.

  159. The Town Cryer looks like Marley’s ghost – but yes, I’m sure he’s very nice. Even though he’s dead.

  160. People are supposed to be able to tell babies apart? Until they develop personalities I can’t really stand being around them. They’re creepy. And identical.

  161. They all look like potatoes at this stage anyway. If I gave a damn, I’d put a bib on one of the russets in my pantry and get the same effect.

  163. See, I want to see him to determine whether he looks like an alien or Winston Churchill. All babies look like one or the other. I want to know which camp His Little Royal Dudeness is in.

  164. I like babies, but royal babies, eh. Last week I heard the new baby was going to be like 27th cousin to Brad and Angelina’s baby and 23rd cousin twice removed to Beyonce’s baby. I was like, “This is news?, WTF”.

    I also get the whole wrong car thing. Used to have a duct-taped front bumper, but now that it’s fixed all red Corollas look alike. Aaagh!

  165. I FEEL THE SAME WAY.

    I avoided Twitter because I knew it was going to be all about some baby I don’t know and will never meet because I’m the opposite of people who get invited to hang out with royals.

    Besides, any person who can shove another human out her vagina without instantly murdering every other person in the room should get a standing ovation, not *just* the fancy people. Poor people have babies without murdering people *all the time* — and even when they kill people, the people probably deserved it because you just don’t fuck with someone who just shoved a human out her vagina.

  166. Yes and yes. To all of the above. And I’ll raise you one – I think most babies are sort of unattractive. My apologies to anyone who has had a baby and thought they were adorable at first sight. As long as you think your baby is cute, that’s all that matters, right? I think they grow into their cuteness (some take longer than others) but not many come out looking all cute. Who can blame them? Look what they’ve been up to for the previous 9 months.
    Also, I am not a fan of the monarchy. Which no doubt might trouble some folks. Like my husband, who is British. We live in Canada and the queen’s pic is on our money, so I taught my daughter to call her “The Old Biddy”. My mother-in-law thinks my husband taught her to say it just to get his mother torqued up.

  167. “Keep him away from the town crier because I’m pretty sure that man could unhinge his jaw and inhale a baby whole. Better safe than sorry.” OMG, I feel that it’s so inappropriate to laugh at this but, I sincerely could not help it. Too funny, Jenny. And (for the record), babies DO pretty much all look the same. Kinda like puppies. They’re all cute. 😀

  168. Two things:

    First, I’m fairly certain that the town crier is a bloated-out version of Captain Morgan sans the barrel.

    Second, we didn’t send out birth announcements either. Through the happy glow of new motherhood and my epidural, I toyed with the idea of having my husband text “The eagle has landed” to our loved ones. But then I got distracted by food tray waiting for me. All the pushing made me ravenous!

  169. Wanting to see the baby is as confusing as wanting to see pregant celebrities. “hey they look just like a beached whale but in much fanicier clothes.” That whole ‘bump watch’ creeped me out.

  171. There are 4 babies in my sons daycare that all have the same bald head that are about the same age and I sometimes have a hard time figuring out which one he is. I usually just bring home the one that smiles and crawls towards me. (That and I think they would not let me take home the wrong baby … right?)

  174. I TOTALLY need a town crier cause I didn’t send out birth announcements either. I mean, I GOT birth announcements, there’s a stack of them in the livingroom somewhere on a bookcase I think. And some people even got them, but it was mainly because they wanted them and they came to visit and they saw the stack and were all, “can I have one of these?” and I’m all “sure” cause well what else am I gonna do with them. But by the time they came to visit they already knew we had a baby, cause you know they’d been in the house with her. So the whole idea of announcing her was kinda a moot point cause she was way past being announced. They were really more like baby memorabilia, cause you know you visit a baby and “here, take a pamphlet, it’s about the baby, who is, you know, a perfectly average baby just like every other perfectly average baby, except now she’s six months old and you’re visiting her and I still have this stack of baby pamphlets so I might as well give them to everyone who steps through that door.” Imma stop rambling now.

  175. I completely don’t get this royal baby thing. It’s a baby. It belongs to other people. I guess I just really only get excited about babies that belong to me. 🙂

  176. Don’t feel bad. It’s not just you. All babies look the same.
    That is to say, they all look like a cross between Elmer Fudd and Gabby Hayes.
    It is nothing short of magnificent to see the joy shining out of a happy family’s collective face over the excitement of their newborn, but babies themselves, especially the first couple of weeks, are kinda creepy 🙂

  177. It’s ok. I got yelled at once because I said all babies look like Winston Churchill and I have two…

  178. Yup. Sure is a baby.

    That’s basically the most exciting reaction I can muster to the birth of this child.

    P.S. Hey, America… It’s not even OUR royalty’s baby. Why? For many, many reasons, one of which includes the fact that we don’t have royalty (I refuse to count the Kardashians as royalty) in this country. The other is that we’re not Britain, but I think you knew that.

    P.P.S. You knew that, right?

  179. I do caricatures for a living, and can I just say that every time I am drawing a caricature of someone’s baby? I’m drawing the SAME BABY I just drew five minutes ago. It’s a stock baby, y’all.

  180. You are not alone. All babies look weird and raisin-like to me. I look at baby pictures of myself and think how discolored and lumpy I looked. My mom even said I looked like Mr. Magoo as an infant. My mom. The woman who pushed me out of her lady garden sans drugs inside an ancient Manhattan hospital wrote “Mr. Magoo” under my photos in my baby scrapbook .
    So, there you have it. Babies look like raisins and Mr. Magoo.

  182. When I’m at social functions where there is a new baby, I have to remind myself that I need to ask to hold the damned thing for a little bit. It used to terrify me until I realized they’re just made out of marshmallow and you can hardly break them without really trying – I just am not remotely interested in your spawn. Sorry. Tell me more about that Imperial Stout you have fermenting the the basement, or your dodgeball league. I look forward to the day when little Ashley (or James or George) can do the same.

  183. I love babies. Unless they’re screaming at the next table whilst I’m trying to have a romantical dinner.

  184. Wow they went with the full on 1700’s look for the crier – ruffles and everything. And who is using a scroll anymore? Aren’t we past this whole stage? And for good reason.

  185. wow. I’ve never really seen a town crier that………..scary. actually, come to think of it, I’ve never seen one at all and now I kinda know why.

  186. I really don’t care much about the royal baby but I was recently in Amsterdam at an antique mall. There was a mummified cat displayed in a nice frame. I thought of you.

  187. Where I grew up we had a “Town Crier”… it was the name of the local bar. Yes, just a very random thought when I saw the picture of the dude.

  188. Babies are so selfish and stupid. I mean they don’t even use real words. I’m glad my baby grew up into a real human. I’d have been pretty upset if she’d have grown up into a bigger baby.

  189. My son’s birth announcement consisted of my best friend posting on facebook that I had a baby head stuck in my vagina, and then I posted a pic of us leaving the hospital to let everyone know we made it out alive. Wait a year and show me a picture of the kid trashing everything with sharpie all over his face and that cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.

  190. I think that chap took it upon himself to be town crier because he happened to have an old costume from the Milton Keynes Community Light Opera production of _Iolanthe_ in 1983 in his closet. The official announcement was just this 22×30 piece of cardboard on a gilded easel in front of Buckingham Palace. Much easier than mailing birth announcements! Had I but known that kings and queens did that, I’d have gone that route in a shot at the time.

  192. Their surname is MountbattenWindsor. Prince Phillip’s last name is Mountbatten, the Queens is Windsor. Her father King Gorge adopted it when he rose to the throne.

  193. It’s never too late to get a town crier. Who says they’re just for babies?

    You can have him announce all of your proud moments to the world. Like when you ate a really good pancake. Or finally watched the smartypants documentary that you’ve been pretending to have seen for 3 years. Or remembered where your keys were.

    This is an absolute necessity that you must have.

  194. I get more excited about people’s dogs. A co-worker brought her puppy into work and I couldn’t put it down. Another co-worker brought their new baby into work and I felt bad that I wished it was a puppy.

  195. Dude, that is the EXACT face on my 3 year old when he announces “I just went POTTY!!!!!!!” And then gets pissed off at me when I tell him “Good Job!” We are potty training, so maybe that’s it.

    Idea though – wouldn’t it be awesome if everytime I was in public, and went to the bathroom, when I came out I also yelled “I went POTTY!!!!”? Cause now I kinda want to.

  196. I just saw something a day or two ago that said Catherine’s last name was Mountbatten-Windsor. So I think that’s their last name.

  197. On the one hand, I thought we fought a war or something so we didn’t have to care about royalty.

    On the other hand…. no wait, there is no other hand. I want my own town crier and trumpets.

    Maybe some John Woo style doves when I walk out of my house.

    Also congrats Britain. Sorry Scotland and Ireland, you still are not your own country full time.

  198. I’ve been slightly annoyed all weekend because my baby is due tomorrow. If one more person said “it would be so cool if they have the same birthday!” to me, I was planning to cut off my ears. So hallelujah he is born!! Now it can be about me.

    However, if he’s born natural, I may very well take out an add in the paper announcing it. Just to see if anyone cares. Betcha if I post it on Facebook, everyone will yell at me for oversharing… So unfair.

  199. I’m with you on this one. They all look like space aliens. Winston Churchill and/or or little old men (my daughter included). I didn’t have to draw pictures on her because she was born with hairy ears. A freaky sort of blessing, I guess. Thank God that resolved itself pretty quickly. I love kids when they start talking and moving around, but they are pretty dull until then.

  200. So I turned to my husband and said “She mentioned spider monkeys, but i think this guy [the town crier] looks like a spider monkey.”

    He said, “It’s true! He’s…kinda scary, isn’t he?”

    Stay away from the town crier…everyone, not just babies.

  201. Having friends on both sides of the pond, I have to say that my American friends are WAY more excited about this than my British friends. The poor kids 3 parts removed from the throne because I think Liz is going to outlive every last one of her heirs in stubborn English grandma manner.

    And yes, babies tend to look amazingly alike. Except my daughter who had more hair than your typical 2 year old at birth. Thank god, it made IDing her at the hospital dead easy.

  202. Sometimes, I look at a new baby of a friend on Facebook and think, Oh-MY-GOD, that baby is ACTUALLY really freakin’ cute. Usually, though, I don’t. Unless it’s related to me. Then it’s OBVIOUSLY super cute.

  203. I don’t feel so bad now about not being able to find my car in the parking lot. Or not being able to tell one baby from another. I am not alone is my car and baby identification blindness. 🙂

  204. If you want to be *really* specific and irritatingly pedantic, their (William and Kate’s) surname would be Saxe-Corburg-Gotha. Why? Because that’s the original name of the Windsor line. George V changed the name to Windsor due to the anti-German sentiment that raged in England (well, Europe, and understandably so) during the First World War.

    Queen Victoria, who was from the Hanover line on the paternal side (the granddaughter of George III) and the Saxe-Coburg line on the maternal side, also married into the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family tree when she wed Prince Albert. Queen Elizabeth II is the child of George VI, whose father was George V, whose father was Edward VII, whose mother was Queen Victoria.

  206. Another good post. I really like your writing and appreciate how you work to get through life’s challenges.

  208. A snake just slithered over my foot and now I come here and read this. After all of these years of being absent from the internet. It’s like I never left. AAAAACCCCKKKK!

    Now to watch your “comment luv” mock me.

  210. i don’t get ANY of the curiosity regarding ‘celebrity’ of any kind. i resent standing in line at the market and being assaulted with the headlines of the stupid magazines and papers that litter the store. (they are better suited for toilet paper in my opinion.) what do i care about some star’s cellulite or how they look without make-up? i don’t and that is the point of this. i don’t care about the royal baby either…. of course, when the line in the store is 10 deep and there is one checker, i will be amused by the trash mags and snicker at the stupid publications…. snicker, not purchase….and patiently wait with my cart of groceries….

  211. I do know that the royal family’s last name is Windsor, but the baby’s many names haven’t been released yet. I’m sure the town crier will get to make another announcement.

  213. Let’s be honest here… no baby is born cute. They come out wrinkled and red and (usually) with weirdly shaped heads. A baby needs to be at least a few months old before it’s cute. And even them some of them are just… not cute. They just aren’t.

  214. All babies look alike except for the ones that are actually kind of ugly.

  215. When I went to the hospital to see my son for the first time, I didn’t know what to expect. My son was adopted and I wasn’t expecting family resemblances but I could have seen a tail or a third eye or whiskers!

    Most babies are red and wrinkly but mine was beautiful-so beautiful he looked like a soap opera baby 🙂

  216. That’s ok. I love the Royals and their Royal baby because it seems like a big fairy tale and takes me completely out of the reality that is my life.
    That being said-this was the most hilarious thing ever written about her pregnancy (God Bless You Onion) and further more I felt this way when my first born was a month late and they did cut him out of me.
    Enjoy!
    http://www.theonion.com/articles/cut-this-monster-out-of-me,30602/

  218. I am so horrible when it comes to people asking who babies look like. Whether its mine or someone else’s. and people get upset when u say things like Benjamin button or a swollen mole rat or a potato. Which I don’t really understand cuz my son had a bruise on his head and looked like a unicorn for a week. I like finding out kids names since these days you never know if its animal, vegetable, or mineral!

  220. The royals surname: (From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_William,_Duke_of_Cambridge)

    As a British prince, William does not use a surname for everyday purposes. For formal and ceremonial purposes, the children of the Prince of Wales use the title of “prince” or “princess” before their Christian name and their father’s territorial designation after it. Thus, Prince William was styled as “Prince William of Wales”. Such area-based surnames are discarded by women when they marry and by men if they are given a peerage of their own,[107] such as when Prince William was given his dukedom.
    For the male-line grandchildren of Elizabeth II, however, there is currently some uncertainty over the correct form of family surname to use, or whether there even is a surname. The Queen has stipulated all her male-line descendants who do not bear the titular dignity of prince shall use Mountbatten-Windsor as their family surname (although Letters Patent exist stipulating the name Windsor, but with the same caveat). According to their flight suits as seen in television interviews, Princes William and Harry both used Wales as their surname for military purposes; this continues to be the case for William since his creation as Duke of Cambridge.[108]

  221. It has finally happened. Had to get up early because “The Tree Guy” was here to, what else, trim the trees…in July! I started reading the “Oprah..” blog. When finished I had a full page of notes. Doesn’t that make you the teacher and me the disciple? Can you bear one more cross?

  222. Great, the duchess of who just gave birth? Woo-hoo. Congrats, and stuff.

    Dang-it, I see that someone else beat me to the Winston-Churchill lines already.

    Honestly, I think this sort of thing just gives something the shallow people can wrap their heads around… this way they won’t need to be forced to try to process any of the scarier news stories. Babies are easy by comparison.

  223. I actually saw the town crier interviewed later in the day and he really is a very nice man and seems to have a lovely sense of humor to boot. Plus instead of having to get drunk before running down the street yelling, he actually gets paid to do so, and gets to wear this kick-ass outfit to do so! How awesome is that?

  225. Didn’t we fight a revolutionary war to get AWAY from the monarchy? Now we’re obsessed with their spawn? Seriously how great is a genetic pool that still uses powdered-wig wearing town criers when there is twitter, the worldwide multi-lingual Electronic Town Crier?

  226. Greetings from royal-baby-delighted England.

    The happy couple are Cambridges, royal baby is known (until the name is announced) as Prince Cambridge.

    PS The official announcement was not made by a Disney baby-eating town crier.

  227. Best response to person we don’t know having baby we’ll never meet (Backstory, BF has a daughter, so he he’s witnessed all this stuff that I think my Mom is lying about):

    Me (late this a.m.): Royal baby coming!

    Him: Oh, we’ll see him/her tomorrow.

    Me: (thinking,) “Well, SOME people go really fast. My mom showed up, went “pfffffttttt…” and there I was. The doctor said she should have had a soccer team.

    She didn’t…just me. Props to all of you who have made people. We thank you.

  228. First time I became an aunt, I eagerly looked forward to holding my nephew. About ten seconds after he was plopped in my arms, I was bored and wondering how long I was expected to hold him. Is it rude to return to owner in less than 60 seconds?
    Since then I’ve discovered that holding anyone’s baby is a perfect excuse for:
    -rocking in a chair
    -not folding laundry, cooking or doing any other household chores
    -talking in tongues
    -having no responsibilities beyond being a pillow for a tiny human

    I offer to hold babies for these benefits without even knowing their name, gender or future religious beliefs. I’m very accepting that way. 🙂

  229. I think I’d be fine with giving birth to a slow loris.
    Or a kitten.
    They’re also be easier to look after than human babies.

  230. I wonder what the town crier does every other day when royals aren’t having babies?

  231. To be honest, the majority of people in Britain don’t care. It’s a baby. It’s mainly the press that want us to be excited. Also, I have to point out, Kate is the Duchess of Cambridge, not Windsor. Also, England is not the U.K. The U.K is England plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. So it should be ‘Congratulations Britain’ 🙂

  232. Personally, I think people would rather look to the product of Kate’s mission to land herself a prince – the girl had pics of William all over her dorm room like a stalker – for hope, rather get up and actually change the world on their own.
    The whole thing makes me sick, truth be told. I’d rather watch eighteen hours of Keeping up With The Kardashians reruns than two seconds of that crap.
    You made it interesting as hell, though, Jenny.

  233. You forgot to mention some other important baby related things such as: They pee in you (babies are gross). And they are hairless and weird and not at all cute. Human babies, while necessary for continuing the human species, are by far the most boring and unattractive in the animal kingdom.

  234. It’s all right for you Missy Lawson you’re in America surely you are not getting wall to wall bloody coverage like we ar in the UK and I note that you, like one of your ‘English’ respondents reply refer to this non event in ‘Congratulating England’ and greetings from ‘Delighted England’

    If only the English would be a bit more circumspect and keep these things to themselves without ramming it down our throats I think we would all be much happier

    Funny take on it and children tho, chapeau

  236. I’m glad they’ve got their baby. I’m happy for them. I don’t even mind that it seems to be the most important thing that happened in the world yesterday. Apparently there were no wars, murders, natural disasters or large scale accidents, so that’s good.

    It’s the next twenty years of his first word, his first steps, his first day at school, etc ad infinitum that will get through to me. Please can this stop being news tomorrow?

  239. Birth announcements completely got by us. If you’re out there, world, we had a GIRL! And she’s a beauty. She now has two grown children of her own. Still waiting for her birth announcements.

  240. Take it from a former OB nurse who has seen a lot of FLK’s- funny looking kids, any compliment you give a new parent is a ok . Just tell them you love little baby lips- they do look like little rosebuds or talk about their long eyelashes, if,forced to hold a newborn, just tell the mother Oh he’s so soft and smells so,good-works every time! Besides talking about babies beats the heck out of talking about murder charges and presidential speeches.

  242. Their surname is Mountbatten-Windsor and the baby is *insert name here* Prince of Cambridge.
    I don’t think all babies look the same but I do believe there are only a few face templates they come in. My oldest came in the wizened old man template bless him. He grew out of it thank goodness.

  243. I woke up this morning with the thought in my head that I totally forgot to write in my previous comment that on a tour of the UK with Huzbo a few years ago, we came across a town crier when we visited Conway Castle in Conway, North Wales. Huzbo wanted a pic of him and I together and he smelled like he had rolled out of a keg of whiskey at the local distillery and copped a feel of my bum while posing for the picture. But it’s not the same crier, so I guess ladies who want to pose with this dude should be safe.

  244. I was warned before starting my new spot, about the rush of mlas. So felt obliged to stop the “is she preggo too?” guessing games before they started, so as to not feel self concious by a bunch of stares every time I am a wee bit bloated. I informed them that since I have fertility issues and am on the pill and my hubby had the V, and sometimes we use other contraceptives too, if I did end up knocked up then I would have as my birth annoucement something like: ” Hallelujah! Christmas is coming twice this year! Guess the Christians were right. Don’t worry though other religions, if God really did choose me to be the new Mary then He is obviously in on the joke”

    Now THAT would be a news-worthy birth announcement 😉

  245. Word to this. Babies, unless they are my own, do little or nothing for me. Unless they have unbearably kissable fat cheeks. THEN ITS GAME ON!

  246. I have to agree with you. Sometimes too much information is just TOO MUCH INFORMATION. I mean, I’m happy for anyone who has a baby. But do I really need to know about the vag birth? Um . . . NO. I DO NOT.

  247. That town crier looks like the male version of the Queen of Hearts from Disney’s Alice In Wonderland movie.

  248. About the surname thing, they can chose one, or not, its their choice to chose or not to choose.

    William is “HRH Prince William Duke of Cambridge”. So technically his last name is Cambridge and so the baby could be called “Jeff Cambridge” (for example)

    However, because the queen is Elizabeth Windsor (also a chosen name her father was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and married a Mountbatten the baby could be “Colin Mountbatten-Windsor”

    Either way he is definitely “HRH Prince (Bob) of Cambridge”

    Us English are a confusing lot!

  250. Meh … Baby whatever.

    WHY HAVE I NEVER SEEN A SLOW LORIS VIDEO BEFORE??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY INTERNET?

  251. Babies make me smile, but famous babies are not much more interesting than famous adults, who are pretty damn boring.
    I do love seeing how happy new parents are, but again I’m not so interested in proud famous new parents.

  252. How bad must been someone’s life decisions to take that town crier job as a grey haired old man?

  255. c’mon, can we cut the town crier some slack? London is a lot fucking bigger than when his great-great-great grandfather was town crier in 1814. And the traffic noise ? God it is hard to be heard over all those giant busses and tiny cars. And on top of that, you just know he’s going home to his wife and saying, “I almost had a aneurism at work today and it’s just a FUCKIN’ BABY.”

  256. I am preggo with #2 and I have to agree with you. All babies look the same, except the ugly ones. Cause sometimes there are ugly ones…It’s sad, but true. When we had #1 my husband wouldn’t let the nurses take him out of the room because he was worried they would mix him up with another one and we would never know.

  257. DITTO…. I just don’t care for babies. They spew things, spray things and plop things. Just not into them. Good thing I didn’t have kids. (maybe one of my own would have been different, but ….)

    And why do people INSIST I hold their baby? No, really, I’m fine looking at the little old man looking thing in your arms. I’m so excited for you, I’m so happy you are happy. Just don’t expect me to come baby sit, change diapers or feed it. I’m just not maternal.

    Oh – and I think the royal crier had a pint or 10 before the announcement. He sounded drunk as a skunk. (please explain that term to me someday)

  258. I’m just pissed because yesterday was MY birthday and has been for the last 44 years…but then along comes this royal baby and is MY Vaginal status on the “Urgent Update” banner on CNN? No, it’s not. I thought we won that war.

  259. I’m the same way. Don’t really care about babies/for babies as a rule. I liked the one I had, but have never been overly enamoured of anyone else’s. For me (as it was for my grandmother, oddly), they get interesting when they hit their teens. They start trying to be actual people at that point and I LOVE that process. It’s the learning how to get food into the mouth or walk without crashing part that’s not for me.

  260. Every baby looks like Winston Churchill.

    It’s a wonder we don’t live in a world full of little boys called “Winston” (even if their names are Jake and Bob and Balthazaar) and girls called “Churchill” (even if their names are Susy and Xenia).

    Or vice versa.

  261. People who rant that the baby is not a big deal don’t get it. Ya it’s not that big of a deal but its a bigger deal than kanyewest or jayz’s baby for the obvious reason that this baby will for sure rule England one day. It could also overturn the charter of rights if it wanted to. I’ve seen like so many people post on fb saying they don’t get it because its just a regular baby. But it’s not, it’s a royal baby! It’s gonna be king of England eventually! And they made a big deal out of the delivery because the baby was born in unusual circumstances as compared to all the other babies.

  264. I’m with you! The worst is the game “who do they look like!?”. I suck at that game! My answer “it looks like a baby”.

  265. I don’t get the hype around it either. I mean they had a baby and it’s all very nice I am sure, but what’s with the mass hysteria? It’s just a baby. All babies are cute and they all look alike. Moreover, sooner or later, he is going show up in public. What’s the big hurry to see him or his pictures as soon as possible even if it means staying on guard every minute all week? Surely he wont grow up by tomorrow just because he is royal!!
    On a side note though, some of the tweets are really funny and made me laugh. A few of my favourites: “Imagine trying to give birth with entire world watching & live-tweeting it. I can’t even poop if I know somebody’s waiting for the bathroom.”, “The media frantically watching for the traditional sign the baby’s been born which is grey smoke issuing from the royal vagina”, “Dear William and Kate: If William is 100% royal and Princess Kate is 0% royal, will that make your son a half-blood prince?”

  266. That scary town crier was NOT an official town crier for the monarchy so you might be right about the pins. Elizabeth just posts a piece of paper in a shitty frame in front of the castle and lets everyone else figure it out. She ain’t got time for that town crier shit. That guy has been dressed like that and waiting in front of the hospital for about a week now. I’m pretty sure that getup he’s wearing is pretty rank.

  267. Babies and old men all look pretty much the same to me and I have the same feelings of vague apprehension around nearly all of them. At least old men have the decency to grow distinguishing facial hair. Way to go, babies.

  269. Seriously, this whole thing annoyed me so much. I mean, what if something had gone wrong and the whole world was waiting on The State of Kate’s Vagina and the town crier had to come out and be all “So…this is awkward, guys, but the baby didn’t make it. So maybe pack up your video cameras and get rid of the Twitter feed for the stupid orange cone and let’s just all go home and let them mourn in peace.”

    Honestly, I won’t be interested in this kid until his Uncle Harry teaches him to flip off reporters.

  271. I think, unless it’s your own baby, who cares! Babies do all look alike. And honestly they are all a bit weird looking at 1st too, after the trauma of birth they are all a tad discolored, mishapen and generally a bit alienish. The get more normal looking after a few days. Or not. No judgement. And what do you say to people about their just-born-eyes-still-swollen baby??? Cute? Give it a week?
    But holy shit, that town crier reminds me of the character on Family Guy with the huge underbite. I’d watch out England, creepy.

  272. I’m all about the babies… I always have been 🙂 I’m that lady at the grocery store who will be stuck behind a single dad with crying twin babies and will make faces and coo at them until they’re laughing and single twin dad can go on his merry way with SMILING happy babies instead of wailing ones 🙂 But I totally get that not everybody’s like that, and it annoys my ex-husband to DEATH when I do this in his presence (he is not all about the babies).

    I’ll admit that I’m looking forward to seeing a picture of the baby – at some point in the future, perhaps once it’s been cleaned off and such. But that’s because I love all babies and can’t get enough of them 🙂 Thank goodness my boyfriend got himself fixed 🙂

  273. I don’t understand babies either. Or the point of having them. Fortunately not too many people share my view otherwise the human race would die out & earth would just be inhabited by rabbits and squirrels & stuff. My friends have long since stopped introducing me to their off spring. Apparently, poking it in the ribs and asking “What is it?” isn’t the correct etiquette for meeting a new born. But here in England, the news of the royal birth even has me interested because I am hoping the queen is going to be sooooo chuffed with her new great grandson that she will declare an unexpected bank holiday. Incidently, I believe Wales as in Duke & Dutchess of is used as their surname, but I could be wrong. Does he actually need a surname? I mean it would be like “OMG!! IT’S WILLIAM!!” “William who?” “FUCKING PRINCE WILLIAM!” so everyone just knows who he is without the need for surnames and the like…..

  274. Let’s send a congratulatory “Your baby is as cute as Satan” card and a “Fresh from the Lady Garden” shirt.
    They’d love it!

  275. personally its all about the baby clothes. im in a best dressed baby death match with the other moms at daycare and my baby is KILLING it, but only bc i suppliment her wardrobe at thrift stores. truth be told if i picked her up and they were all wearing diapers i’d have to try the ol “call her name and hope the right one crawls towards me” routine.

  276. You’re not the only one. I can’t tell babies apart either. I thought it was because I’ve never actually had one, but I guess that’s not the case. Have they named the royal baby yet? I was hoping they’d name him Frunk.

  279. Does the town crier remind you of a monkey dressed as captain hook, or is it just me?

    I gotta say, I didn’t really care about this whole royal baby thing. I didn’t care when Beyonce (the person, not the rooster, because I actually would have wanted to see that) had one, or uhm… some other celebrity had one. Because really? I don’t know those people, and that baby (or those babies) have absolutely nothing to do with me. I like my personal babies. You know, my own, and the ones belonging to friends and family. It’s important that you get in on the ground floor with those ones, getting them to like good books and movies. Because you’re going to have to talk to them for the rest of your life, you might as well start early helping them be interesting.

  280. I am so glad I’m not the only person who can’t recognize her own car. I had to memorize my license plate.

  281. When my nieces were born I said things like, “She’s so cute!” more because I knew that was expected of me than because I thought they were cute. They’re cute now, but then, like all babies, they looked like blobs of almost-human. I want one eventually, but more because it’ll eventually be a child, and less because it will at one point be a baby.

  282. Hahaha….so true!! My first looked like a chicken and really underfed one, the second looked like a little old man and upon getting a closer look, I simply stated, My GOD I just gave birth to my father! The third, and last one ( it was a surprise) I had no clue how I got pregnant, although I am pretty sure it was the wine and should have named her Zinfandele, looked like another underfed chicken. I did wonder if I had slept with Frank Perdue!
    As for the Royals… congrats, but really her poor vagina, splayed out for the world to know!

  283. I hate all the pressure to tell people their baby is cute or adorable. They all look like babies to me. I just want to say “Ohhhh… it looks just like a baby!” And the pressure to hold babies. I won’t hold someone’s new baby. Have no desire to. Can’t handle the responsibility. Really. I was a bit concerned when I got pregnant that I wouldn’t think my babies were cute or want to hold them. But apparently, it makes a difference when they are yours. Good thing, too.

  284. I guess its a big deal when you carry something inside of you for 9 months. Its like having to wait for Christmas morning a really really long time and then discover that Santa gave you something that will suck the life out of you and make you the happiest person on the planet all at the same time. So then everyone wants to celebrate the life-sucking happiness 🙂 Add fame to that and you’re screwed. I think I dated one of your ex-starving artists from your past. Well, I can’t exactly say “dated” because it was more like inviting a stranger to live with you on the premise of ART and mutual connections (not you–I’ve only met you in print!) becoming engaged, and then realizing that we’re both too insane to be together. Its probably not the way a person should start out a relationship, but we didn’t have a baby or anything. I could draw you an imaginary baby though if you want–might endorse a comical perspective of our relationship! 😉

  285. Okay, this has totally cemented my imaginary friendship with you, because I hate babies. I’m happy to look at my friend’s babies, because they made them with their genitals, but babies in general… I just want nothing to do with them.

  286. Someone made me laugh with a meme they posted saying, “We fought the Revolutionary War so we wouldn’t have to care who the royal baby was.” I heartily agree.

  287. Awesome. 🙂 There was so much talk of the baby yesterday! It reminded me of the Sienfeld episode where they were forced to see the baby! hahahhaha! That was funny. 🙂

    I love babies. I love looking at babies, playing with babies and making baby noises to babies. I am that annoying lady who makes faces at your baby in the grocery store to make it smile. 🙂 And I don’t think they look alike either. Some are round little cherubs while others are angular and hairy. hahaha! Not that one is better than the other…mine were all bald little round cherubs. 🙂 Not bias in any way though!

  288. Oh good, it’s not just me. I’m childfree. One reason I am (there are many, many reasons) is because I freakin’ can’t stand babies. Call me when your little one is toddling about. I’m happy for them, and I can’t wait to hear the name, but I really don’t need to see a picture. I already know what Winston Churchill looks like.

  290. Awesome post, and I feel the same way. Babies are like homogenized milk and I can’t tell them apart until they’re teenagers and start demanding things.

  291. I feel the same way about babies in general. I liked mine better than most, but still. They are just little human blobs who don’t do much and need lots.
    I listen to the news on the radio at work every day. As much as I don’t care about the royal birth, I’d rather hear about that than crazy people shooting little children at school, another suicide bomber in the Middle East, and the lousy world economy. At least this isn’t depressing.
    As an aside, my highly introverted teenager feels sorry for the baby. She thinks that if he ever wants time alone or a moment out of the limelight, he’s pretty screwed.

  292. I was at my parents house a few weeks ago and she has the baby pictures of both my girls (they are 4 years apart) and neither my husband or I could not tell which one was which.
    You can’t even put different hats on them because they are hand me downs and it would be the same hats. It’s a problem.

  293. People want to see the baby because there have been a lot of bets (I live in Vegas where people even bet on Dog Shows) and one of the more popular one is if the baby will have red hair.

  294. I totally agree…I am thrilled when my friends have babies. Well, since I’m old, it’s now mostly my friends have grandbabies or their babies have had babies. But anyway I’m happy…but wish that they wouldn’t share photos every other day on Facebook (other than a different onsie the baby LOOKS THE SAME – and will (HELLO??) for about eight months). I also prefer NOT to hear about every step in the potty-training process…I don’t care if Eggbert had an accident last night or how long Mortiana had to sit on the potty chair. I’m also not fond of reports about spit up or breast pumps. I like to receive birth announcements and then have a quiet period…say until they graduation from college. That would be fine.

  295. I happen to think that all babies look like Ed Koch. Which is kind of awkward since babies should not be allowed to run major cities or decided cases in small claims court. Also, apparently Ed Koch passed away in February, I suspect some kind of baby conspiracy.

  297. I care for them in that thrice removed “empathy for my fellow human” type of way. I have no royal family and am not invested in any way in their lineage nor progeny. The sweet baby born to a woman on the Mongolian Steppe is just as important as this one. I can’t even make a joke about it, I am so divested of interest.

  298. I once read (or heard) that most new babies look like little old men and their faces resemble a boxing glove. I’ve had a lot of babies and seen that Benjamin Button movie and totally agree. And I would like to point out that the crier dude LOOKS LIKE A BABY!!! Am I right?

  299. I’m a labor and delivery nurse – and can attest that all babies pretty much look alike, in different shades, with a few exceptions – some are incredibly fat with awesome cheeks, and some have a birthmark in the center of their forehead (my son). 🙂
    Thank you for making me laugh out loud today. I heart you.

  303. Oh thank god. I thought I was the only one. Well, I figured I couldn’t be the only one who thought the town crier guy was really alarming, because…obviously. But I did think I was the only one who did not remotely care to see (or hear about, or obsess over) other peoples’ babies. People at my office are always bringing in their babies to show them off and I am really happy for them because they are so happy, but whenever I see a baby being lugged around I go into my office and close the door so I don’t have to “oooh” and “ahh” over something that just looks like every other baby I’ve ever seen. And then I sit in my office and wonder what’s wrong with me that I don’t want to do that stuff. But now that I read your post, I feel…normal. Well, about the baby thing, anyway.

  304. thank you thank you thank you. Note to self: stop reading this blog at lunch time. Hot sauce out the nose hurts.

  306. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one scratching my head over all the hoopla. Congrats to the new parents and all, and I get why people in England are excited because they are traditionally bound to give a flying fuck about what the royal family is doing. But here in ‘Murica? Where our forefathers fought at least two wars to NOT have to give a flying fuck? I just don’t get the whole “OH-EM-GEE SHE’S DUE ANY DAY NOW, OH-EM-GEE SHE’S AT THE HOSPITAL, OH-EM-GEE WILLIAM WAS IN!!! THE!! ROOM!!! WITH!!! HER!!!” I don’t get it.

    A side note, I don’t care if you are the direct heir to the throne of the universe, if you knocked me up and are NOT in the room with me when my body expels your spawn, I will personally and bare-handedly ensure you will never breed again. Unless you’re dead or something. Then I might let it slide.

  307. I never liked a baby until I had one. Not one. They can’t support their own heads. This fact alone freaked me out and I was the girl who never babysat and said, “Thanks but no thanks” to someone offering me to hold their baby.

    I am better now, but that head bobble thing, ((Shudder))

    PS The town crier looks like the 70’s/80’s puppet, Maude.
    PPS It may be the feathers.

  308. Ha that’s awesome. And yeah that town crier is giving me nightmares tonight. Babies are totally overrated. They scream, shit and are just needy. And let’s face it, are they really that cute?

  309. Have heard that the parents are modern and think outside the box, so wonder if they’ll plant the placenta in the royal palace gardens? Or sell it on eBay?

  310. I typed a comment and hit submit and then it seems to have vanished into thin air, I wonder what I drank just now. Anyway, I don’t get the hype around this whole royal baby thing either. I mean, they got married and had a baby which is all very nice I am sure but what’s the big deal? Does the baby have superpowers or something? Why are people so desperate to see the baby….like you said, all babies look alike and I am sure sooner or later, this one will make a public appearance. It is not like he will grow up by tomorrow, why are people camping outside the palace??
    On the other hand, some of the tweets are really funny. A couple of my favorites: “Imagine trying to give birth with entire world watching & live-tweeting it. I can’t even poop if I know somebody’s waiting for the bathroom.”, “The media frantically watching for the traditional sign the baby’s been born which is grey smoke issuing from the royal vagina.”

  311. I keep thinking “This isn’t the Messiah, people!” I will learn all about this kid when he/she (I honestly don’t know what it is) solves world hunger, brings peace to all earth kind, or introduces the universe to friendly E.T.’s who sail us into intergalactic citizenship. In the meantime, they successfully reproduced. Go England.

  312. I get excited about babies because they’re cute and squishy and so babyish, but I don’t feel the burning need to SEE the royal baby because, as you say, it’s going to look like a baby.

  314. I love babies, when they belong to friends and family and I can hug them and smell their cute powdery smell. But the hype about all these celeb babies…so disturbing. Of course, I barely fawn over any celeb like a lot of the world does so that may be the real difference with me. But seriously..America…we fought this crazy big war and won our independence so we wouldn’t have to bow down to British royalty. And here we are stopping our lives, spending hours refreshing twitter just hoping and praying for some ounce of news…WHY??!!!

  316. I’d like to say that my baby looked entirely different than any other baby i’ve ever seen. It could be the fact that she was 2 weeks late, very hairy and fat, with a unibrow, and she looked like a SUMO wrestler. But thtat old wives tale … ugly baby beautiful adult is entirely true. She’s now a gorgeous specimen 🙂

  317. Uh, yeah… totally with you. I’m at that terrible age where everyone is having babies and they’re all like, OH babies, they’re so cute and adorable and blergh… and I’m like… meh, it’s a baby. It looks like a baby. It cries and barfs and poops like a baby. Nothing special here. Cat playing a keyboard , though… awesome. Sloth giving a woman a flower… even more awesome. Baby, even a royal baby… whatevs. Good job, you flatbacked your way to producing something.

  318. I seriously thought that baby was born like 3 weeks ago. I was at the grocery store a few days ago and the woman in front of me commented on a tabloid headline to the tune of “Camilla Drunk while Kate is in Labor.” The woman said “the royal baby should be coming soon.” I said, “No, that thing was born a few weeks ago. Where have you been?”

    She probably went home to check out the tabloids online and felt pretty smug about how dumb I am. Yep, still don’t care.

  319. It’s not just you. Last night my hubs came running into the room where I was pretending to write a novel and declared exuberantly: “The princess had her baby!!!!” and I said, “Firstly, she’s not a princess, and secondly, she’s *not* the first person ever in the history of humanity to have had a baby. CALM. THE EFF. DOWN.”

    I swear he was more excited about the English royal child being born than he was for the two I blew out of my vagina just for him. Ungrateful.

  320. If you’re in the minority, so am I. Don’t care. Even a little bit. I like babies..just not strange babies..by that I don’t mean the royal baby is strange, just strange to me. I don’t care for babies who are unfamiliar (<better).

  322. I can totally see that town crier swinging from tree to tree when he’s not town criering (or whatever it’s called that he does). A monkey ate mah baby!!!!

  323. you are too funny! Has been far too long since I have visited your site! I am with you … no overly concerned over the royal baby. Happy for the happy couple, sure, but this is a child that has no bearing on my life…just nicer to see newcasts talking about something happy for once! Doom and gloom has been replaced by baby stalking! hooray

  324. Perhaps royalty give birth out of a different orifice. And then there’s a spank with the golden spoon. If the baby cries, it’s usually because the spoon is not 24-Carat gold.

  325. Oh Jenny,
    I love you. Your post totally turned my “this day is so shitty/I think I’m bat-shit crazy/why are children so noisy” day into a “I’m ok (I think) day.”
    Or maybe that’s just the wine cooler talking.
    Either way. Thank you for making me laugh on an otherwise shitty day. 🙂

  326. This post x infinity. When the ‘big moment’ came, the most positive thought I had was ‘wow…that seemed like a pretty quick pregnancy’ and was quickly followed by a ‘i don’t give a shit’ and changed the channel…only to find it on EVERY. FUCKING.CHANNEL. I’m pretty sure my better half was getting ready to pull out a tranq gun for a my sporadic shouting of I DON’T CARE GET OFF MY TV SHUT UP ALREADY NOBODY GIVES A SHIT!!! I finally landed on cartoon network who, like me, don’t give a shit. I should stay only on that channel. Except then they play the Bugs Bunny remakes and that just gets me worked up on a whole other level. But you’re absolutely right…babies are babies, they all look the same. Except the ugly ones, they are the only real remarkable babies. They stand out.

    So yeah, another baby, or as Bill Burr would put it, “just another in the way person”. Great comic, I love his stuff. Him and Louis CK.

    Ok I’m off topic, almost out of peanut butter m&m’s and need to actually get some work done.

    Thank you for making my day Jenny!

  328. I’m with you. I dont care about the royal baby. I consider myself a non-breeder, because frankly I didnt breed. It’s not like I am virtuous or a nun, or anything, quite the contrary. Babies are like little glazed sticky donuts that scream and poo and dont let you sleep. Why would you want that? Why? And that town crier? Did anyone check the registered offenders records on that dude?

  329. A local radio station was asking if people thought she’d shaved her vadge. /dead. I’m so done with babygate 2013. Can we bring on some new episodes of Dr. Who please? That is of way more interest to me.

  330. Completely agree. I hate babies. However, I’m the type of person who prefers to surround herself with as many cats as possible.

  331. I’m with you on this baby train. Never having one, 5 miscarriages, there never was the need to have kids. Give me the kittens, have 2. All babies look like Winston Churchhill. They do not smell good cry constantly & cost a lot of money. Except for the new prince who will never know what a job is or want for anything ever. Kittens anyone?

  332. I literally say all the time that babies are not cute until like 6 months. They look like wrinkled aliens. No offense to any babies reading this, it just takes time guys, ok? Keep the cone head under control for a while (and I can totally say this cause my head was awfully cone like for FAR too long and I was just super unattractive. Still haven’t really grown out of that phase unfortunately…..)

  333. I’m just glad to be able to hear and/or read about something NICE, like a new baby being born to two people who are thrilled to have him. Unlike the other kind of news that we seem to get every single day about death, murder, diseases, war, hate.. y’know, the garbage the world generally spews out. Babies, anyone’s babies, royal or not are nice to think about.

  334. I have actually gotten into the wrong car more than once. Why do people leave cars unlocked?! The last time I wondered why someone put all this crap in my car…then I tried to start it & realized it wasn’t my car. Which also explained the cutesy sticker on the back window that I didn’t remember putting there.

  335. My brother has always asserted that all babies look like Winston Churchhill: fat and bald. They just need a cigar.

  336. Yep all babies look like Winston Churchill. Also they scare me because they break really easily and you can’t buy the parents a replacement.
    The thing I love about the whole announcement is that the Town Crier wasn’t officially sanctioned – he was just some old dude who decided he wanted to announce the royal birth like the Tudors where still on the throne.

  338. I can’t remember if I did birth announcements. I think I did. But my mom is totally harping on the fact that I never got around to putting in my daughter’s wedding announcement in the paper last year. What is the rule on that one??

  339. I agree. They pretty much all look the same. I almost breast fed the wrong baby when I had my first child. Lucky they write their names on them!!

  340. Yeah, it’s nice that their baby is healthy. I actually managed to avoid the news that she’d given birth until I read the Cake Wrecks post this morning and was all, “Oh, so I guess Kate had a boy.”
    But I have been able to tell babies apart. I say this because when I was in college, one of my friends had her fridge bedecked with pictures of her then-baby niece. (I think it was a niece, not a nephew.) This particular baby was . . . not attractive. Nose too big, eyes too close together, just not cute. Yet this friend talked at length with me and another friend about how some person unknown to us had, upon viewing the pictures, said, “That’s an ugly baby,” and was told to leave.
    Ugly-baby’s aunt then made me and the other friend state whether we thought the baby was cute. I happened upon the one picture on the fridge where the baby looked cute (big smile that balanced out the nose) and was able to reassure the aunt that her niece was cute. Other friend muttered something about how “the weird hat” the baby wore in many of the pictures may’ve led to person-unknown-to-us’s comment.
    I think that would have been easier for me if I had a filter where babies=automatically cute.

  341. Bahahaha yeah I love the “page” / “town crier” LOL I’m one of the few Americans that love this situation.. probably in the minority- but I’m used to it.. LOL AND yes I totally cried when I saw Kate and Wills with the baby. I’m a sad sap like that.. 😉

  342. Okay, the baby is like a day old now and we’re still talking about it? Pretty sure I heard it was a boy, probably, and not any hedgehog variant. Which is cool because it means that the royals still have functional sex organs and her womb didn’t explode with some mutant. Great! I hope they named it Prince Chewbacca Ascending.

    But can’t we talk about cheese? Or even lip balm. I’m in search of a good lip balm. I have several but I need more. It’s not an addiction, though; I can stop any time I want.

    Is it November yet? I need Doctor Who and Sherlock to be on now. New ones. Preferably new ones that have very little in the way of Obligatory Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) writing things because he writes as well as I skateboard when drunk. Which is about as well as when sober, but the point is I’m not very good at it. And neither is he.

    Oh. But if you like Dr. Who and Sherlock, you should watch Jekyll on Netflix because it’s hilarious, awesome and any other superlative that will coerce you to watch it. Just… watch.

    I’m going to go ramble elsewhere now. I feel like that friend who had too much to drink and you shouldn’t let her drive home but you want her out of your house (comments) but you don’t have a taxi service anywhere local and you’re already in your pajamas so you just hope she falls asleep on the couch without destroying or barfing on anything.

    …so I’m gonna go now.

  344. Yes, babies are boring. As Angelena Jolie put it, “they are like slugs”! (or something like that, don’t quote me quoting her)
    I think all babies should come with a town crier, because when the baby cries you can punch the town crier in the face. Like it was his fault, and you feel better, and the baby that looks like every other baby is safe.
    It works out for everyone, and I’m pretty sure that is what town criers were invented for…..I’m from Engalnd I should know. Please, next time you see a town crier punch them in the face, they’ll thank you.
    I dont have babies, or want one of my own, I like my vagina….

  345. Don’t feel bad, I had trouble recognizing my own baby at day care, too. There was another baby, same age but a girl, who looked just like him. Duh.
    All I can say to the new parents is, Don’t let David Bowie anywhere near that baby unless you want to go labyrinth wandering.

  347. You are not alone in this. We recently had another baby. We had a name picked out, but weren’t telling people (because you can’t tell before the baby is born, because everyone will hate it, and they are obligated to like it after the baby is born.)

    My son asked why we weren’t using the name. I told him because we wanted to wait until the baby was born, and look at the baby and make sure the name fitted him, that he looked like the name.

    My son’s response: “That’s stupid. All babies look the same.”

  348. What impresses me most is how Wills and Kate broke with tradition.

    Giving their son, the future King of England, the name “Possum” is just awesome.

    King Possum has such a ring to it.

    Maybe you could give him something stuffed for his bassinet castle?

  349. That dude is seriously creepy. LOL I have to admit though, I was lost in the hubbub the last few days. I just want to know if someone did her hair while she was breastfeeding. No mom looks that good right after giving birth. Good gawd.

  350. My kid totally looked like an alien when she was born. And I can honestly say that she didn’t look like other babies, only because she had an entire head of hair. Full, black hair. Bald baby? Heck no. She may have morphed into a blonde, but she insisted on having hair from the very moment of entry on this earth.

    As for the royals, I only care because I’m a royal history geek. I love just looking at the family tree of Europe. It’s like a puzzle of who’s related to who and can entertain lively conversations on what constitutes incest.

  351. I don’t know if anyone else caught this, because I don’t have six hours to read all the comments, but my local radio morning show interviewed the town crier guy, who was not official nor was he hired – he just showed up and did his town crier thing http://fox2now.com/2013/07/23/royal-baby-town-crier-a-fake/

    I am similarly bored with the whole subject – I was bored with it well before the royal birth happened. I wish them well, as I would anyone with a new baby…and I think, as always, “glad I’m done with all that.” 🙂

  352. I agree, when it comes to the Royal family I don’t care what the baby looks like. Congrats to them, but I don’t need my news crammed with all things Royal family. I don’t care. I am thinking of dressing as the town crier for Halloween though. That’s a pretty scary get up.

  353. I haven’t read through all the comments so I don’t know if someone else thought this too. That crier looks like some Dr. Who creature whose mouth is going to open wide enough to swallow in one gulp anyone with the misfortune to be nearby. Ca-reepy…..

  354. huh. the expensive parasites have a new larva.

    regular baby of someone i know = yawn *remembers politely to say “oh, what a beautiful baby”

    regular baby of stranger = total blank

    royal baby = what is this shit? isn’t there some riveting golf news you could be broadcasting? get outta my way. i got paint to watch dry.

  355. I just remember seeing pics of Baby Grouch and thinking, “Wow, I thought she was SO CUTE then. Eh. She was okay I guess. But, she’s SO CUTE now. So, I can only guess what I’ll be thinking a year from now. 🙂

  356. I am so glad I am not alone. I don’t grok babies. Puppies, kittens, sloths even, but babies I can skip. Doodling on your baby’s foot- stroke of genius! I would probably have to do the same. If I were smart enough to think of it, anyway.

  357. I getcha. I cringe whenever anybody busts out the Family Photos.

    To quote Dennis Reynolds:

    “I don’t want to hear about your dream, okay? I hate listening to people’s dreams. It’s like flipping through a stack of photographs. If I’m not in any of them, and nobody’s having sex, I just… don’t care. “

  358. It’s just a young couple who had a baby for goodness sake – why is this baby any different to all those other babies born in the world about the same time. An accident of birth – poor little thing, he will be harassed for the rest of his life. I’m with you Jenny – babies are sweet cute and smelly. But, they mostly all look alike – human.

  359. While I generally dislike the instant stardom of celebrity babies, I would much rather hear about a wanted, loved-by-millions little boy than another horrible news story about a child being murdered in their classroom, or blown up, or poisoned, or somehow otherwise treated sickeningly. Enjoy the silly, happy news and let it be what it is. Silly, happy, drivel that provides a little balance to an otherwise intolerable onslaught of shitty news.

  360. All babies do look pretty much alike, except for mine. I had twins and one came out big, fat, and happy and the other one looked like a half drowned rat for the first month of his life. That is now one of his favorite stories to hear.

  361. I was going to skip this post due to the content referring to ‘babies’ and of all babies, a baby I did not personally know the parents of. I’m glad I didn’t. You are my people!
    Baby animals: YES
    Baby humans: NO

  362. I completely agree. Babies look like dried plums. If we put all the babies in a giant jar and labeled it, “Prunes,” people would be eating them to relax their bowels and they’d never know the difference. Not that we SHOULD put babies in a jar, I just mean if it ACCIDENTALLY happened…

  364. Aha! ’twas only when I read the comments that I realised you said that he looked like he could inhale a baby WHOLE. I read it as ‘whale’ which actually made sense to me as I glanced at the picture and thought, eh, a whole orca perhaps….maybe not a sperm whale. Not everyone can swallow a sperm whale. Uh…I’ll stop there I think.

  365. Yes! I am not alone! It’s a baby. I’m happy they’re happy, but it’s still a baby.

  366. Since some have been lamenting a lack of slow lorises in their lives, you should check out this wonderful children’s book called “Slow Loris,” written and illustrated by Alexis Deacon.

    http://www.amazon.com/dp/192913228X

    I also highly recommend another one of his works: “Beegu.”

  367. I don’t get it at all. It’s a baby. A baby is a baby. They are basically larvae and do nothing interesting. Call me when it’s old enough to kick a football or play Playstation or shoot nerf guns, then they are actually fun.
    PS. maybe you should doodle pictures of angry cats on your car?

  368. Like you, I’m happy for them. Like you, I think all babies look the same.

    With the whole ‘unhinge the jaw’ – have you been reading Artemis Fowl? I luuurve that dwarf. My son also loved Artemis Fowl, so much that the child who hardly read, read those books over and over again.

  369. I live in a small country called Scotland… more commonly thought of as that bit north of England. I am completely underwhelmed by the Royal baby. I didn’t party during the Jubilee and I didn’t watch the Royal wedding (I was drinking rum in Shetland… Google Map it cos it’s quite far away from London.) I also quite strongly believe that Scotland shouldn’t be part of the United Kingdom/Great Britain. Despite all that… the baby isn’t going to be King of England, he’s going to be King of Britain (just hopefully that won’t include Scotland by the time he is crowned)

  370. I’m with you on this one – I am from the UK and am just impressed he has more hair than his dad, though lets face it is he destined to losing his hair as he gets older – genes are a b*tch sometimes. Yep, he is a future king but as far as I can see he looks like any other baby and is already well trained already not to cry in front of the cameras. I didn’t even know about the town crier but to be fair I have stayed away from the TV.

    You see I am a bit fickle – I don’t watch the news because it is always bad new but the minute we get 5 news headlines about the new baby before a headline about someone being murdered I comment on that too. Not that I want someone to be murdered, nor am I a sadist of course…..

    I am sure that I might get slated by this being British and all but some argue the UK needs a monarchy because it is good for tourism – really, really! Is that the only reason we have a monarchy? If so, pretty sad reason.

    Rant over lol.

  371. Amen sista!

    But my mom thinks I should be happy there is good news on TV for a change. And she doesn’t want to hear about how I’m happy for England, but only in a “hey that’s cool” kind of way and not a “OMG!!!!!” kind of way.

  372. I really struggle with being excited over people’s babies. I wouldn’t be so annoyed by new moms if they could talk about anything other than poop, sleep cycles, and the wonders of breast milk. I think it’s really only fun to talk about other people’s kids once said kids start mimicking their parents swearing. Those stories are funny. Until then, can we all just agree not to share daily updates on poop consistency??

  373. Yep, I could care less. I was just talking to the hubs about that last night. I don’t get all the frenzy with the royal family. I kind of understand the Brits taking interest, but Americans? No. I believe people get to crazy and nosy with them. I would only want to see that baby if it had some awesome/weird thing going with it. All babies do look wayyyyy tooo much alike. I’m also not ashamed to admit MOST babies are ugly when born and up to a few months old. Their all scraggaly (sp?) and wrinkled. Gross. I have 2 kids. They came out yellow. Jaundice. Not really pretty… so at least i’m not biased. Oh well. Congrats Kate and whatever his name his.

  374. Didn’t we fight a coupe of wars with good ol’ England so we could not give a shit about the king/queen/princes of England? I realize we are all buddy buddy now and all, but really? Why should I care? Get me some pictures of her sister, Pippa naked, and I can make a fortune selling them. But other than that England is just a convenient place for airlines to stop for gas on the way to the rest of Europe….where all the fun stuff happens.

  375. I was excited about the baby because I’ve recently decided that being the Queen of England wouldn’t be a bad day gig. With Charles and William already married, it seemed like the new baby was a sort of “third time’s the charm” situation (although I did worry that the 44 year age difference might be just a tad much). Sadly, I realized the new baby isn’t likely to be King for another 50 years if not more, and becoming Queen at 94 didn’t appeal nearly as much. Sigh.

    Ah well, on to my next plot to take over the world, Pinky.

  376. It took me years to admit to people that I would rather see their new puppies than their new babies. I agree with you – I like to see how happy the new parents are, but babies pretty much look alike.

    And the car thing – I had mine for 5 years before I could pick it out of a parking lot. Now it is covered in hail dents. That makes it easier to spot.

  377. Every child deserves a memorable childhood. That town crier is memorable, surely. Babies are babies, royalty or not. Too much fuss given on it.

  378. I find myself today and yesterday oddly intrigued by the royal family. I was able to ignore their existence after Di was killed (she was an intriguing lady) and didn’t care to see the wedding whenever it was. As for seeing the baby, yeah, they all kind of look squishy & angry the first couple months anyway. I appreciate that new parents are in love/awe/shock over bringing a new person into the world, but like you I don’t really need to see pictures of stranger’s babies.

  379. (heh, and am I the only person who ever wondered if William used this lien of seduction: “Hey baby, wanna make a king together?”)

  381. I always thought that new babies look like pink wrinkled gorillas.

    Except mine. Mine were beautiful…

  383. Ok I’ll admit I looked it up this morning. Not that I don’t agree with you on all babies looking the same, cuz they totally do (and that’s why they need bracelets at the hospital!), but because I’m seven weeks pregnant and I already puked twice today and I needed a reminder that will all end happily. You would think that my two other kids are reminder enough but for some reason I can’t explain they smell like toast to me and its disgusting and I just wish they’d go away.
    As for the fact that she pushed the baby out of her vagina, good for her. I happen to know how stinking hard that is. And I’m sure she’s really embarrassed for everyone to know and I certainly don’t need any further details.

  384. don’t feel bad the only babies I ever had any interest in just watching was my own and then it was just because I was amazed that I had actually pushed that out of me.

  385. That town crier looks like he is made of anger and nightmares. I think he might be a Dalek in there. It looks like he is screaming EXTERMINATE over and over. Imma go hide in my pillow fort for awhile, okay?

  386. My hubby says all babies look like Winston Churchill. I think he’s on to something and so are you! I was tired of the Royal Baby 2 weeks ago when the media started hanging out in front of building like vultures. And that town crier? He’s not an official – he just did that for his own personal fun. Really?

  387. Did y’all see the news this morning? That town crier was a fake. Who knew that was a thing?? Is nothing sacred?

  388. I love reading your blogs! It’s my little ‘mental health break’ every day. Keep writing!

  390. I wanted to thank you for the “My Favorite Things” post. I read other peple’s list (had to stop after nearly 1,000). Then I wrote out my list. I loved seeing what others love that I might love too. But after I wrote my list, I felt rich. I have all these favorite things, material & otherwise. I already have them. Even though I am struggling, I feel rich at this moment. I appreciate my good fortune. I am lucky.

  391. Sigh… I failed “commenting 101” and my pearls of wisdom vanished like ice cream on a hot sidewalk. Except ice cream leaves that funny grease spot on your concrete even after you wash it off, and my comment totally vanished.

    Anyway, I’d like to send everyone over to librivox, podcastle, and escapepod — and if you like whimsical stories that happen to have dragons and wizards and talking animals, or if you just need something safe for your child to do on a road trip, make sure you search on “Squonk the Dragon” by PMButler.

    Good night Mrs. Tweedlechirp, wherever you are.

  392. EXACTLY! They all look the same. I hate it when I get nasty glares cause I couldn’t tell if the baby was a boy or a girl. If your kid isn’t clothed in pink or blue, forget about it and stop glaring at me. They preempted some tv last night to spend an hour on the baby. I know people who care, but I’m not one of them. If it’s not a close friend or relative’s kid, YAWN.

    So thank you. And if there’s something wrong with you then I have the same wrongness. 😉

  393. Having lived in England, I get the royal baby frenzy. Don’t worry, they are mostly speaking amongst themselves. It’s like when we have a “World Series” with baseball and don’t invite anyone in the world to play but American teams, but the results gets broadcasted all over the world. They have to put up with our enormous egos when reuters picks up our news feeds, so we can just drive on and ignore anything that doesn’t interest or affect us regarding their news. It’s all good.

  395. Upon further review, I am absolutely certain that the town crier is indeed Mel Brooks.

  396. When I was having my baby (my mother’s first and only grandchild), I asked my mother if she wanted to see him over Skype when we brought him home from the hospital. She said, “Nah…they all look like chickens anyway.” I tease her about it now that she is the typical obsessed grandmother.

  397. Thank you! You are truly the voice of reason on this. I didn’t get the hype over the royal wedding either. But perhaps that is because I am American and I don’t understand the significance of the royal family to the UK. Also, I used to love babies until I had five miscarriages. Now I hate babies. They are just a cute reminder of the failure of my lady bits ( or”hootchie” to borrow your nurse’s word). It is kind of like having a unicorn call you a loser which is SO much worse than having a bully call you a loser. You can never hurt a unicorn with a witty comeback … They’re fucking magical and everyone loves them.

  398. Here it’s white vehicles. North Carolina is almost entirely peopled by drivers of white or sometimes silver (a.k.a. road colored) automobiles. I don’t understand this decision on the part of the mob mentality. We have birds here, you know. That stuff totally shows up on white cars.

    You should make bumper stickers to help the car-face challenged among us.

  400. In all fairness, I live in the North of England and I am sick to fucking death of coverage of the royal quim. That an overpriveledged girl has succesfully performed the single function of the human race and fired one out is not of consequence to me. But you know, I hate to be that person and say this, but: The Child (no idea what they’ve called it, don’t wish to look it up) will eventually be the monarch of the UK (Scotland and NI, this includes you right now, whether you like it or not)… and you know, pretty much everywhere else that has the current Liz on their paper money.

  401. Also, Jill – there is little significance of the royal family to the UK unless you’re 70 and remember the previous abdication. Most of us just go along with it because it puts us in the same category as cool countries like Denmark and the Netherlands.

  402. yeah, i’m not into babies either. i think it’s adorable that will and kate shacked up and started propagating immediately, but i bet that’s a rule. like, once you’re married the queen demands you get to the hanky panky and make me another heir.

    or something.

    maybe that’s why they ‘dated’ for so long. they knew that they’d have to get to the baby making on their honeymoon.

    but yeah. babies? eh. they shriek and smell funny. i have cats for that.

  403. I’m sure someone’s already posted, but the crier was an uninvited party crasher.

  404. This post literally brought me out of my hormonal depression I’ve been stuck in for 4 days. I love you (but not in a creepy way, I promise).

  405. probably an unpopular opinion – babies are all pretty creepy looking until they are like.. at minimum six months old. before that they are a little too fresh from the..nether regions.

  406. I feel kind of sorry for William and Kate. They are going to have no privacy to raise their family. Everywhere they go there will be people taking photos of that baby, it’s going to be the most photographed child ever. At least when Lady Di was raising the boys the cameraphone hadn’t been invented yet!

  407. I wish that crier guy announced my day for me. AND NOW…Michelle is going to languish in a cubicle and pretend to work for 8 hours.

  408. Is it just me, or is the town crier making the same face as the weeping angels do when they’re about to pounce?

  409. If you site allowed attachments, I would TOTALLY post a picture for you of my kids when they were babies…but it doesn’t, so get on that will ya?

  410. I wish Mr. Windsor-Mountbatten well, and fervently hope that he was civilized enough to be smoking in the waiting room during the Blessed Event, and that he was not present to witness The Destruction of His Wife’s, The Duchess of Cambridge’s, Vagina*. I mean, his sex life is effectively over now, barring the reintroduction of concubines, but that’s something no one should be forced to watch.

    *In a rare happenstance, this is the proper word, as it is not a mistaken use for the more correct “vulva.”

  411. I don’t know, every time I see a cute baby I am torn between “Awwwww, how cute, I miss my babies” and “OMG I am so glad I can’t have any more babies!”

  412. I dont know, I was excited for this. They really did look so adorable holding their prince. I was really sad though because Diana wasnt there. As far as babies go .. I love them all .. as long as they arent coming home with me.

  415. For the people asking about last names, I once heard they change their last name to where they are “of” so I believe they are William and Catherine Cambridge.

  416. In total agreement, I really don’t care about that baby. Glad it is healthy, as I do for all babies born. I’m more excited that Jimmy Fallon and his wife Nancy had a baby girl the next day.

  417. You know what that Town Crier looks like?

    A pilgrim mixed with a British Revolutionary War solider (red coat). Hm.

    So… are the British coming? Are they fucking with us and hiding the fact by announcing something as adorable as a newborn baby? Color me confused. Way to use a baby as a pawn, England. Well played.

  418. Hi there. I love your blog. I’m an American in London so I’ve completely been hearing about this baby for ages. But, quite honestly, I think there is more ‘hoopla’ in the States about it then here (from what I’ve gathered from friends there). It’s cute but funny.

    I also wanted to let you know that I found the perfect pub for you…when I walked in, you were the first person I thought of. It’s in York and called The House of the Trembling Madness and I took this picture to show you why you should go there should you ever visit York, England: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukyankee/9362333233/

  420. I’ve had two of ’em and I’m not a giant fan of babies. Oh it’s wonderful and all that but they all look the same to me. They don’t resemble anyone else no matter what grandma says. They all have the same mooshed faces, the same squinty, half closed eyes. Yes, this one’s got dark hair and that one’s a different ethnicity than this other one. They all look vaguely larval. And believe it or not, but people don’t like being told their offspring looks like larva.

  421. First and foremost, I totally need a slow loris! That can’t even be real! I think Dr Suess made it up.

    Secondly, I can’t imagine you have time to read thru all the comments you get. really. I get excited if I have something to add and I am under #500. Kudos to you! I am not the only one who thinks you are wonderful/1 😀

    Their last name, although they don’t really need one is Windsor. Or Windsor-Montelbaum or something like that.

    And of course, I had the most beautiful babies ever. I say that with absolutely no bias.

    Thank you for making me smile. I look so much better this way.

    Oh yeah, and remember: you are unique! just like everybody else. 😉

  422. the media likes to shove shit down our throats. i’d rather have the royal baby talked about on a daily basis than that friggin kraptrashian/compass west baby. 15 mins of tv whore fame producing a baby is NOT the same as a royal baby which is an actual “give a shit” moment, because the royal baby is important. Boom, you got burnt kraptrashians! the royal baby is a legacy in history. i hate babies, and children in general… but i’ll pick my poison on this one 😉

  423. I’m a Brit who couldn’t give a flying fuck if she’d birthed a baby, a whale or the unholy spawn of David Cameron (given that there were massive storms over the Isles after the birth, I’d say it’s probably the latter). There are a few of us non-carers in the country but we tend to keep quiet in case the tide of fevered countrywide aww-its-an-ickle-thing should turn its malevolent gaze in our direction and force us to watch the jubilee footage over and over and over again. Or read the Daily Mail.
    And now they’re talking about how she can lose the ‘baby bump’. Am thinking of adopting a news blackout until the damn thing is 18.

  424. Jenny, are you trying to have a Angelina Jolie baby-gate, just with Royals? LOL

  425. Best part is, that town-crier was apparently nothing to do with the Royals at all, and was just some random chap who felt the need to go and shout about it. So that’s nice.
    I am also mostly indifferent to babies, but it’s sort of cool that this baby will one day be my King.

  427. Turns out the town crier was a fake…. just an enthusiastic local who wanted to get involved.

    Yikes.

  428. Wowzers, so many comments!!

    The town crier wasn’t an official one. A lot of US news sources were apparently taken in.

    As for their last name, officially it is Cambridge. Before they were made Duke and Duchess, Prince William was William Wales, after his father, who was originally Windsor. I know, it gets confusing.

    Anyway, I think most babies look like potatoes. I’m thrilled for them of course, but it is going to be several years before he becomes king. And I’d have liked them to have a girl – first girl who could be Queen in her own right, not simply because she didn’t have a brother.

  429. Did anybody notice that the town crier is covered with impressive medals and badges? One might hope that if you’ve accomplished enough to be literally wallpapered with medals and badges, one could get a better job than town-cryer.

  430. Sincereness? New word? 🙂
    I’m English and I quite like the royals and I also really like babies, so I was quite please about little Georgie Porgies arrival (but WHY did they have to call him that??) But I know a lot of people are very underwhelmed about the whole thing. I think the media has gone totally OTT about it. Hope they’ll leave him in peace now until he’s 18 or so. Vain hope, poor little chap.

  431. I think the craziest thing about all this is……..I can never remember their last name either. I asked my husband last time but I don’t want him to know that I forgot already [not that he cares either]. S’okay though……I also made the mistake the other day of calling her a ‘princess’ on a message board, to which a more-royalty-savvy individual informed me that she is actually a ‘duchess’. I said “My bad. I guess I’m not keeping up on things like I should……I gave up fairy tale world, like, 32 years ago when I was 5”.

  432. I’m happy for them, but don’t totally get it either. I’m excited about MY baby, but anyone else’s doesn’t thrill me as much.

  433. I just clicked your slow loris link, which was cute and all but HELLO, in the related videos was a link to an elephant giving birth. And THAT deserves a town crier. And also I will probably have nightmares tonight, featuring terrible cascades and my own uterus, and that’ll be your fault.

  434. It was refreshing to see that Kate, last name unknown, still had a bit of a baby bump a whole 24 hours after giving birth!! She just may be human after all!!!

  435. I share your baby-face-blindness. I remember embarrassing myself with my daycare provider once as I demonstrated this. I knew that a new baby was starting there, and when I came one afternoon to collect my daughter (who was then safely into the toddler stage, herself), I saw the daycare provider holding a baby that looked unfamiliar to me. “Oh, is that the new baby?” I asked, pretending to show an interest. She looked at me oddly, as she explained to me that no, this was the baby that had been coming to her home for a few months. You know, the one I’d seen basically twice a day every day for 8 or 9 weeks. In my defense, the baby was wearing a hat, which was not part of his daily costume. I can’t be expected to recognize a baby in disguise. (Though I’m now entertaining the idea of seeing whether people could recognized their babies with fake moustaches.)

  436. Apparently the town cryer was just an actor who dressed up and announced the birth!! Hahahaha…

  437. Yeah, I don’t like looking at babies either. They all look like either: a.) wrinkled, purple raisins; or b.) disturbingly swollen purple raisins, like the kind that will probably give you ebola if you eat them. The raisins, not the babies. Don’t eat babies, they all have ebola.

    However I will say this isn’t just one more celebrity spawn. People care because he’s the future king. Not quite the same category as raisins named after compass points.

  438. Ok you probably won’t read this idk if you actually read comments or ones from past posts but it was just pointed out to me and it changed my whole thinking of this whole Royal baby thing…

    William is Royal, Kate is not that makes baby George a Half Blooded Prince and if you remember your Harry Potter correctly. The Half Blooded Prince is born in the seventh month the one who has the power to defeat Voldemort and also well has to die but he’s still a baby so we can let that slide for now!

    So if you think about it the new Royal baby is actually Harry Potter and in about 16-17 years things are gonna start going crazy.

  440. Angry cats, you say? Now I have a solution to picking my baby out of crowd. Although, I don’t have a baby. I’ll test this out on my niece.

  442. OMG when I was pregnant with my first son and started touring daycares, I was COMPLETELY freaked out because all the little babies looked the same and I was seriously worried I would not recognize mine when I went to pick him up. I thought, okay, I’ll make sure I remember what he’s wearing…but then what if they have to change his clothes??? I am not usually a worrier but seriously, that kept me up at night for awhile.

  443. Oh, Jenny…how I love you…

    You took the words right out of my mouth. All of the words. Seriously, give them back.

    I still love you, even though you’re a word thief.

  444. I’m going to have to admit I’m about the only person in the world who got interested in the gender and the name of the baby.

  445. ‘angry cats’ – hahahaha! that’s amazeballs! don’t be too hard on yourself, i have NO idea how people get that whole face/person association down. diplomats do it and i find that fascinating but even they’re only capable of remembering everything because 1. they’ve been trained, 2. they have a “person” for that or 3. they have a photographic memory. If it’s the latter, screw them! I hate those people. Anyway, to get back on topic, totally agree on the baby front – I.DON’T.GET.IT. But props to those who do….

  446. I can’t stop laughing. Because you’re hilarious. And because when my daughter was born we called her ‘meerkat baby’ because she had that look…not a slow loris, but definitely not just a baby.
    Still laughing.

  448. I love that you love the Slow Loris! One of my favourite nocturnal critters! If you ever come to the UK go to London Zoo and check out their nocturnal habitat x

    PS – the royal baby furore was stupid.

  449. I’m just narked they missed the golden oppertunity to name our future monarch Joffrey.

  450. The only thing I was interested in during The Royal Baby Watch of 2013 is if they would break tradition and name the kid Dillon or something like that. Not to be.

    They are breeding like rabbits at work but I’m out of the loop since I was handed an ultrasound photo and commented that she was having a hamster.

  451. Clearly you need to turn your car into an Art Car. I suggest covering it with taxidermy, then it’ll be unique.

  454. Holy crap! And, no, I’m not referring to his Royal Highness’s diaper load. I, too, am befuddled by the barrage of attention that this birth has received. In fact, I posted something on Facebook to the effect of “I don’t give a rat’s ass about the gender, size, or anything else about the royal offspring as he is no more special than any other baby” and received hate mail from my supposed friends and loved ones. Hate mail! Ugh. This kid hasn’t even got teeth yet and he’s waging wars and biting me in the ass.

  455. THANK YOU! because i wasn’t sure which baby at the daycare was mine after they changed her clothes one day. doodling on her foot is a GENIUS idea and will also give me something to do while she eats breakfast.

  456. As an American. It is my firm belief that many ppl died in a war to not have to care about the royal family. Hence, I could care less about them. Oh, and I am half Irish. And well we all know how that little thing went.

    So, ummm, support the our veterans and fail to care about the British royalty!

    ‘MURICA!!!

  457. I totally understand what you mean about making sure you picked up the right kid at daycare. I live in an area where 99% of the people are Dutch; that is to say that they are all blonde with blue eyes. I had problems picking out my kids (who are Asian) out of the baby room. I felt like a horrible mother.

  458. I don’t care about the royal family or their baby either (although I do like to see pictures of my friends babies.) Strangers babies are entirely uninteresting to me. You’re sense of humor is all-right, I guess. Though I’m disturbed by the ‘forgetting’ what your baby looks like when you get them from daycare. I figured you were being utterly sarcastic because that’s just atrocious and unheard of. But then I read a comment of some chick who was like “OMG I totally forgot what my baby looked like too.” And then I had to SMH at my laptop. Maybe I only find it terribly despicable because I’m an AP, Homeschooling, Anti-Daycare kind of mamma. Still, I suppose your pretty funny. Prescription drugs are bad, M’kay? You should try homeopathics. Or not.

  462. I live in a small town where people leave their cars and homes unlocked. I’ve been known to get into other people’s blue mini-vans and have a panic attack be size my key suddenly stopped working and now I have to call my husband and we’ll both be late for work. Then I look over at the passenger seat and see a bucket of tools and think, “Who the fuck put tools in my car? Dumbass.”

  463. Sorry about the typos in the last one…I’m not drunk, I swear.

    I live in a small town where people leave their cars and homes unlocked. I’ve been known to get into other people’s blue mini-vans and have a panic attack that my key suddenly stopped working and now I have to call my husband and we’ll both be late for work and the kids will miss the bus. Then I look over at the passenger seat and see a bucket of tools and think, “Who the fuck put tools in my car? Dumbass.” Then some nice employee comes out of the coffee shop and graciously points to the OTHER blue mini-van in the parking lot.

  464. Several thoughts for you… We were on the Jameson Distillery tour while we were in Dublin last month, and they have two 100+ year old stuffed cats in an exhibit. Apparently they were such good mousers that they were memorialized for posterity.

    Babies are okay when you can give them back after they stop being entertaining. I am something of a baby whisperer and seem to get on fine with them, probably because I am so immature, and they sense a kindred spirit.

    I used to have a dark grey car, the same dark grey car as every other car in the lot, so I used to end up wandering up and down a couple of aisles of cars pushing my clicker, listening for the beeps and looking for lights. Now I drive a mint green scooter with a shiny silver seat. It stands out.

  466. So true. I was flipping through pictures of my newborn baby on my phone and saw one that made me say, “Weird. He looks really red. must be the light .” Showed my mom who pointed out that it was a picture of someone else’s baby. I literally studied it for minutes before I realized she was right. i probably could have taken home a completely different child from the hospital and would not have known until people were like, “Isn’t your husband white?”.

    Also, that town cried fellow looks suspiciously monkey-like in that photo.

  467. Birth announcements? We’re supposed to give out birth announcements when babies are born? I thought that happened naturally when, one day, a baby shows up in your arms that’s not normally there. I thought that was birth announcement enough. I’m so behind the times.

  469. Maybe its the same concept with your twine photographs. Who really wants to or cares to see celebrities taking pictures with twine? But you feel connected and special when certain celebs took the time to send those silly whimsical fun pics.

    It is the same thing here, we are people obsessed with the rich famous and royal. People don’t obsess over seeing photos of the baby, just to merely see what the baby looks like.. I guess some people feel more involved and connected when they have access to celebrity baby pics.

    But also, why do media houses offer millions of dollars for the rights to publish celebrity baby pics?

    Maybe we obsess over the baby pics, BECAUSE all babies look alike….. and to know that the rich, famous and royal babies, look like our babies too gives a kind of comfort and likeness to these people that we glorify.

  470. I was excited because I guess I love royal ritual though I don’t know why. But this got me to thinking, maybe I’ll start a niche business: “Hire a Town Crier”. All I need to do is get the appropriate costume made, find an old man with really strong lungs and Voila! You all have your own baby announcement, royal style.

  471. Don’t congratulate us. Most of us brits are bored of Cathys hoochie too.
    But then I would say that, I’m a firm believer that all babies look like a form of seafood until they’re about 4months old and have grown into their skin.

    Thanks anyway, though.
    Have a cream scone on me.

    ‘British Baby-Basher, Becki’

  472. Correction: The future king looks like a white baby. All white babies look alike. Yellow babies like yellow babies, black like black, etc. Surely, you’re not colour-blind?

  474. Thank GOD. Exactly.

    Several years ago, one of my best friends had a baby and sent me his photo. And I was sincerely very, very happy for her. And I said something like, “Congratulations! He looks like a baby,” because that’s all I could think to say about the picture. And she LOVED it. She said yeah, all babies look the same, and everyone else was saying, “Oh, he looks like your wife,” “Oh, he’s beautiful,” etc. And that she thought it was great that I’d said he looked like a baby.

    I mean, that’s what they were trying for, right?! A baby! And voila. What more is there to say?

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