All newborns are wonderful, of course. They have the tiniest, most perfect fingernails imaginable; the soles of their feet are softer than silk, and the sweet smell of their heads is nothing short of addictive. They also have the ability to make you feel complete and introduce you to a whole new strength of primal love that you didn’t know was possible. These things are the public image of newborns, the marketing that makes them so appealing to couples in love. There are, however, a number of other important that make newborns so awesome, including:
Quirks About Newborns #1: The Fart Poker Face
Sorry for lowering the tone here, but it’s true. Tiny newborns have an astounding ability to produce crazily loud farts. Loud, long and stinky, in fact. Sometimes give themselves away by wearing what can only be described as a ‘smug farting face’. There are times, however, when strangers will wonder whether it was in fact you who farted, thanks to your offspring’s unwavering poker face. The other lift inhabitants will tut whilst covering their noses with handkerchiefs, and wonder what sort of mother blames their own newborn baby for such a stench.
Quirks About Newborns #2: The Giant Beer Belches
Considering newborn babies are so tiny, it’s amazing that they can hold enough gas to produce such deafening burps. And yet, you may find yourself wondering whether what you just heard was your beautiful baby, or Barney from The Simpsons. You probably never thought you would confuse your own child with that belching beer lout, and yet you will. A lot.
Quirks About Newborns #3: The Grunts And Scoffs
Piglets are so cute, aren’t they? With their snuffly noses, and that little grunting noise they make as they gobble down their food. Ooops sorry, I meant newborn babies, not piglets. Easy to confuse though, aren’t they?
Quirks About Newborns #4: Targeted Vomit
Okay, well this one isn’t quite so funny, but most babies seem to have a very special talent that they are born with.
Babies spit up a lot, or sometimes at least. Never just on their bib though, of course, or even on the muslin cloth you placed carefully over your shoulder. Nope, babies like to know that their tiny amount of sick up will go a long, long way. They will throw up in your mouth, in your wine glass, into the pocket of daddy’s shirt, and all over the dog.
Some babies have superpowers, in the form of projectile vomit.
Quirks About Newborns #5: The Many Faces
Babies have an amazing ability to be the most beautiful and adorable person ever born, whilst also looking a lot like a shrunken version of your grandad, who is neither beautiful nor adorable. No offense to your grandad. Well, ok, he’s pretty adorable when he takes his teeth out, perhaps.
Quirks About Newborns #6: The Yawn Face
Newborns have yet to discover manners, and so are unaware of the importance of placing a hand neatly over their mouths to cover any escaping yawns. On top of this, they also have mouths far, far bigger than their faces, so when they do yawn, you will be taken aback by the size of their mouth. Keep your camera phone handy for that one.
Quirks About Newborns #7: Turdiness
‘Turdiness’ is the official name given to any form of lateness caused by baby poo. It can be used at the doctor’s office, when meeting friends for lunch, and at any family gatherings within the first few months of your baby’s life. Turdiness applies most commonly to the act of your baby doing a poo minutes before you need to leave the house.
This innocent act of course necessitates a nappy change, outfit change (nappy leakage, of course), and then a feed. It can also be used to described lateness caused by you getting covered in poo, for example unwittingly smearing it across your forehead during a particularly stressful nappy change.
Note: you should only use this excuse if you are covered in the baby’s poo. If you have somehow ended up covered in your own excrement, it is much more appropriate to blame the traffic.
Quirks About Newborns #8: The Ever-Lasting Hiccups
If an adult near you has hiccups for a long time, this can be quite annoying. You may find your sympathy levels running low, as you desperately scramble for an excuse to leave the room. With a newborn baby, however, not only will you be clambering to get closer to the baby, you’ll also be filming the whole thing on your phone. And, terrible mother that you are, you’ll probably even feel a slight twinge of disappointment when the hiccups stop. There is nothing better than watching a newborn baby have hiccups, except maybe watching a baby mouse have hiccups, which would actually be very similar.
Quirks About Newborns #9: The Hairy Back
Body hair is not often considered high fashion for children, and yet babies pull it off effortlessly. Sure, for the first hour or so you were probably slightly terrified that your baby would be covered in hair for life. But after reassurances from your midwife and Dr Google, you were probably able to appreciate just how well your baby pulls of those shoulder pads of body hair. No matter if you found hair on your baby’s back, ears or other surprising places, i’ll bet you breathed a little easier seeing that it fell out fairly quickly.
Quirks About Newborns #10: The Drunk Face
After a big feed, you may look down at your beautiful newborn baby only to find a drunk staring back at you. Half asleep, with his eyes rolling to the back of his head, a stupid grin plastered across his face, and saliva dribbling down his chin. You may wonder whether the tequila shots you did at your 21st birthday party could somehow still be floating around inside your body. There is truly nothing more awesome than the facial expressions of a baby drunk on milk.
