Baby Photos

Who doesn't like a chubby baby? If you don't, you're a Satanist.

Actually, that might not be accurate. I guess if you're a Satanist, you could love a chubby baby. Let me think this through... You hate God, love Satan... Yeah, I guess you actually could love a chubby baby if you're a Satanist. So, we agree then, everyone loves a chubby baby.

I suppose that's why we photograph chubby babies. We humans love to take pictures of babies. AND we love to show those pictures off if they’re of our babies. Something about this makes all parties involved smile.

Maybe it's the babies' innocence. Or the babies' toothless smiles. Or feeling as if you can actually hear the babies goo-goo-ga-ga and smell their dirty diapers through the photo's resolution. Maybe it's all of the above. But, man, we love those pictures.

And a large quantity of people like said pictures so much that they saturate their lives with these images -- all over the home, all over the office walls and desk, on their hanging calendars, in their wallets, on their screen savers. Some of these babies aren't even of the same bloodline. I think some people, women in particular, actually feel that the more baby pictures they submerge themselves in, the more tranquility they'll be enriched with throughout the day. Which is funny to me because, calculating all the hours of crying, screaming, laughing, and mindless spoken gibberish, babies are loud. Cute but loud. ...I don't know, I like beach photos myself.

Baby photos also serve as a time capsule, locking in the freshness of "when all they did was crawl, drool, and poop." You know, a time before they aged and started chasing booze and hookers. But think about those baby photos you're taking. There are as many adorable ones as questionable ones. I've seen a lot of both, and the latter never get old.

Ofttimes, like a Saturday night memorialized by a drunken stupor and regrettable, erroneous decision making or that time you threw firecrackers out the car window on the street in front of the mayor's house, some baby photos can only be explained away with a disgracefully delivered "Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time..." defense. Professionally photographing your baby in a cat costume or outfits and colors typically reserved for the opposite sex are prime examples. Although teaching kids how to cope with failure is an important part of parenting, perhaps making failure their destiny before they even get off the nipple and try walking isn't the best route. As well, what's cute in a picture to the parent(s) early on rarely serves as a confidence booster for that baby in his/her teen years and beyond. Suddenly, that thumb-sucking sailor photo from Sears becomes your high school teen's bully's blackmail.

Another interesting quirk about baby photos is how perfectly fine and acceptable it is to have naked baby photos plastered everywhere. Why? And at what age is their nudity no longer cute but disgusting? Personally, I think it'd be hilarious to have pictures of random, naked, grown people scattered across your office without hinting at anything peculiar about it. "Oh, these folks? They're my friends and family. That one's Uncle Melvin laying naked on the farm. He's only 636 months old there. So cute."

Sort of goes along with the whole deal of seeing a naked baby photo of someone you now know as a grown adult. It's like, yeah, I know I'm not allowed to see you naked now, but I know exactly what you have under there and have a good idea what it all looks like, per the photo of you naked in the bathtub at 11 months.