I have a friend whose girlfriend just had a baby and up until about a week ago every time he would see me he’d ask if I had seen the ultrasound pictures of the new baby. I’ve seen the pictures so many times now that they are just about ingrained into my head. Grotesque images of a developing little human in baby juices all brought to life in glorious orange and yellow 3D that seems sort of scary to me.

“Aren’t those the best pictures you’ve ever seen?” My friend asked for about the ten thousandth time.

“Uh, yeah - it’s crazy what they can do now.” is what I said, what I was thinking was “Yeah, he looks like a little demon sort of like a gargoyle - raaaaaawwwww!!!” I didn’t say that because I’m sure if I had a girlfriend that was having a little demon gargoyle I’d think he was the cutest thing ever. I’d post his orange and yellow 3D image here and everywhere expecting people to tell me how cute he was - I would add that he gets his fangs from his mother.

Well, the good news is that I won’t be subjected to those images anymore as the baby was born last night. I got the call from my friend this morning and he was excited and maybe on the verge of tears as he told me that his baby was here. I told my friend I would be there as soon as I got out of work to welcome the baby into the world.

I walked into the room where my friend was holding his son and I could see the pride on his face. “You want to hold him” he said handing me the bundle of joy.

I looked down and was surprised, and before I could stop myself I asked my friend and his girlfriend, “Is he supposed to look like that?”

“like what?” I think my friend was about to go on the defensive.

“Yeah, like what?” My friend’s girlfriend demanded to know. “are you saying my baby is ugly?” I was more afraid of her than my friend because she’s one of those tough chicas that sharpies in her eyebrows. I’m sure if she had a sharpie now she would have painted on her “angry eyebrows”

“No, I’m not saying he’s ugly…” in my mind I finished the sentence with “…if you think a cross between a hairy rat and a fetal pig is cute.“ What I actually said was, “well, he’s all pink and wrinkly” I held him closer to get a better look. “he kind of looks like a tiny old man.”

“no, he doesn’t.’ my friend said, trying to hold in a laugh, deep down I knew he was thinking the same thing. His girlfriend was looking for something in the drawers, probably the sharpie so she could paint on her “I don’t care if you’re my baby’s daddy’s friend I’m going to kick your ass” eyebrows.

As I held him, the baby reached up and grabbed my finger in his hand and started to smile. As he smiled I couldn’t help it. My heart started to melt and as he smiled at me. The smile was like magic, it transformed him into a beautiful baby boy right before my eyes.

“Hey baby,” I said, “I’m your dad’s friend. I’ve known your dad for a long time, so you’re going to see a lot of me around.” I looked at my friend and said, “he smiled at me.”

My friend simply said, “I don’t think he can smile yet. It was probably just gas.”