{"id":785,"date":"2008-04-08T13:37:30","date_gmt":"2008-04-08T19:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=785"},"modified":"2008-04-08T13:38:44","modified_gmt":"2008-04-08T19:38:44","slug":"babbies-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=785","title":{"rendered":"Babbies Everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I was walking into work today, I saw a woman sitting in the shade having lunch with her baby.  The little tyke &#8212; couldn&#8217;t have been more than two months old &#8212; was asleep in a buggy (or &#8220;travel system&#8221; as they&#8217;re called these days).  I looked for a little while and smiled.  It was a cute scene.<\/p>\n<p>I never used to be one for going, &#8220;awww&#8221; when it came to kids.  I&#8217;d see people with kids and it&#8217;s didn&#8217;t affect me.    I&#8217;d read about sick kids and I&#8217;d feel bad, but I wouldn&#8217;t be devastated.  I&#8217;d watch movies where they had the Child in Danger (TM) and I&#8217;d get annoyed.  The floodwaters or whatever would be closing in on some little tot and all I could think was &#8220;This again? What, was central casting out of cute puppies?&#8221;  In fact, our decision to have kids wasn&#8217;t made because we <i>luuuved<\/i> kids but because, at our age, it was now or never.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s all changed since I&#8217;ve become a dad.  Maybe it&#8217;s because I can now project everything onto Abby.  Seeing that woman in the shade made me think about when my daughter was nothing but a bologna loaf with big blue eyes.  Or maybe Abby fixed whatever was broken in me.  But I have changed.  For the better, I hope.  It&#8217;s hasn&#8217;t made me a big bleeding-heart liberal; quite the opposite, in fact.  But I do feel a little closer to my fellow human beings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I was walking into work today, I saw a woman sitting in the shade having lunch with her baby. The little tyke &#8212; couldn&#8217;t have been more than two months old &#8212; was asleep in a buggy (or &#8220;travel system&#8221; as they&#8217;re called these days). I looked for a little while and smiled. It &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=785\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Babbies Everywhere<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BzKF-cF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}