a mean guy

apparently i'm a very hard-hearted guy. i know there are a lot of you out there that know me that'd probably agree with that statement, but i see myself as very kind and gentle. kind of like jesus but without the long hair or, you know, that whole holy thing. the study i'm working on now, unlike my old study at hopkins, has me working with babies. like, one-year-old babies. and, much like my old study at hopkins, i now find myself in situations that i never thought i'd be in. like carrying a one year old baby around mt. sinai hospital in new york, her not fussing or hating me. walking around with a baby that, in fact, has its head resting on my chest like it knows me. mind you, i used to hate children. hate them. hate.

my boss, laura, does these clinic visits with me. the reason i write that i must be a hard-hearted ogre is this: we have to perform procedures on these babies. not like brain surgery or pain threshold or any other kind of baby torture. normal procedures: blood draws, bioelectrical impedance analysis (don't ask). but these babies scream to high heaven. i mean scream like we were drawing and quartering them or pouring live ants onto their faces. baby torture.

i usually just sit there, though, knowing that the baby will be ok. they might not like being pinned down and having their blood taken, but you know what? i don't like a lot of things. laura always says that she feels like a bad person; like we're scarring these kids for life; like they're going to grow up and then see us on the street someday and start sobbing or screaming. i don't go to the bronx, so the chances of that happening are very unlikely. yet i digress. the point is, these babies are going to be fine, so i just watch the procedures being done. then the baby dries her eyes and has forgotten it in 10 minutes. so i guess i'm a little hard-hearted, since i can see babies be stuck with needles and not even flinch. now puppies--that's another story.