Leaving Me Speechless

Ever since we got home from the holidays, Luke has been putting himself to sleep in his crib. Which is wonderful, except that ever since we got home from the holidays, Luke has also been pulling up. On every blessed thing. And the putting-self-to-sleep thing only works if he's, you know, lying down. So a couple of weeks ago, we did a little experiment to see exactly what would happen, now that he's fully capable of falling asleep by himself, if we left the room.

I expected tears. I expected anger. I expected pouting. None of which actually ensued. Instead, he stood up and shrieked quite happily for an over. an. hour. Loud, ear-piercing shrieks of joy. At which point McMoose made the decree that We Will Not Let The Baby Shriek For Long Periods Of Time. Now, McMoose doesn't make too many decrees--I think so far, the only ones he's come up with are: (1) We Will Not Feed The Baby Large, Chokable Pieces Of Food; (2) We Will Not Let The Baby Play With Dangerous Objects; and (3) the aforementioned edict against shrieking.

What all this means, of course, is that someone has to sit beside the crib for about 20 minutes every time Luke goes to bed and tell him to put his head back down every time he picks it up. And since McMoose is gone during the day, the task fell to me. And I have to admit that as far as tasks go, this is a pretty easy one. I sit in a chair, read my book, and occasionally pat or rub the child's back for a few seconds. Not a bad deal, right?

Of course, as a result of all this, I realized yesterday that I'm going to need more books to read, so off we headed to the library. I should mention here that I love, love, LOVE the library and that I'm always a much friendlier person while I'm there. So there I was in my friendly-library-mode when a woman approached me in the parking lot. She started off asking if Luke was mine, so of course, I expected it to be another "Really? He's yours? Are you sure?" kind of conversations. Imagine my surprise when it went wildly, freakishly off track:

Lady [to Luke]: Hi, Buddy! [To me]: Aww...is he yours?
Me: Yes.
Lady: How old is he?
Me: 8 months.
Lady: That's great.
Me: *Smile* Yeah. (Aside: what exactly was I saying "yeah" to here? The fact that he's 8 months old? Or that being 8 months is great? Conversations are so weird sometimes.)
Lady: So what did you think of pregnancy?
Me, starting to realize this wasn't going to be a run of the mill conversation: Well, it was fine. I loved the second trimester, when he finally started kicking and moving a lot.
Lady: Oh, I bet! And how was your labor?
Me, getting a little bit weirded out: Um...it was...fine...
Lady: Did you have a vaginal delivery?
Me: Ye...yes...
Lady: That's great! Did you have to get an epidural right away?
Me, looking around for the cameras because this kind of thing has to be for some kind of weird reality show, right?: Um...I...didn't...actually...need...one...
Lady: Oh, wow! Hey, listen, I was wondering...have you ever considered being a surrogate?
Me: Ok, I have to go...