Please don't show me any more photos of the baby.

Please. Stop. Just, please stop.

There are only so many times I'm able to muster up the false enthusiasm and high-high pitched cries of "Oh, how cute!" that one is obviously obliged to make when a photo of a small human wearing a bee suit or eating something or taking a shit is thrust into your eyeline.

There are only so many variations on the theme of "OH, that is ADORABLE!" I can make.

There are only so many times I'm able to pretend I'm the slightest bit interested before I'm likely to spontaneously combust, or climb to the top of a bell tower, or just tell you outright, "THAT BABY LOOKS LIKE A KNEE."

Let me be clear: I don't hate your baby. Nor do I have anything against your choice to create another human being. In fact, chances are that I was (and probably am) quite excited for you. It's exciting stuff! A tiny baby popped out of your or your cousin's or sister's or sister-in-law's or your special lady's lady's lady parts! Circle of life, sunrise sunset, so on and so forth. Please note however, that the further removed I am from the baby's circle of existence, the further away I can feel my excitement becoming and thus the further away my interest in seeming excited is.

If I'm being honest, I probably was genuinely excited even during those first few photo sharing moments. If it's your baby, I was definitely excited. That's super great. My exclamations of "that is the cutest thing I have ever seen!!!" were, while a little over the top, mostly sincere. Let's put it about 90%. The actual cutest thing I have ever seen is probably more along the lines of puppies playing, but point is I would hypothetically actually be super excited for you.

Put it this way: If you bombard me with photos of the baby every single time I see you, obviously my interest is going to wane. Do I show you a new photo of my dog every time I see you? No. No, I don't. And my dog's actually cute, unlike the alien-like being with the overly large head that's on your phone. That might be a little harsh, but come on - am I the only one who finds the vast majority of babies incredibly un-cute?

Obviously I know this opinion will most likely be an unpopular one, but I'm on a roll here so I'm just going to barrel on.

I do find some babies cute. My friend has a particularly cute baby. So I bought them an awesome book about a bear, and actually uploaded a picture of said cute baby onto Facebook because it was making a ridiculous face.

If you show me variations of the same thing about ten million times every single time we cross paths however, my reactions are going to turn from "AWW!" to "Mm-hmm". Apart from being occasionally awkwardly un-cute, babies are mostly pretty useless. There's only so much they can do. They sleep, they cry, they eat, sometimes they cry or eat while sitting. Sometimes they poo or throw up. Maybe my knowledge of babies is limited, but I guess that's partly because when I was a kid I avoided my little cousins like the plague and now all the photos I see of babies from friends are of babies sleeping or crying or eating or sitting or throwing up.

Again, there's only so much of that I can take.

Their faces always kind of look the same: confused, or constipated, or asleep. Or all of the above. Cute yes (unless you or your kin just have a weird looking knee-baby), but not after a thousand pictures. At the very least, learn to edit your photos. Make it a Best Of album, not an anthology. For the love of all that is holy, please edit. And while we're at it, your baby does not need a Facebook profile. Nor does it need to post "status updates" from within the womb.

"Can't wait to meet Mummy and Daddy!"

No.

Just, no.

On the other hand, if you just got a new puppy I will look at every single one of the photos you've ever taken of it and I will squeal uncontrollably the entire time. I want to see all of your puppy photos. Scratch that, I want to see all of your dog photos. All of them. I will look at all of them. I'll sit with you and listen to all of the adorable stories of your adorable dog doing adorable things. I'll ask many questions about your adorable dog and I'll then clap my hands with glee when you tell me the answers.

I believe at this point I've exhausted all of my reserves of anger and irritation on the subject, so I'll sign off. IRL, I'll continue to attempt to keep the excited reactions happening for as long as I can.