Babies Have No Laps

We all know that a plump granny has no lap. The lack of lap is in proportion to the plumpness of the granny. The plumper the granny, the less lap. Some grannies are so plump, they just have knees.

Now here’s something I bet you never considered: Babies have no laps. Have you ever seen a lap on a baby? There you go. Brand new babies can’t even sit up to make a lap, and then if they had a lap what would they do with it? There’s no room for a lap with all that diaper business.

Babies can stick their toes in their mouths, something grannies can’t do. By the time a baby gets to be a granny, she doesn’t WANT to stick her toes in her mouth even if she could still bend that way. (However, some grannies can take out their teeth and bite their own toes!)

I wonder if one day a child wakes up, comes to the breakfast table, sits down, and bang!, there’s a lap. I bet if Hallmark gets wind of this astute observation, they will come out with a card to celebrate the occasion. “Happy Getting Your Lap!” or “Congratulations on Becoming a Lap Owner.” Parents could enclose one dollar for each year it took to get a lap. Dads – and moms, too – could stride into the office, “Yep, kid got her lap today. Gotta go out tonight and celebrate.”

There’s one thing for sure about this lap business. The size of the lap is not in proportion with the love grannies give to babies. No matter how ugly a baby is (oh, stop it, your baby is not that ugly), lap or no lap, grannies always coo and fuss over those tiny people with no laps. In return, babies coo and smile and spit up on their grannies.

Okay, it’s not a perfect world. But for those of us who had grannies or later became a granny, it’s close enough.