COUNTRY CONNECTION: Celebrity babies fascinate public

by paul kent
for the stafford county sun
Published: July 10, 2008

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, the latest happy couple to warm our hearts and not be obnoxious about their love, have welcomed a bundle of joy into the universe in the form of Sunday Rose, a six-pound, seven-ounce human being, all fingers and toes accounted for. Sunday Rose, another name in the long and storied tradition of musicians and actresses having kids and trying to come up with unique monikers for them, at least gets spared the indignity of being a Moon Unit or an Apple. Not that any of that matters, since it’s a baby, and babies turn all our brains to mush.

We root for babies, by and large. We’re supposed to, of course; the human race being big on keeping itself dominant over the planet, we get excited about new humans coming out of the woodwork.

When the baby is from famous people, we get even more excited; now there’s a human who might do something interesting and we’ll get to hear all about it! Not that less famous babies won’t, but you get to be in on the ground floor. Will they be Drew Barrymore? Will they be the Olsen twins? Will they be Sean

Lennon and make a bunch of music nobody cares about? Who knows!

As I’ve stated before, we root for Keith Urban because he’s a man who’s known hardship, some of it self-inflicted. We root for human humans, not perfect super-people. So when news of him falling in love, getting married and having a kid surfaces, much less his first kid, there’s a mental and spiritual fist-pump involved. “Yes!” our collective souls exclaim. “Good on you, Keith! Now do that hair-flippy thing again.”

And he flips it, of course. Whether Sunday Rose will be taught that same hair flip will be another lovely storyline to follow, along with whether there will be better things Urban and Kidman can do when it’s raining on Sunday. Perhaps they’ll hide under the covers all afternoon and read “Cat in the Hat.” In fact, that very image is turning my own brain to mush.

Nobody is immune from the power of babies.

Paul Kent hosts Thunder After Dark, 7 p.m. to midnight weekdays and the Saturday Night Special, Saturdays 7 p.m. to midnight on Thunder 104.5 Everything Country and More.