Causes. Effects.

Dear Mr. Baby:

All the books say you're too young for this, but I say what the hell, let's give it a shot.  Because it would be really really nice, Mr. Baby, if you understood these two concepts and their relation to each other.  I'm talking about our friends Cause, and his not-so-distantly related cousin, Effect.  These concepts would probably illuminate, to your great surprise and delight, some currently shadowy and blurred parts of your day.

You might wonder, for example, why you are sometimes lounging about in mid-air, enjoying the lyrical tales of Mr. Microwave and Mr. Basket in the tender and soothing tones of your mother's voice, receiving raspberry kisses and giggling mirthfully, and then suddenly being jostled to the harsh cries of  ''aw, fuck, kid,'' bouncing jaggedly and swerving unceremoniously through several rooms to land, not at all gently, in your cold and lonely crib without so much as a farewell.  This perplexing change of demeanor and location, this sudden withdrawal of motherly affection, would be infinitely more explicable if you could connect somewhere in that head of yours the aforementioned events, and the squishy feeling of your fingers coming into contact with a retina - to wit, your mother's - at high speed. 

You could, as another example, more accurately deflect the accusatory expression on your face when your throat feels painful and itchy and your eyes begin to water and you are looking around the room for sympathy or the disposal of your disdain.  If you knew about Cause and Effect, you would know that it is senseless to look at me then, because the plastic spoon repeatedly impacting and scraping your tonsils is not intertwined by any physics-defying magic to me, but rather held by your own hand, and therefore it would behoove you to cast your dour expression upon a mirror.  You would also know that I am not to blame for you holding this object, because you reached out with your little claw hands and snatched it from me every time.  Every time.

If you knew about Cause and Effect, Mr. Baby, you could perhaps link the sensations of angst and bitterness, and your desire to throw things at your mommy and yell hoarsely and unhappily for what must be very long amounts of time, percentage-wise speaking, of your life, with the idea of sleeping, which causes those feelings to subside if you just do it.  It's a bit of a stretch, but you might also be able to associate Mean Mommy (you know who that is) with the nights you ''have a party'' in your crib.  And then maybe you could come full circle in a web of enlightenment, and conjecture that most problems in your world are caused by a dearth of sleep, and maybe - I know these are vain and absurd vagaries, Mr. Baby - but maybe you could even accommodate the cognizance of your own, singular culpability in this intifada of insomnia and take it upon yourself to bring peace by just closing your eyes, and your mouth.  Perhaps you could conjoin these closings with the pacific breeze that floats through the house, and the return of Nice Mommy.

When you begin to feel a slight headache, you begin to feel as though the world is a maraca and you are trapped inside of it, the close and claustrophobic swishing sounds begin to suffocate you and your temple becomes increasingly tender - you could look to your left, and see the repetitive motion of your limbs, and realize that it will all be quiet, if only you stop hitting yourself in the head with a rattle.

Oh, the places we could go Mr. Baby!  In the morning, rather than waiting for the slow, wet stench of realization to ooze from your pants to your mind, you could instead think to yourself, ''oh hey, I'm about to take a crap again,'' and let someone know before it's all smashed into your bum.  Probably you've wondered why it takes so long, in the cold, cold morning, to become warm again... if you just understood that it is almost impossible to put clothing on a simultaneously frantic and limp human being who is also pinching you like a crab and laughing like an evil doll, if you knew that the clothes are the thing, the thing that makes you warm, but only if you are wearing them.  If you could understand that food must travel through your mouth and into your stomach to diminish your gnawing hunger and gnawing, annoying little protests about it...that smearing it on the dog and your face do not cause this journey to your stomach to happen....oh, the things we could economize, the filth and gunk and disgusting mire we could avoid, the body fluids we could quarantine, Mr. Baby.  The racket we could attenuate....the pandemonium we could diminish...

Chimera, fantasy, delusion...indeed.  Still.  Give it some thought, Mr. Baby.  It would really shed some light on things.