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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Notes on your regime

Dear Mr. Baby:

People may be wondering where we have been, you and I, and why there have been very few tales from the kingdom over which you reign, dictating affairs with the wave of your sippy cup, slouched slightly in your Bumbo chair on the dining room table or proudly surveying your domain from your ExerSaucer - which, quite appropriately, is castle-themed.  And I have been down in the ranks of middle management, making it all work.  Yes, we're running things here, running them better than most governments, mostly because you are despotic but comical, and there is little paperwork of any kind, and if there is, you promptly eat it.  Disorganized and demanding, myopic as regards to long-term planning and logistics, egocentric, and (pardon the pun) infantile, you're very much like a dictator in every way.  All you are missing is a mustachio.   

Like many modern dictators, you have chosen to surround yourself with flamboyant decor and fluttery yes-men, and there are a great many things afoot in your kingdom that you are informed about in only the most soothing of tones, lest you hand down some unintelligible edict with the pounding of your rattle. There are many things that you believe to have commanded into action but have actually bungled impossibly, and are mere illusions which have required creative and indefatigable efforts on the part of your servants in order to maintain.  As is the way, I suspect, of most accidental sycophants, they are just really trying to keep you from having a fit. 

However, I think it's important for all people of importance to to have an occasional voice of reason to tether them somewhat to reality, or next thing you know they're invading the neighbors or wearing funny hats and insulting Condoleezza Rice.  So, just a few notes on your new clothes:

1) You cannot actually stand.  Standing is a miraculous thing, a marvel that kineisiologists, if you are ever unfortunate enough to meet a chatty one, will go on and on and on about for hours.  The upright posture of a human is an incredibly delicate and precarious balancing act.  You (well, admittedly, we, because our complicity in this illusion cannot be denied) have given yourself the impression that you can and are standing around.  Standing around at all hours of the day and night with a magnificently impressed expression on your face.  You never, ever want to sit down, and God forbid you find yourself doing the only thing you can do on your own, which is lie around.  But you see, Mr. Baby, that there is a wee problem and that is this: you cannot actually stand so someone has to sit around with you.  Furthermore, this someone has to do next to nothing, because this someone must keep you from falling over without pulling or tugging or pushing to hard (leading you to believe that they are somehow interfering with your standing), but also without drifting off into the pages of a book or a TV show and missing the lightening quick disintegration of your half-balance and your subsequent downfall.  This is quite boring Mr. Baby.  Under other circumstances it is called loitering and there are laws against it. 

2)  You also cannot walk.  See above, because it's pretty much the same set of complaints.

3) For a number of reasons, (again, in the interest of being fair, we admit our complicity in this affair) you have the following impression: when you are done with spoons, fling them behind and to the right of you.  A new one will appear shortly, with more food on it.  This is a delusion, the result of the machinations of your minions, rather than some magical quality of the world.  Also, though you seem oblivious to the charms of a house that is not covered in three-week old zucchini and carrot mush, I'll have you know that these things do not magically remove themselves from the walls and the table and your Bumbo and the ceiling.

4) No one is actually happy to see anyone at three in the morning.  That is also a big lie, and I apologize for dragging it out with my mildly hysterical pre-dawn cheer. What everyone wants to do at that time, little buddy, is sleep, and while your monologues about blengabadphst and thwastpffftapsht are fascinating, their integrity would be completely preserved if delivered after the sun rises.

5) You cannot just eat pureed green beans for the rest of your life.  Food has flavor and food has lumps.  There are occasionally foods which you must reject on the basis of them being distasteful, but the appropriate course of action in these cases is not to gag and roll your eyes and throw yourself around and continue gagging and generally act as though someone has placed a fried baby head in your mouth and asked you to chew.  You could simply refuse, with a more dignified expression, by closing your mouth. 

6) The world is not a drum, good buddy.  And all the objects in it are not drumsticks.  And you are no Joey Kramer.