tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51487540203856761232024-03-08T15:16:45.679-08:00Dear Mr. BabyThis blog consists of acerbic letters to my son(s). 0.2-10% of this text is a variation of the f-word. Pooh-pooh comments about the preceding two points will be laughed at, and deleted. Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-30620863206963051132014-05-17T08:33:00.000-07:002014-05-17T10:32:38.144-07:00Forensic ReformationDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
Hey there good buddy. There's been a lull in the webchronicling of your foibles, mostly because the janitorial and short-order cookery has piled up considerably since both of you became mobile. Though I've been plodding along at it all in my typical uncomplaining fashion, I am considering the slow introduction of several amendments to our habitual relationships. This is being done in an effort to actually avoid hospitalization for a psychotic break, a phrase I use often in a "jocular" manner and which you may be familiar with. <br />
<br />
So starting both literally and figuratively small, let's reform Forensics Duties. Please note that in this section, the following definitions will be used:<br />
<br />
<u>Questioner</u>: You or your brother, or anyone else asking absurd questions about objects within 10 feet of the Identifier.<br />
<br />
<u>Identifier</u>: The caregiver "in charge" at the time of identification requests. This person is identifiable by level of irritation. <br />
<br />
**********************<br />
<br />
1) Items which have already been identified greater than 25 times will not be identified. <br />
<br />
2) Items that it does not matter what the fuck they are will be identified as "It's not important," and the Questioner will accept this identification. If the Questioner believes this identification to be in error, he is advised to hold the item in his palm near the Dog's mouth for further evaluation. <br />
<br />
3) Items that the Identifier cannot see without a microscope will not be identified.<br />
<br />
4) The Questioner will cease finding the identification of items as "a piece of X" to be unsatisfactory. Statistically speaking, 91% of items brought for identification are "a piece of [plastic]," while 7% are "a piece of [something else]." Also, this is not a fucking forensics lab.<br />
<br />
5) Items will not be brought to the Identifier by the Questioner while the Identifier is carrying "dangerous" items*, including but limited to: boiling water, knives, metal objects with a surface temperature of 350 degrees or greater, anything covered in feces, anything covered in vomit, grocery bags, wine glasses, ceramics, glass, or anything on fire.<br />
<br />
*The Identifier realizes that this will severely limit the Questioner's timeframes for identifying items, but sincerely, deeply, does not care.<br />
<br />
6) The Questioner will leave liquid, semi-liquid, and liquified items where they are found, and request that the Questioner accompany the Identifier to this location. <br />
<br />
7) If the Questioner fails to comply with #6, but remembers it <i>in transitu, </i>the Questioner will refrain from projecting, smearing, tossing, throwing, wiping, or generally transferring the liquid, semi-liquid, or liquified item to another item in the house or on any person or on any domesticated animal while shouting "That's disgusting!" <br />
<br />
8) Under no circumstances will any items found in the bathroom be identified. <br />
<br />
9) The Questioner will ask about the identification of items at a frequency no greater than one time per minute, using his Inside Voice.<br />
<br />
10) The Questioner will not repeat the phrases "Oh Jesus," "For the love of all that is holy," or "Good lord," when they are used in conjunction with the Identifier's response.<br />
<br />
Thank you Mr. Baby. Please translate this for the other child.<br />
<br />
PS - Sorry about your haircut.<br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-22340349766472740612013-10-10T14:09:00.000-07:002013-10-10T14:09:17.635-07:00Two things you can't do, not you, two by two<br />
Inspired by Dr. Seuss and David Rakoff<br />
<br />
Dear Mr. Baby, the first one, and you<br />
The baby I almost never write to,<br />
You're brothers, I know, and it's cute all this love<br />
And the ways that you fit like a sticky-gross glove,<br />
<br />
But I think you should know,<br />
there's some things you can't do,<br />
Well one at a time, yes, but not both of you two<br />
Sometimes it may seem I'm a little bit pissed,<br />
So you understand why, I've compiled a list:<br />
<br />
Don't fucking stand on the table together,<br />
Don't cram two of you into the same fucking sweater,<br />
Don't try both wear the same fucking shoe,<br />
It's one baby, one potty, while taking a poo,<br />
Two people cannot eat the same fucking crayon,<br />
Only one person can stand on one fucking pan,<br />
<br />
It's not fucking easy to remove two screeching babies<br />
Who claw and bite like they have fucking rabies,<br />
From the deepest recesses of some fucking cabinet,<br />
Where they crammed themselves in to munch on a magnet. <br />
<br />
You can't both carry around the same goddam bear,<br />
You can't possibly gorge on the same fucking pear,<br />
There's a reason we have two rakes in the yard,<br />
Because two people raking the same thing's too hard,<br />
You can't both fucking sit in the same fucking place,<br />
Be it my head, or a chair, or on top of Fred's face,<br />
You can't have the same piece of cooked macaroni,<br />
And the two of you can't each eat all the bologne,<br />
<br />
<br />
It's just things like this that should give you some pause,<br />
We live in this world and this world has some laws, <br />
Two things cannot be in the same place and same time<br />
That's how it works, and it all works out fine,<br />
So please if you can't figure out how to share<br />
I have to say that I don't really care<br />
But stop fucking screaming and read the above<br />
Don't do these dumb things.<br />
Show me some love.<br />
<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-74798152214263126192013-09-15T10:54:00.000-07:002013-09-26T13:29:03.344-07:00Fire PantsDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
A number of things have been said, by yours truly, that could be construed as varying degrees of: exaggerations, distortions, or outright lies. Now, I know I claim to place a premium on truth, but I also place a premium on things like quiet. In the name of said rare and illustrious quiet, I have perhaps mislead you on a number of occasions. As such, for a time when you can read, and perhaps better understand the value of tranquility, there are some retractions to be made:<br />
<br />
*********<br />
The brown stuff in Fred's ears is yeast, and not related to anyone yelling inside the house. <br />
<br />
There are no bears in the grocery store, and even if there were, they would not be sleeping behind the cans. No danger of waking them up, you see.<br />
<br />
There's no hedgehog in your ear, and the thermometer is not checking in on him.<br />
<br />
Your tricycle doesn't need to take a break or it will fly away. It's an inanimate object. I just hate it.<br />
<br />
Fred has never told me anything. He's a dog. I put peanut butter on my fingers to make it look like he is telling me a secret, because it has a pleasant incidental effect of everyone else shutting the hell up to try and hear what he's saying.<br />
<br />
There's no such thing as a crackermonster. I just get fucking sick of making meals that you toss on the floor because you ate 152 saltine crackers with honey on them. <br />
<br />
Five more minutes is actually much, much longer than that.<br />
<br />
Netflix does not break down nearly as often as it seems. In fact, they're a pretty solid site and rarely have problems of any kind. (But let me tell you that I am doing you a huge favor by boycotting My Little Pony, a show, it would appear, designed specifically for grooming girls into materialistic, bitchy little cunts.)<br />
<br />
I <i>can</i> hear you when I am using the computer in the kitchen. There is no magic wall.<br />
<br />
<br />
END<br />
*******************<br />
<br />
Sure, you judge me now. Just like I judged my uncle Larry for telling me that a tree would sprout from my stomach if I ate a cherry seed. Just like I judged all the other parents, once, when I heard them saying this and that. Horrific, I would say to myself. Why those tots are just tots. But screw everyone who has an opinion about two-year olds who does not actually have one, right now, in their house, making the most fucking excruciating sound ever known to man from atop a table because he can't find the pants he just took off because of something to do with raisins, and now his feet are cold, and he wants his Emily truck, and he can do it himself, and it isn't the red one, and he wants some juice, and he wants his other red car, and every fucking problem he has is something he did to his own damn self.<br />
<br />
And Mr. Baby, someday, you will have a shrunken, belligerent mental patient-gnome screaming in your kitchen, and you will lie, too. You will lie and lie and lie.<br />
<br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-23202527561067345572013-06-28T16:17:00.000-07:002013-06-28T16:17:29.750-07:00Hack Your LifeDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
Departing from our usual format, I'm taking some of your nuggets of wisdom, most of which you mysteriously report having forgotten almost immediately upon being queried about the afterma...er...result, and sharing them with the world of the internet. Thus without further ado:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>10 Life Hacks to Make Your Life...Different</u></span><br />
<br />
<b> <span style="font-size: small;">1) Get flexible about creams.</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you apply enough of any cream, it will mostly work for sun protection, and if you usually eat only minimal amounts of things before throwing them on the floor, you can eat just about anything, whether classified as a food or not. So why not u</span>se things like cream cheese and sunscreen interchangeably?</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: small;">This allows you to do things like store both your lunch and your lotion outside, without being entirely certain whether either one will rot. as a bonus, it's a pleasant surprise to have a coconut aroma on your bagel once in a while. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>2) Pre-prep it! </b>Pre-salt your and everyone else's food by shaking a small amount of salt on each plate in the dining room. Restack them so no one knows that you've done it. They'll be so pleased when they see how much time it saves them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>3) Plan ahead for the doldrums. </b>Keep a stash of boogers in places where you might be stuck for long periods of time.<b> </b>These can be eaten as a snack, made into cars, or simply peeled off and re-glued with some spit for easy entertainment.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>4) Paste It! </b>Make a green-brown paste out any food that is served to you for faster, hand-optional eating and easy portability. Remove the food from the original serving container, use the container to smash it, add some water from your sippy cup, and stir. Wear as a mask, or a food-glove, or tucked away to be disposed of later by the dog. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>5) Cut down. </b>Cut down on laundry time by skipping the entire process. Offer to take laundry to the laundry room, and then toss it in the dryer. </span><br />
<br />
<b>6) Combine your tasks. </b>If you have the toothbrush out, don't waste an opportunity. Use it to clean the nooks and crannies of the bathtub as well as brushing your teeth. No need to worry about the order of these activities - you can even alternate to make each task seem less tedious. <br />
<br />
<b>7) Smash it. </b>Cut down on chewing and digesting by pre-smashing your food. You can do this when it is served to you, or, for optimal efficiency, smash all your fruit right when you get it home from the store.<br />
<br />
<b>8) Mouse it up. </b>There is a way to do everything on the computer with a mouse - you may just need motivation to find out how! Remove the keys from the computer to speed up your learning curve.<br />
<br />
<b>9) Heat it up. </b>Place anything in the microwave to put the <i>umpf</i> back in your afternoon. Most microwaves automatically cook for 30 seconds just by pressing ''Start.''<br />
<br />
<b>10) Think outside the stool. </b>Don't be afraid to use your little brother to reach high-up items. Coax him to right beneath the thing you want to reach, push (the force required will differ from brother to brother) and stand on him. By the time you obtain your high-up item, your ''stool' is already off to a less conspicuous place, and you have ''no way of getting up there,'' so it obviously wasn't you.<br />
<br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-40730375556032304282013-06-17T17:34:00.000-07:002013-06-17T17:37:21.024-07:00OutFoxedDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
Of late you have done a great many things which merit lauding, from your halfhearted acquiescence to my request to stop banging your feet on the dryer, to your three-to-four star potty days, to preceding your knocking over of Second Baby with what seem to be genuine cheers for his precarious first steps about the house. All of this is great, but you deserve the Slow Clap for having mastered, at the tender age of 30 months, many of the irrefutable argumentation styles that have been honed over <i>many years</i> by the major propaganda networks of our time. So here's to your future career as a conservative talk show host or political speechwriter, along with a few of my personal favorites, listed by argumentative technique: <br />
<br />
<b>Obfuscation the issue, followed by a remorselessly feel-good ending</b><br />
<br />
M: A, please stop waving your tortilla around, you're flinging tuna fish everywhere.<br />
A: No, it's the same. It's fixed, and it's broken. And so it's really out there, and you're a winner.<b> <i></i></b><b><i></i> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Projection</b><br />
<br />
M: Hey you're being a little bit too loud. The baby is sleeping.<br />
A: No you're being too loud.<br />
M: I'm actually -<br />
A: <i>Shhhhhht.</i><br />
M: What are you -<br />
<i>A: Shhhhhhhht.</i> Mama, <i>shhht. </i>You're talking<i> too</i> loud. <br />
<br />
<b>Rewriting History</b><br />
<br />
M: Look, sorry you have a bad taste in your mouth, but you were eating a crayon, just like I said <i>not to do.</i><br />
A: I ate a peanut butter and a cookie.<br />
M: Looks like you ate a crayon.Just by all the blue wax on your lips.<br />
A: No that's not right. I was eating spaghetti. <br />
<br />
<b>Asking for clarification, where none is needed, followed by misdirection </b><br />
<br />
M: If you run over my foot again, I'll have to put your bicycle in the mud room.<br />
A: What's a bicycle? What's a bicycle? What's a foot means? I don't know. Oh, look, it's another bee!<br />
<u> </u><br />
<br />
<b>Simultaneous grammatical pedantry and vagueness</b><u><br /></u><br />
<br />
M: You can't put that there, because it's for Tata. It's Father's Day.<br />
<u> </u>A: He's not a father! He's a Tata! And that's not that, it's my ruckskater!<br />
M: Okay fine, but you can't have it.<br />
A: What's a have?<br />
<br />
<b>Character assassination</b><br />
<br />
M: Please don't put that there, it will catch on fire.<br />
A: I don't understand what you're saying to me, your mouth is really full. <br />
M: Uh...No it's not.<br />
A: Please chew your food. It's not nice. <br />
M: I'm not eating.<br />
A: Oh I'm sorry, I can't understand you when your mouth is full. <br />
<br />
<b>Citing ''statistics'' to muddle the issue</b><br />
<br />
M: What are you doing there, bud?<br />
<u> </u>A: Oh, it's just...twenty-hundred and five.<br />
M: No but <i>what</i> are you doing?<br />
A: Twenty-seven. <b><i> </i></b> <br />
<br />
<b>Fear mongering</b><br />
<br />
M: Uh...I don't think that's the best idea.<br />
A: No, I'm going to rescue. It's really important. Don't be scared. <br />
<br />
<br />
Clap.<br />
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Clap.<br />
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Clap.<br />
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Clap. Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-35309932908617580182013-05-11T06:48:00.002-07:002013-05-11T08:58:21.238-07:00Potty ShmottyDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
Over the course of, say, a year now (which I realize is almost one full half of your life and therefore entirely too much time to talk about) people have been dropping subtle and not-so-subtle hints about this Potty Thing. There is your affable Indian doctor, who has no idea how much you should be eating but knows that all children in India are potty trained at six months, and while she fails at least fifty percent of the time to tell us that the appointment is over, or tell me what you weigh or what vaccination she's giving you, she does manage to speak for a full two minutes on the subject of diapers and why you shouldn't be in them. Why? Because kids in India are not. Were you expecting a scientific explanation, or some kind of argument that it matters, in exchange for listening patiently to that malarky? Well think again. Then there was the ER doctor from Jordan, who you liked because he gave you a popsicle, and who seemed to think that a sane woman, even one with a potty-trained two-year-old, would sit around with a concussed child in a Canadian ER (where your minimum wait time, if you've done something really awful, like cut off your own head, is two hours) with no diaper on, because what are the chances, anyway, of being called in to see the doctor while you're standing around in a toilet with two bags of shit and a whiny child with a giant headache who can't sit properly on the fucking toilet without falling in? What are the chances of him needing to crap at just that particular moment? Yes what was I thinking putting a diaper on you? <br />
No offense to the people of India or Jordan, or of the menagerie of other countries from whence this shitpot advice has flowed like the unleashed bowels of a two-year old, but those countries don't really seem to be at the forefront of...well, anything. So Mr. Baby, you feel free to ignore these assholes, and I'll feel free to tell them to shut the hell up.<br />
<br />
But then what's this? Here comes my mother, my own mother, who blithely insists that she has no idea what <i>she </i>did, and everything will be fine, but so very sneakily mails underwear to you. She just ''thought it was so cute.'' It's a subtle attack, Mr. Baby, but don't get sucked in by it, even if they are covered in Thomas the Tank Engine decals. Because all this means for me is more and shittier laundry. (Thanks mom!) <br />
<br />
And of course we've heard from the charming but eerily Borgish nation of Poland, who all have exactly the same thoughts about this and almost everything related to housekeeping or childrearing (I mean, like, exactly the same thoughts). Which they don't make very clear, because making things clear is not very Polish, but suffice it to say that 38,216,000 people in Poland and large sections of Chicago and Toronto
believe you should have stopped wearing diapers precisely 2.108e7
seconds ago.<br />
<br />
And then there are the Americans. Yes, the supportive and flexible Americans, who don't want to tell you what to do, and certainly don't think it <i>means </i>anything, but do not hesitate to get out a Power Point presentation which places their child's green line on a better trajectory into The Future than your child's purple one, based on Potty Training and How Johnny Felt About It. <br />
<br />
Here's what I think about Potty Training, Mr. Baby, and since I and your father are the only ones who change all these fucking diapers, I think we should be the final say:<br />
<br />
1) I think it's useful to define what Potty Trained means to me. It means I do not have to stare at your ass all day and ask you every twenty seconds if you feel like you need to pee or poop.<br />
I do not have piss or shit all over my floors or penises on my couch.<br />
I do not have to play the game: locate a safe place with no small items or sharp objects for this baby while running and throwing clothes off of the toddler before...too late. <br />
<br />
2)Do whatever the fuck you want. On the scale of inconvenience, wiping some shit off of your butt with this variety of stuff made specifically for wiping is somewhere at the very bottom of an extensive list of Things That Are Annoying About Two Year Olds. This is a pretty simple thing. I have to summon very little patience for it, in comparison to the patience I require for all the other bizarre, illogical, unreasonable, agitating discussions I have to have with you about the temperature of your hand-washing water, the way your socks have been placed on your feet, which shoes you are going to wear, whether or not you will eat this or that blueberry but not any which are touching strawberries but all strawberries and no kiwis today, even if you asked for all of them. Or for all of the times you kick me in the face ''accidentally'' or stand on my feet or leave blocks, also ''accidentally'' right under my feet, or make the most irritating sound ever heard because it is ''fun'' or negate every single sentence I say or cry uncontrollably because I handed you a paper towel instead of a kleenex when you asked for a paper towel. Compared to having someone touch me all. day. long. and spit on me and bang maracas and ask 300,000 questions a minute and refuse to do every. single. thing. I ask. 24 hours a day....wiping some shit off of a bum is just not something I give a flying shit <i>about</i>. And I'd love to hear someone's explanation of how cleaning shit off the floor or out of a potty is somehow better than wiping it off of an ass. At some point kid, it's all just become shit to me. So keep it contained, I say. <br />
<br />
In other words, Mr. Baby, feel free to keep on shitting in diapers until you actually possess the mental control required to A) realize you are going to shit, B) notify me you are going to shit and C) get to to a potty in time to shit. Because otherwise, I just don't feel like running around watching your ass for you all day, nor can I say that this sitting around in the cold bathroom forcing everyone to be bored out of their fucking mind for no reason at all every day is very much fun. No matter how much everyone else (who have never once been ASKED to change a goddam diaper) might think it's going to propel you to the apex of some kind of extraordinary success as a human being to do it now instead of two months from now. If you're going to get on top pf something, buddy, why don't you try sleeping until 6:00 every morning?<br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-50619615272356670352013-04-25T07:13:00.001-07:002013-04-25T11:53:07.958-07:00More clearer communicatizingDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
I spend a lot of my day asking questions, some of them rhetorical, some of them not. Generally this is a huge waste of my time, because whatever you say back has little relation to anything on the planet: <br />
<br />
A: Can you please set the salt shaker down?<br />
B: Marlow likes Bus Tayo has some bunny and a grusza! He doesn't like it and it's really broken.<br />
<br />
It occurs to me that maybe it would be helpful to you to know why I am asking, to better facilitate you providing a helpful response. After all, you're a smart kid. So here are some addenda to things you hear, frequently - oh so frequently - around the house:<br />
<br />
<u>Is there any way, any way at all, you can put your thumb into the thumb hole?</u><br />
Because if it's just not possible, if it's like time travel, we can just give up on it. It's forty-five minutes of my life, every day, that I'll never get back.<br />
<br />
<u>Is everyone in this house actually trying to push me over the edge?</u><br />
I like to see things like mandatory institutionalization coming, plus why make another fucking lunch if this is the case?<br />
<br />
<u>How many times have I told you blah blah blah?</u><br />
Just being sarcastic. I'm actually more interested in a rough estimate of the number of times you think I might have to say blah blah blah again before you're like, <i>oh! I'm literally eating away at someone's soul by blah blah blahing. Maybe I should fucking stop, like someone asked me to 465,214 times before.</i><u></u><br />
<u><br /></u>
<u>Out of curiosity, why do you think I put that there?</u><br />
Seriously. Out of curiosity, why do you think I put that there? Wouldn't I just go ahead and stuff a cereal box into the toilet if that was where I wanted it? <br />
<br />
<u>Why are you kicking the baby?</u><br />
He's the second child. No one is paying any attention to him (he's inside the diaper pail...ehhh, it's almost bathtime anyway). The baby is cute. It seems sort of psychotic to walk across the room and just start kicking a baby. Why <i>are</i> you kicking a baby?<br />
<br />
<u>What did I say about eating your crayons? </u><br />
I'm just curious if you can field this one.<br />
<br />
<u>Can you take it down a notch?</u><br />
It seems like it's physically possible. It seems like it might actually be easier than yelling everything at that particular frequency. <br />
<br />
<u>Do you think you need seven spoons for that? Really? </u><br />
Because it sort of seems like you don't need any spoons for eating crackers at all.<br />
<br />
<u>Don't you want to use at least one spoon for that?</u><br />
I mean, most people use spoons for soup. But that's just because it's a liquid. <br />
<br />
<u>Is your sippy cup, in fact, possessed by the soul of a lemming?</u><br />
Because I'd hate to be blaming you for what is single-handedly the most unnecessary and annoying aspect of my day.<br />
<br />
<u>Do you remember why you went in time out?</u><br />
This, I just like to ask this for the humourous responses that I get. I know you have no fucking clue.<br />
<br />
<u> </u><br />
<u> </u><br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-43234461652699637782013-04-08T17:16:00.001-07:002013-04-10T12:09:05.035-07:00A heartfelt apology (list)Dear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
I'm sorry this post is so long in coming. I was just a little bit busy twice a day piecing the pile of rubble that used to be our house and preparing delicious, colorful plates of food for you and your brother to smash into the one place that cannot be cleaned up by the curiously long tongue of the dog: his own head. (It's fine. We eat chicken nuggets now and we aren't looking back, and if you end up with some kind of vitamin deficiency in the future, I've taken a few pictures of your reaction to any food that is not fried-bread brown and dipped in ketchup so that there won't be any confusion about why I was a Bad Mother). Lately you seem to have a lot of complaints. I can't actually understand what they are, because despite your small-talking prowess when, say, I just want to read to completion (because the year is important) the expiry date on something I found in the fridge, you seem to retain only the ability to produce high-decibel vowelage when you are upset. Still, I gather that I owe you some kind of apology for things that happened today. So let me just say, Mr. Baby, that I am really, truly, deeply, from the bottom of my heart, so <i>incredibly fucking sorry</i> for the following things:<br />
<br />
I'm sorry I offered you a banana for breakfast.<br />
I'm sorry I interpreted NOT A BANANA, NO, NOT A BANANA! to mean you did not want a banana.<br />
I'm sorry that when I asked you what you wanted instead of a banana and you said<i>,</i> <i>pear, </i>I assumed you wanted a pear. <br />
I'm sorry I didn't let you finish the pear after you threw it on the floor. <br />
I'm sorry I was singing.<br />
I'm sorry that I said the word ''cow.''<br />
I'm sorry the water in the tap didn't heat up fast enough and so was too cold.<br />
I'm sorry that thirty seconds later, the water in the tap heated up one degree and so was too hot.<br />
I'm sorry your feet cannot be crammed into your old rain boots, identical in every way to your current rain boots except for size. <br />
I'm sorry I detained you when you tried to fight an actual bull.<br />
I'm sorry I held your hand so that the donkey didn't bite it off while you fed him a carrot.<br />
I'm sorry I held your hand when you were yelling, ''Hold the hand! Hold the hand!''<br />
I'm sorry I let go of your hand after you yelled at me for holding your hand.<br />
I'm sorry I held your hand incorrectly. <br />
I'm sorry that cattails break up and fly away into the wind when you hit them on stuff.<br />
I'm sorry that Fred was running.<br />
I'm sorry that Fred chases geese.<br />
I'm sorry that Fred stopped chasing geese. <br />
I'm sorry I put you in the stroller when you said ''STROLLER! STROLLER!''<br />
I'm sorry I ran you over ten seconds later when you jumped out.<br />
I'm sorry I don't have three hands.<br />
I'm sorry that your feet were wet after you poured water into your boots using an empty plastic bottle. <br />
I'm sorry that I didn't let you drink water that had cow shit in it.<br />
I'm sorry I moved you before you sat in dog shit.<br />
I'm sorry that when you asked me what this symbol: <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Q </b></span><span style="font-size: small;">is, I responded, ''Q.''</span><br />
I'm sorry that it is physically impossible for me to hold you, the baby, and a pot of boiling water at the same time.<br />
I'm sorry that I asked you not to stick your head in the oven.<br />
I'm sorry that I asked you not to stick your head in the toilet. <br />
I'm sorry that I changed that enormous shit in your diaper that you didn't tell me about until you it had burned through all the skin on your ass.<br />
I'm sorry ketchup is not food.<br />
I'm sorry that a Tonka bulldozer the size of a toaster will not balance on top of the Leggo firetruck on top of a book on the edge of the table.<br />
I'm sorry for asking you not to throw all of the paper covers of hardback books, which you spent so much time removing, in the trash. <br />
I'm sorry I asked for some Leggo bread to go with my Leggo cream cheese at your Leggo tea party.<br />
I'm sorry that you don't like socks.<br />
I'm sorry that your feet got cold when I took your socks off. <br />
I'm sorry you don't like socks (again).<br />
I'm sorry - and this comes up a lot - that you forget the number five while you are counting.<br />
I'm sorry your thumb got stuck for the fiftieth time in a Leggo hole.<br />
I'm sorry I asked you if you wanted to watch My Little Pony again.<br />
I'm sorry I put on Paddington Bear instead of My Little Pony. <br />
I'm sorry I had to turn My Little Pony off to put on Dora the Explorer.<br />
I'm sorry Dora the Explorer asked you a question you didn't like. <br />
I'm sorry that ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' ends at the end, and I'm also really sorry that, in spite of reading it 178 times, I still need to look at the words to remember what to say.<br />
<br />
Please let me know if there's anything you feel that I left out. We aim to please, and when we can't do that, we apologize.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-75989862341025876692012-11-23T11:11:00.000-08:002012-12-09T15:06:18.995-08:00STOPThe casual reader and the smug neurotic mother whose children are now seven and twelve (and therefore possesses a section of her brain that smoldered away long ago in a self-destruct mechanism meant to keep us from eating our young after the age of four, when they are apparently no longer irresistibly cute and we might take out our revenge if the memories of their toddlerhoods were left intact) will read this and immediately refer me in their minds to some parenting website that recommends that you deal with a two-year-old and all of his boundless, joyful energy through the magical magic of redirection. ''That's a nice picture you're making. Can we do it in the bathroom so the whole house isn't covered in shit?'' To that person, I say, preemptively: shut the hell up. Normal people do not possess the creativity required to redirect the endless possibilities that gush forth from the mind of a two-year old (which I note, cannot be discriminated from the mind of a psychopath by a neurologist): I'm smashing this banana into the grate behind the refrigerator! I'm putting crayons in the dog's nose - why? There's a hole! I am capable of sustaining a high C at 900 decibels for one full minute and show no signs of oxygen depletion even though all the air has been sucked out of the room! I'm decorating in between the keys of the piano with cheese that I found under the couch where I stuffed it last week along with milk I poured in a truck! I just found the toilet plunger, and it seems it was recently used! I'm putting all of the clean laundry in the trash! I can redirect between 30-40 of these inbound flights of fancy, but they. <i>just. keep.coming</i>. And while they come, someone is yelling and pulling my pants down the whole time. Yes <i>my </i>pants. So there are just some times, Mr. Baby, when you can't be redirected like an affable pilot on his way into Heathrow. You need to just. fucking. STOP what you are doing. <br />
<br />
Sometimes, this is a matter of <b>safety. </b>Like when you said you wanted to play in your room, and I took advantage of that time to get on the Internets, and your voice was right behind me saying <i>hi mom, hi mom, hi mom</i>, and it turns out you were on the ledge on the outside of the banister alternating (I must say, with amazing skill for a 24-month-old) your grip while leaning back over the eight-foot drop to the stairs, and from the look on your face your were doing it just to piss me off. That's a time, good buddy, when you need to FUCKING STOP. Or when you were ''watching'' me in the kitchen and surreptitiously grabbed all the knives off of the counter and then decided to play ''JUMP.''. Or when you had two delicate Polish teacups in your hands and were banging them together as they shattered into millions of pieces, and you just kept banging. Time to STOP.<br />
<br />
It's often a matter of <b>your little brother's safety. </b>Like when you are ''feeding'' him by packing large pieces of banana into his windpipe. Or when you are ''taking'' him, and the vehicle you are using is overturned his face is being dragged on the floor. Or when you decide to ''baby-share,'' by tossing Hot Wheels cars at him from across the room. <br />
<br />
Often, more than not, it's about <b>cleanliness</b>. I could go one forever here, about the compost and the flour and the soap and the toilet plunger and the beans and the rice and the books and the magnets and the blocks and the pillows and the blankets and how none of this needs to be vaporized and sprayed all over the place like an aerosol. Sometimes, there is still hope that fifteen minutes of my day can be salvaged from the endless garbage heap of the rest of my minutes, and not dedicated to the sweeping up or the mopping up or the vacuuming up of whatever you're about to get to work on with that supersonic sweeping hand motion. And then maybe I can use that time to go to the bathroom. So... you need to <i>fucking STOP</i>.<br />
<br />
It is, sometimes, about <b>noise</b>. Sometimes someone is about to finish a sentence like, ''whatever you do, don't - '' on the radio. Sesame Street has to come to its inevitable end, and the wailing sound you make is not only useless but actually raises your mother's blood pressure to stroke levels. Certain words become annoying if they are repeated fifty thousand times in a monotonous voice and for no apparent reason whatsoever. Check it: truck, truck, truck, do you want it? truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck do you see it? truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck do you like it? truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck ...annoying. And I'm just writing here.<br />
<br />
And occasionally it's just about being <b>annoying</b>. Like, I haven't talked to your father in a week. Not because he wasn't here, but just because somebody kept yelling truck, truck, truck, truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck truck. Or like, I just don't want somebody kicking me in the face for whatever reason.<br />
<br />
But no matter what it's about, Mr. Baby, one thing is for sure. And that is this: STOP does <i>not</i> mean, keep doing whatever you're doing, but do it faster and more frantically! STOP! Please draw even more furiously on the table with that marker! STOP! Please hit compost container even harder with that mallet so that's it's a thousand times louder when it explodes all over the floor! STOP! Keep splashing your hands in the baby's poopy diaper and see if you can fling it all over the room, yelling ''Baby poop! Baby poop!'' But faster. And more furiously. STOP! I've been listening to this radio show for half an hour and they're about to tell me the secret to the universe, but please keep yelling, in fact, yell LOUDER so that I never find out what it is. <br />
<br />
Yeah it's just...that's not what stop <i>means</i>. It means STOP! Stop the madness in the name of all that is holy and sane, for just two fucking minutes. And give me a second to think about how we can channel your desire to eat crayons while jumping off of the window ledge into something useful and safe, in a positive manner befitting my extraordinary abilities as a mother. <br />
<br />
<b> </b> <br />
<br />
Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-39159563213480921302012-09-19T11:19:00.000-07:002012-09-20T15:39:47.902-07:00On Choices<span style="background: transparent;">Dear Mr. Baby: </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">It is, admittedly, hard to
accept the perpetual dissatisfaction of life that comes with realizing that
the innumerable adages about it apply not only to the rest of those poor schmucks, but to you as well. However, I
think you can embrace these disappointments on your own scale, and
come to understand that sometimes the paradoxes - of what we
think we want and what we really want, and what we can really
have, and what is actually, physically possible in this world - leave
us only with the choice to accept that, in point of fact, one cannot
have his cake, and cram it into his diapers, and throw it at the dog,
and mash it into a fine paste to be smeared on the wall, and stick it
up his nose, and drop it in tiny pieces into his sippy cup that
someone has been foolishly convinced to ''[take the] top off [of],''
and eat it too. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">Sometimes you do not feel
like having your pants changed, because it (apparently) makes your
head hurt, and you simultaneously have an extremely
uncomfortable, or very large, pile of shit in your pants and would
like someone to do something about it. </span>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">Sometimes you want to engage
yourself in the task of filling a jar of water from the bathtub water
into which the jar is overflowing, and you also want to watch Sesame
Street, and you are disappointed even furtherly by the fact that you
live in the house of people who followed their literary and musical
hearts to the inevitable conclusion of poverty and there is no TV in
the bathroom, which is explained to you in only the gentlest of
cynical tones, and then, after arguing about it incomprehensibly for
ten minutes, you decide you actually want to take a walk. </span>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">Sometimes you want to eat
bread and stuff it in your sippy cup, and you don't want wet bread
or, and I quote again, ''trash milk.''</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">Sometimes you want tomatoes,
and then while they are being sliced, you seem to think you want
pears, and then when they are on your plate, you want to scream
''May-nose! May-nose!'' and throw your pears all over the walls,
because now you want tomatoes, but you might want the pears scraped
off the wall and placed back on your plate so you can start screaming
about tomatoes again.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">Sometimes you want to sit on
your potty, and then when taken there by the hand you get very upset,
because you don't. And then when someone tells you, that's
okay, you begin crying and yelling, ''potty potty potty!'' because
you do want to sit on it. But you will also scream, no no no! and
kick someone in the face because you don't. </span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">And so this is when you have
to make choices, and I know they are hard, but<span style="font-style: normal;">
one does not get out of the crisis by alternating constantly and for
seemingly unlimited periods of time between the two choices. And I
see you are building yourself a cross over there, but let me just remind
you that your father is Polish, and your mother is mostly Irish, and
you have spent a grand total of 23 minutes in a Catholic church
before being removed due to a lack of solemnity. We will double this
amount because it was Easter, but still. You got nothing on us.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">Anyway, you're in for a real
ride if this is how you're going to be about it. As time marches
indefatigably on, sometimes you might want to use your intellect, but
will also want to spend your entire day engaged in the Sisyphean task
of wiping up juice that didn't need to be poured all over the floor
for the ninetieth time in 36 hours. You will want to purchase a
package of gum of your own (and try to eat a piece of it, before
bedtime, because, by contorting your neck and painstakingly, over a
period twenty minutes and with one hand, unwrapping it and shoving it
into your mouth after yelling, "Look, horsies!'' while passing
an empty field, you are convinced that you can defeat the x-ray
vision of a toddler in a car, which will pierce the seat and set off
a stentorian alarm from the back that cannot be dismantled), but you
will also want to purchase books whose spines are snapped ten minutes
after they are opened and whose ''toddler-proof'' pages are promptly
eaten to the intellectual betterment of no one, so you will be too
poor to buy that gum. You will accept so many lies about
whether or not pieces of food will be crammed into this or that
crevice or orifice of this or that baby or dog, that you will remain
in a confused fetal position at the end of the day, defeated, and you
will <i>want </i><span style="font-style: normal;">to</span> read <i>Moby
Dick </i>or do yoga like you had planned. With windswept hair,
and a drink in your hand. But you will make choices. Choices that might
seem misguided without the context: a small person wanders around
your house, occasionally ceasing his systematic destruction of Calm,
Quiet, and Items With Moveable Parts, to stare at dust floating in
the sunlight, mesmerized, before dispensing, in an unearthly voice:
"'<i>Ooohhhh, moons.</i>" </span>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">Now Mr. Baby, your choices
are harder in some ways, because your brain is singularly dedicated
(at the cost of higher reasoning and sentimentality) to determining,
with alarming accuracy and celerity, the contexts in which an
expression like ''oh shit,'' would be both (in)appropriate and funny,
but easier in others, because you live unencumbered by the constant,
nagging fear that another human might be out there, right now,
improperly clothed for cold weather or not eating enough vegetables.
Nor does the maudlin resignation with which one bids a lifelong
farewell to such shimmering things as dancing until three in the
morning in a room full of bare-chested gay men while belting out New
Order lyrics, haunt you. </span>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: transparent;">What I'm saying is: we don't
have to get all </span><i><span style="background: transparent;">Sophie's
Choice </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">about
whether we are sitting or not sitting on the floor. </span></span><span style="background: transparent;">All
I ask is that you limit yourself to the laws of physics as we
understand them today, and accept that you cannot be in two places at
one time, and you cannot have two superfun things at the same time,
especially when one requires you to be naked, and the other requires
that you wear clothes. And that, once they have been soaked in
milk and thrown across the room and ingested by a dog, all the
insistence in the world, however it may sound like the bleating of a
very psychotic sheep, will not enable modern science to reconstitute
the three pieces of cake that you also would like to eat peaceably,
as you swore - </span><i><span style="background: transparent;">you
swore - </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">you
would do, nay, but five seconds ago. </span></span>
Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-55194766841204245522012-08-30T18:19:00.001-07:002012-08-30T18:22:03.758-07:00The Potty Mystique, or Why Mommy Goes to The Bathroom. Without You.Dear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
It's not what you think. We <i>have</i> been talking a lot about the potty lately, which you enjoy as a topic of conversation but not a nexus of effort (although you seem very approving of the accomplishments of Bear and Grinchy, who always but always remember to tell me when they have to pee or poo). No, this is about <i>the bathroom,</i> itself, and what it represents. And why Mommy likes it so much. Without you. <br />
<br />
It is probably your complicity in its creation that it escapes your notice: the rain of flashing lights and chorus of sound effects and snippets of cheery songs, the balls and blocks careening off the walls, the swishing toys and perpetually swinging baby swing (no matter. how. many. times. you. stop. it.), the hundreds of bright, maniacally-faced animals that could pop up at any moment and scream HELLO, the frenzied reaching and running and stretching to catch whatever it is that is falling or whomever it is that is consuming small mechanical parts or digging shit out of his pants or standing on the arm of the couch with his arms outstretched and a devious grin on his face. Or perhaps you do not mind living in what your father quite aptly dubbed ''the inside of a pinball machine." But some of us, Mr. Baby, are feeling just a little overwhelmed by all the video-gamesque urgency with which minor to moderate emergencies must be attended to at what is, however unlikely it may seem, always the other fucking side of the house. And the racket. The goddam racket.<br />
<br />
Enter the bathroom, a place whose charms have perhaps escaped you. Yes, you have a fine appreciation of some things: The paper, quaintly wound about a cardboard tube, which can be spun rapidly so as to cover the floor in waves of luxurious white, and - glorious day! - which can also be turned to a lovely sludge by simply applying water. The tubes, pressed squarely in their soft abdomens, that dispense a minty, blue paste, which can be smeared upon the walls, or the floor, or your face, or even on Fred if he unsuspectingly wanders in there. A round bowl of water that can be made to spin and gurgle, and all the better, in which you can place objects and watch them whirl around, summoning hoards of screaming and frantic people to their rescue. Oh the swirling! The gushing! The splashing! The goop! The cast of exasperated characters! Yes, the bathroom is a fine place for a little chap.<br />
<br />
But Mommy does not go to the bathroom for the toilet paper or the toothpaste, as appealing as these treasures are. Not to unroll things or to dump water on the floor or to squeeze conditioner bottles to make fart sounds, not to dismantle the precarious curtain situation nor to use everyone else's toothbrush for both a twisted pantomime of tooth brushing and of cleaning the floor. Mommy does not necessarily even go to the bathroom to use the oft-extolled potty. Mommy goes to the bathroom because the bathroom is drenched in the white noise of running sinks and whirring fans, and because for up to ten minutes, no one can legitimately ask Mommy to leave. Mommy goes to the bathroom <i>just to be in the bathroom. </i>To<i> </i>sit, and close her eyes, and pretend that she does not live in an arcade run by tiny people with no sense of volume nor concept of how annoying it is to do thirty-five loads of laundry a day - even if it is automated - simply because someone learned the words ''wet'' and ''new'' and ''shirt,'' and contrives a situation requiring their use every ten minutes.<br />
<br />
It's quite difficult to suspend belief and absorb the magical qualities of the bathroom, if they are being thwarted from the inside <i>or </i>the outside by my excessively cheerful and enthusiastic guide for The New Reality, who rattles the door handle incessantly, turns the lights on and off, and narrates, with a minimalist bent, the minutia of the world outside the door (e.g.: Fred, wet, Fred, wet, Fred, wet, mama, siusiu, mama, siusiu, mama siusiu, no, Fred wet Fred mama siusiu, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off....)<br />
<br />
Please don't worry, good buddy, you can catch me up in ten minutes. I'm coming back.<br />
<br />
Because I love you.<br />
<br />
And because the window is really too small to climb through. Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-46117825259187489032012-08-02T07:04:00.000-07:002012-08-15T17:37:03.536-07:00On Behalf of New BabyDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
There is, as you have noticed, a new baby in the house. No, that wasn't the result of the disasterous misreading of some kind of packaging, and no, we didn't realize it would be <i>this fucking loud</i>. It may <i>seem</i> idiotic now (let's have two small humans shitting all over the house so we can't get one other fucking thing done for two years), but it's all part of a brilliant long-term plan. One in which our lives are a living hell for a bit, but thereafter you tots amuse yourselves by lighting fireworks in small enclosures, or charging batteries with everyday metal objects you have around the house, or duct taping each other to the donkeys, or whatever it is boys are into these days, while mommy locks herself in a closet and has a martini. Back to the point: You seem to like him, and I have to say that for your deplorable lack of manners with adults, you are quite sweet to New Baby. He can't talk though, so there are just a few things he might say if he could. Just New Baby talking here, Mr. Baby. No embedded passive-aggressive messages from mommy pawned off in a high-pitched baby voice. <br />
<br />
1) When I am crying, everyone can hear me just fine. So, big brother, you don't need to mimic the crying, or actually start crying even louder, or run around the house screaming ''BABY, SAD. Baby, sad. Baby waaa waaa!" (On a related note, it is also unnecessary to announce to the city of Toronto, thirty miles away,<i> PHONE</i>! when the phone rings or <i>BEEP BEEP</i>! when the microwave beeps, because the whole idea, Mr. Baby, of these things making a sound is so that no one else has to.)<br />
<br />
2) It's pretty cool that you can identify all of my body parts. But, like mom keeps trying to tell you, it fucking hurts when someone shows where your eye is by sticking their pointer finger into it.<br />
<br />
3) Sometimes, bro, I'm trying to take a nap. Just like you, I make a huge. theatrical, fuck-all deal out of <a href="http://dearmisterbaby.blogspot.ca/2011/02/sleeping.html" target="_blank">sleeping</a>. But then I actually do get sleepy, and go, as the book says, the fuck to sleep. Everyone in the house is really, really, really, really happy at this time. Loud noises are really, really, really bad at this time. So it's <i>not </i>helpful to choose that particular moment to look up from the quiet drawing activity that you were entranced by, so much that people forgot you were lurking about, and shriek "SZHLA! SZHLA! SZHLA! I DID IT!!!!!" while machine-gunning crayons all over the room like a psychopathic, AK-47-wielding Elmo. <br />
<br />
4) The people of Fisher Price have determined a speed which, if it is not optimal, is at least a reasonable, for the swing to be swinging. No improvements, however enthusiastically attempted, can be made upon this.<br />
<br />
5) Stop stealing my blanket. It <i>is </i>soft, but you've never, ever cared about that and are quite obviously just being a huge dick.<br />
<br />
6) Thanks for having my back with the snacks, but for now I do not want to eat any pizza, Leggo sandwiches, or dime soup.<br />
<br />
7) If you constantly push my soft skull inward, like a squeaky toy, some people are concerned that I will have a permanent dent in my head. <br />
<br />
8) I am not a whiteboard.<br />
<br />
9) And I'm told that no one wanted to resort to this kind of Grimmsian chicanery, but to pass on to you that: If you microwave tennis balls while mommy is feeding me, a bean stalk will grow out of your ears. <br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
New Baby <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-41477336366392710572012-07-05T11:45:00.000-07:002012-07-11T13:35:18.587-07:00Take Me To Your LeaderDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
I fully admit to not being, particularly when it comes to setting an example, the Cadillac of parents. The occasional colorful metaphor slips out, and I have a tendency to just reach over people for margarine rather than request politely that it be passed. I frequently sneeze without covering my nose, and to be perfectly honest I cannot explain why I do that. It's gross. But in the name of being a good parent and not having a total dick of a child, I exert a great deal of energy (a great deal, Mr. Baby, and we're already pretty tapped here), trying to lead by example, to be more refined than I actually am, to use a napkin and to say please and thank you and to conduct all the business of life with some degree of decorum. In my glorification of what are probably very commonplace manners, you may think of me as the Acura of mothers. I'm not the best, but if you follow my examples you can at least be seen at public and semi-fancy venues. In North America. <br />
<br />
As such, I am almost 100% positive that you did not learn any of the subsequently discussed behaviors from me, or your dad, or even our canine companion, whose ill manners are to be excused based upon a lack of opposable thumbs.<br />
<br />
So who, Mr. Baby, is the setter of examples in your life? Who continually covers comestibles in ketchup or jam or any artificially-colored, fructose-based substance, places them in his mouth to be churned like a used and clotted, day-old mouthwash, and then deposits them on the table? And then yells until the clump of saliva-sodden bread is re-covered in marmalade or maple syrup, to be re-inserted into the mouth to be churned again, removed of sugary coating, and redeposited on the table for, as you put it, "mo''' possibly forever?<br />
<br />
I ask because I'd like to talk to this person, ask him why he is what he is, a creature with no regard for even the most basic tenets of human (or canine) decency, sculpting himself into a specimen of behaviour that extends beyond the boorish to the realm of barbaric. Why he has never heard of germ theory, or if he has, why he is so cavalier before its indisputable conclusions, cultivating, as he is, whatever lives on the floors and tables of the world, incubating disease and probably insects in the incessant ebb and flow of his carbohydrate-infused saliva. And why, most fascinating of all, he seems insensible to the texture of his food, to its quivering gelatinous semi-liquified shapelessness, shaking slightly on the table with the <i>unheimlich</i> inner inertia of jell-o. I want to ask him how he is not moved to a sick horror as he puts this substance back into his mouth, cooled as it is to the temperature of recent roadkill, or heated (if you prefer to think of it this way) to the damp, hospitalizing temperature of a potato salad left rotting in the swampy shade of a July picnic. <br />
<br />
There's more.<br />
<br />
While I cannot testify that I always dot my face daintily with a napkin to clear away the crumbs or dribble of the half-digested food eaten in lieu of my own lunch, I am certain I have never combed my hair with a fork, using scrambled eggs as conditioner. Nor have I used an overturned bowl of tuna casserole as a hat. And I sometimes tire of your stories and listen only partially, so I cannot claim to be the greatest of listeners, but I am confident that I never wait patiently, sometimes feigning introspection, until others in the room - joined as they are in holy matrimony and desiring to speak to each other, if not about love then at least about whether the proof of insurance is in the car or not - open their mouths. And then, only then, begin to emit a string of deafening nonsense syllables, the din of which obliterates not only the possibility of transmitting information between these two people, but also, in their souls, the desire to ever begin speaking again. I cannot testify to excusing myself politely on a consistent basis when requesting that Fred extract himself from his lazy, rug-like positioning in the major throughfares of our home, but I am positive that I do not go around seeking people sitting comfortably in a chair and push them out of it, smiling and saying sweetly, ''sit, sit,'' but actually just being a huge asshole and taking everyone's seat.<br />
<br />
Take me to this person, this leader of small men, so that I may discuss these less-than-exemplary examples being set clandestinely in my home, and perhaps pay him off to behave like a human. Because I'm not above bribery anymore. And you're becoming a bit of a ruffian, Mr. Baby. Just a bit. <br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-87746385593196721562012-05-21T17:15:00.000-07:002012-07-13T08:30:06.454-07:00Some issues in semanticsDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<i> </i><br />
Well-versed as I may be in the broad strokes of language acquisition, indicating no need for intervention on my part, as your dense and terrifying, disproportionately giant brain is hard at work at the mysteries of language all on its own - I still have a few notes for you here. It would just be easier if you would accept my conclusions about them, sooner rather than later. I've been at this English block party a long time now, and you can trust me with matters of semantic import. Also, there's Mommy's Sanity to think about. There's that.<br />
<i><br /></i><br />
So here are just a few entries in your current lexicon that could use a little fine-tuning:<br />
<br />
<i>Hot: </i>Currently being used as an adjective for all items deviating greater than +/- 1 degree (F) from room temperature. Also apparently fused in your mind with the meaning of a<i>pocalyptically lethal.</i> Naturally, this is the spawn of the seemingly innocuous seed that was planted by the explanation of why you can't touch the oven, which is still good and true. But look, little dude: some of this crap is <i>cold, </i>to start with. Also, I propose, in the name of All That Is Holy and Remotely Sane, to expand the temperature range a little. Say to include things ranging from 50-85 degrees as acceptable to touch without blowing on them for twenty minutes or screaming like someone just severed your hand with a jackknife and is still sawing away at it like a salami. <br />
<br />
<i>Ew: </i>Also a little too all-encompassing. What was once applied to things that were, generally speaking, gross: dog shit, cow shit, goose shit, and baby shit, you are now walking around the farm declaring everything <i>Ew.</i> This can be a little insulting, if you are pointing at my face or making a commentary on the cleanliness of our house. And honestly: if something is covered in yogurt and snot and mashed into a crevice somewhere, that <i><u>is</u> Ew</i>, but it's sort of bitchy to be complaining about it when everyone knows perfectly well that the only person who would cover a napkin and some fries in yogurt, chew on them, take them out of their mouth and wipe their nose with them, and then stuff them in between the drawers from whence they cannot be removed, is <i>you.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Ow: </i>Meant to be said when you have an injury or <i>physical pain. </i>The existential crisis you have about whether or not you should have your pants checked before your nap, and whether not 'tis better to sleep for a couple of hours or to take arms and struggle, or really just any psychological discomfort brought on by someone requesting that you do something you think you might prefer not to - that is not <i>ow. </i>People think I'm punching you, so cut it out.<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Baby: </i>You were a little young to be introducing the idea that the new baby is in mommy's belly, and that's my bad. So, while you seem to have grasped <i>baby </i>in its usual meaning, you'\ve also expanded it to include everyone's tummy. This makes for some hilarity when huge beer-drinking men say, ''What's this?'' Women, however...look kid, women are just going to be a different story <i>in general </i>than that of burly men with beer-bellies. Dad will tell you the rest of these important facts, but typically, women don't appreciate you patting their bellies and saying <i>baby</i>. Especially not at the yuppy grocery store, especially not if they're wearing yoga pants and have blonde streaky hair or drive a Lexus. Plus, I think we let somebody's cat accidentally out of the bag, judging by the terse expressions and subsequent whispering that ensued the other day at the store post-<i>baby </i>declaration. So maybe just keep your hands off the bellies of young and quite presumably unmarried women, and please, if you can't do that, for the love of god, don't smile and say <i>baby, baby </i>as you're doing it.<br />
<br />
<i>Fall: </i>It's important to recognize that <i>fall </i>is generally used for sudden downward descents <i>of an unintentional nature. </i>This last part is very central to the meaning of the word. So when you say, ''Fall,'' because you were running through the house and (heh, heh) tripped on your own damn Leggo block, that's a pretty accurate story. Looking down from your highchair at the pile of spaghetti and milk on Fred's head and commenting ''all fall,'' however, is a little less accurate, given that you just decided to toss it there. See the difference? <i>Throw </i>is the word you are looking for. Or <i>jackass. </i><br />
<br />
Finally, good buddy, I'm really proud of you being bilingual, and finally rocking some Polish vocab. The fact that it means ''gimme'' is....well, it is what it is. Battles for another day. It's just that <i>daj!, </i>when you yell it in a demonic voice with that overly-determined expression on your face, sounds a lot like ''DIE. DIIIEEEEEEE!'' to the Anglophones. Maybe just stop spinning your head in circles while you say it.<br />
<br />Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-26413510878003412842012-05-01T13:57:00.002-07:002012-08-01T06:45:12.865-07:00Yet Fresher Auditory HellHello there, Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
It's been a while. As you are aware, we have been quite busy you and I. You, pondering the multifarious mysteries of the universe, and I cleaning up the aftermath of your robust and maladroit methodologies. I haven't, really, any time to write letters of complaint - not if we're going to keep at bay the relentless tides of <i>excruciatingly sharp-edged</i> Leggo blocks, scraps of potentially once-important papers, cleverly smuggled rocks (selected, with apparent care, from the heaps of dry and clean stones for their high degree of mud and shit content), fistfuls of mashed and partially digested bread products, abused and beloved recycling items, bears, blankets, and those lovely cubes that intermittently dispense in perpetuum the cheerfuckingest arrangements of segments of <i>Eine Kleine Nachtmusik </i>ever imagined. All of which you are employing in what seems to me to be quite a haphazard and unsystematic set of experiments centering around our good friend <a href="http://dearmisterbaby.blogspot.ca/2011/08/gravity.html" target="_blank">gravity</a>. (Again). To be honest, I haven't minded terribly being relegated to the less-than-glamorous role of lab janitor, because there are moments - beautiful and ephemeral moments - in which you actually <i>entertain yourself. </i><br />
<br />
However, you occasionally hit a snag. An item shaped like a star, to your angry befuddlement, will not allow itself to be crammed into a hole shaped like an octagon. Your bears are fat and tall and will not, despite your best efforts, be confined to the space into which you have smashed a number of other tiny items without problems. A car, overturned and pummeled into a tractor, cannot be removed with the same ease as it was earlier when it was on wheels. Your sippy cup straw sometimes comes unplugged. <br />
<br />
Gone are the days of <a href="http://dearmisterbaby.blogspot.ca/2011/01/screaming.html" target="_blank">screaming</a>, of <a href="http://dearmisterbaby.blogspot.ca/2011/10/screaming-redux.html" target="_blank">more screaming</a>, of <a href="http://dearmisterbaby.blogspot.ca/2011/05/tmastfp.html" target="_blank">horrible sounds</a>, and of the ambiguous and adamant <a href="http://dearmisterbaby.blogspot.ca/2012/03/mr-no.html" target="_blank">NO</a>. No, from the apparently fathomless well of abrasive sounds you have extracted yet another menace to our sanity, another vicious assault on poise and composure.<br />
<br />
Literature on the subject suggests that this sound be met with calm and silence. Demonstrate, the experts say, that you are in control by not reacting to your toddler.<br />
<br />
Okay, but:...I'd like to know this: have any of these assholes actually<i> heard </i>this fucking sound? <br />
<br />
In attempting to describe this, I am rendered helpless yet again by the exquisite hellishness of your sensory production. Words fail us again, Mr Baby. I suppose it's as if someone boiled together the auditory essence of: a crow being tortured in the throat of a seagull, of a cat being <i>slowly</i> flayed by dragging it across a chalkboard, of all the hypersensitive fire alarms in the middle of all the nights, of bagpipes played by tone-deaf amateurs, and, for good measure, even more tortured animals - all of the peacocks and cats who were ever shredded by predators or accidentally set on fire - and distilled them into one incomprehensibly potent sound, yet still I think this description does it no justice. <br />
<br />
The Whine. <br />
<br />
The Whine can permeate all things. I feel certain my blood is actually curdled by the deranged and impossible frequency at which it resonates. It is impossible to<i> do</i> anything, and impossible to <i>not</i> do anything, when the Whine is being broadcast. <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/annoying-whine-evolution/" target="_blank">(Science backs me up here).</a> And as you stand there, holding your truck upside down and at arms length, a Leggo block (a seemingly innocuous item but actually the harbinger of an auditory apocalypse) trapped in the driver's cabin, your face contorted into the almost comical but mostly terrifying expression required to birth this awful noise, I have but one thought in the milliseconds of silence that precede the Whine. And that is this:<br />
<br />
There has got to be a way to weaponize this shit. Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-21920706968648436022012-03-02T08:00:00.000-08:002012-03-02T08:00:00.333-08:00Mr. NoDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
Or should I say.....Mr. No? Like all of the words and ideas that seem to spontaneously generate in your mind while you sleep, like <i>shi-ta ta</i>, <i>Fred</i>, the inexplicably Jersey-accented <i>bear</i>, and <i>socks </i>(a robust and...eccentric vocabulary that can only hint at the genius within), you awoke one morning to declare that sometime while you were sleeping, you decided to find everything objectionable. Or perhaps you always did, but only just recently found the means to express your general disdain for It All.<br />
<br />
Once again, we must applaud Selma Fraiberg for her attempt to paint a charming picture of the delightful toddler, sweetly and excitedly taking on his new world and cognitive abilities with charm and pluck. Children at this age, she advises, may adopt the word ''no'' as their favorite word, but we can all rest assured that they are simply declaring their <i>intent </i>to possibly veto something, if they should possibly decide to do so.<br />
And when you read the book, you picture this adorable little bobble-head toddling around, saying <i>no </i>but still doing what you ask him to, in a sunny kitchen full of smiling people. And possibly those bluebirds from Snow White.<br />
<br />
Whatever. You, Mr. Baby, do not only <i>intend</i> to possibly veto it, you <i>do </i>definitely veto it, and refuse to do it, whatever it is, until, in a mercurial and mysterious twist, you veto your own veto and decide that you don't like not doing the thing that you professed such an objection to doing in the first place, so not only will you <i>not not </i>do it, you're not doing that, either. Or anything else that is proposed, or nothing that isn't, or for that matter, any additional proposals or non-proposals, thoughts of proposals, or considerations of same. <br />
<br />
So what <i>are</i> we doing, Mr. Baby? Who. the. fuck. knows?<br />
<br />
<br />
And then there is.... The Tone. You are as dismissive as any high-powered Wall Street executive. <i>No, </i>you tell me, before my sentence is even finished, ending your declaration with pursed and resolute lips. You don't have time for this, you are saying. It's completely out of the question. It's almost a <i>half-</i>no, like you can't even <i>dignify </i>the suggestion with a reply. You can't afford the time to pronounce the entire <i>vowel, </i>the idea is so<i> absurd </i>and draining of <i>your time</i>. <br />
<br />
It's a bit flippant, Mr. Baby. <br />
<br />
And so here we are, a typical day:<br />
<br />
Uh-oh, you dropped your milk on the floor.<br />
<i>No. </i><br />
Do you want me to pick it up?<br />
<i>No. </i><br />
Okay fine.<br />
<i>No.</i><i></i><br />
So you want it?<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
Do you want to get down?<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
Do you want some more snacks?<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
What do you want?<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
Nothing?<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
Okay then.<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
I've had more realistic conversations with a chatbot, A.<i></i><br />
<i>No.</i><br />
(Silence)<br />
<i>(Stare)</i><br />
(Silence)<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
Want to play-<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
You're shoving a book in my hand-<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
You want me to read it?<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
(Silence)<br />
<i> (Shoving book in hand) No.</i><br />
Okay fine. "Five little ducks-''<br />
<i>(Taking book and throwing it on the floor) No.</i><br />
Okay, no book.<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
Are you agreeing with me?<br />
<i>No. (Shoving book in hand).</i><br />
Read -<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
(Opening book)<br />
<i>(Taking book and shaking head)No.</i><br />
So no-<br />
<i>No. </i><br />
So I-<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
(Silence)<br />
<i>No.</i><br />
Sigh.<br />
<i>(Throwing book at head)No. </i><br />
<br />
And don't think, Mr. Baby, that <i>any</i> of this is more charming just because you call your bathtub<i> Babycakes</i>. <br />
<i></i><br />
<br /><i><br /></i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<br />
<br />
Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-17297651588251987822011-12-28T08:57:00.000-08:002011-12-28T10:13:26.799-08:00MilestonesAccording to some apparently somewhat reliable chart on the Internet, here are some ''milestones'' you should be hitting. According to the chart, we supposedly should be very proud parents. Let's have a look:<br />
<u><br />
Uses two words skillfully</u><br />
I find your acquisition of the words ''this'' and ''that'' to be both astoundingly lazy and endearingly clever. Whether or not you use these words skillfully is contingent upon one's perspective (saying <i>this </i>until you realize no one is getting it for you, and then yelling <i>that</i> until someone does, while not reflecting a particularly accurate meaning of these words, does get the job done). This seems to be, however, the extent of your linguistic efforts, and because it accomplishes anything and everything you may want to do, I can see you eventually falling behind. And I don't mind telling you, Mr. Baby, you come across as a li-ttle bit bossy.<br />
<br />
<u>Throws objects overhand</u><br />
...directly at people's faces and into the toilet. <br />
<br />
<u>Discovers the joy of climbing</u><br />
Ahead of schedule! How fantastic. Let's talk about <a href="http://dearmisterbaby.blogspot.com/2011/08/gravity.html">gravity</a> again. You seem to have determined, in a set of truly exhaustive and exhausting experiments, that spoons and sippy cups, if dropped, fall to the ground. (Now you're just doing it over and over again to fuck with with us). Unfortunately you have not been able to make what I think is a relatively simplistic leap and extend the application of that rule to <i>all objects. </i>Climbing, such joy. Turning around and walking straight off the stairs, straight off the chairs, straight off the tables! And should someone turn around for two seconds and fail to uphold your delusions of gravitational freedom? Rather than drawing some kind of logical conclusion from the experience, you give accusatory looks. <i>You are a really, really mean, bad mommy, </i>they say. <br />
<br />
I've said it once, and I'll say it again<i> - </i>I'm telling you, Mr. Baby, just to save everyone some time and aggravation - <i>gravity applies to everything on the fucking planet</i>. Didn't you like my song? (Gra-vity, da da, you make everything FALL, even babies who climb up the WALL...da da da doom)?<i> </i><br />
<br />
<u>May throw temper tantrums.</u><br />
I don't get it either, kid, but it's on the charts. I'll be frank, Mr. Baby, I don't remember when you took your first step exactly, and I should have written down the day your started crawling or jamming a spoon in your eye in an attempt to eat. But December 10, 2011 at 4:21 pm in the checkout line of Wal-Mart (By the way, Wal-Mart? Such a cliché, kid) is singed with a sort of Pavlovian permanence - that's right, the twitchy kind - into my memory. I had suspected other events of being temper tantrums, but I know things now that I didn't know then. Like unless it can truly and legitimately be mistaken by a health care professional as an epileptic seizure, unless Catholic priests begin offering their services as exorcists, unless a strange and eerie silence precedes it while all of the air is sucked out of the room, unless the sound that is made exceeds - both in decibels and pitch - anything ever heard before on this planet (including <a href="http://dearmisterbaby.blogspot.com/2011/05/tmastfp.html">The Most Annoying Sound on The Fucking Planet</a>), it is not a temper tantrum. I know this now, Mr. Baby. Now I know. <br />
<br />
<u>Initiates games</u><br />
You initiate one game. I'm calling it: Put A Blanket Over My Head And I Will Run Until I Smack Into An Object And Fall Over Backwards Laughing And Hitting My Head, but I think something shorter might be more catchy.<u> </u><br />
<br />
<u>May get finicky about food.</u> <br />
Judging by your dual-performance capacity as both vacuum cleaner and garbage disposal,*<br />
I doubt this will happen. Pickled herring? Unremarkable. Slice of lemon, including skin? Hardly noticeable. Bits of apple stashed somewhere in the living room that you occasionally pull out, in various states of decay, and munch on? Dental floss, tufts of dog fur (real and synthetic), dishwashing soap tablet? (FYI, concerned parents - it's totally cool for a 25-pound baby to eat up to three Finish Powerball dishwashing tablets, according to Baby's First Call Of Many To Poison Control). Mushrooms, blue cheese, banana peel, entire contents of the overturned compost container, pine cones, tissue, toothpaste, baby soap, conditioner? You don't discriminate. I honestly wouldn't mind a little bit of pickiness. You could, for example, start by creating two categories (say, organic and non-organic matter), and work down from there. <br />
<br />
<u> May switch from 2 naps to 1</u><br />
Don't you dare, Mr. Baby. Don't. You. Dare. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Canadians, for reasons they cannot, much like their legal system, explain, use the word <i>garburator </i>for this item. This word is silly to the point of being obscene, for many reasons, the most important of which being that Canadians are not particularly silly people, thus generating an overall effect that is rather creepy. Like Teletubbies. I'm going to request as such that you speak American around the house</span>.Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-29991276155019633962011-11-26T11:38:00.000-08:002011-11-26T11:39:25.086-08:00Full SteamDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
Hey bud. Haven't actually seen you in a while. I know you're out there, though, just like those shadowy, creepy ghost children in Japanese horror films. It's okay. You just learned how to move at the speed of light, and it has you pretty entertained. We've thrown up a few barricades in crucial locations (discovered the ''hard way,'') bubble-wrapped everything else and removed all the knives...so go nuts. By setting out tempting tableaux (rubber duck on the edge of toilet; unattended, open diaper full of squishy poop beneath a white wall; unsupervised containers of toxic materials next to sippy cups; shiny and apparently heavy objects on the edges of counters) and then hanging out, waiting for the sonic boom and snatching at the blurry air, I have been able to trap you with modest success when I need you to decelerate for a pit stop. There will likely be no pictures of you - the LHC people are using that technology to solve the mysteries of the universe right now - from age 12 months to whenever you decide to sit down in front of the TV with a bad haircut and fashionable clothing and complain that we are too bourgeois to understand you, but I'm okay with all of this. Like I said, go nuts. A thing I've discovered about motherhood is that many, many seemingly banal things are sublime merely because they occupy Certainsomeoneelse's frantic attention for three fracking minutes fortheloveofJesus. A few things, however, would be a lot easier if you took it down to Mach 1 for six seconds. Like:<br />
<br />
1)Pants change. I know you think you've tried to change your own pants, but what you were doing doesn't really count, inasmuch as it was only 34% of the process. So you may not realize this, but it's hard, my good friend, to remove a substance that you do not want, for olfactpry and hygenic reasons, smeared all over your face, from an object shaped like an octopus and spinning like a North American cake mixer plugged into a European outlet. On crack. <br />
<br />
2) Eating. Some things you still don't know how to get into your own mouth, so it's my job to put them in there. It's a lot like that Groundhog-smashy game, but on a smaller scale and forty times as fast and covered in Cream of Wheat. Now, some things you put into your own mouth, but at this speed I don't know what they are, or if you chewed them...so I can't really say how I feel about them. Also, you seem to have a lot more faith in my (as yet uncertified and minimally tested) infant Heimliching abilities than is warranted.<br />
<br />
3) The Whole Doctor's Visit. The only thing I can say, and this isn't witty at all, it's just pathetically true in the truest sense of the truth: that was one exasperating experience. Now what? Your chart reads Height: 21-46 inches. Weight: 15-27 pounds. No one has seen inside your ears even once. Maybe you have three teeth, maybe you have five. FYI, it is not actually part of the vaccination process to stab you with a needle five times, and they have these things called band-aids that we can stick on your arm afterward so that you aren't bouncing around the office splattering blood on everything. <br />
<br />
4) Everything, just everything related to clothing. Especially, but not limited to, socks and shoes. I've lowered my standards, and if you want to have your legs hanging out and no hat and no mittens, I'm sure you'll sustain less injury than the attempt to put these things on you at this velocity. But this is Canada, and you have to wear shoes. It's due to all the fucking ice, buddy. And <i>some</i> clothes. Just enough to keep Child Services off our back. Remember the time you were wearing your pants on your head and a shoe in your diaper? Do you hear how mommy's voice is cracking, oscillating between vacant, trying-hard-to-be-nice mommy and middle-aged crazy woman who is about to lock herself in a room and not come out for a week?<br />
<br />
It's clear that you have inherited a metabolism, from some distant strata of the family tree, that will keep you thin and dangerously mobile and annoy the hell out of your future teachers, and I have resigned myself to the consequences of this genetic doom. I am flowing with the river, because I am Zen. I am rehearsing my responses to principals who will want you to take Ritalin and neighbors whom I will be reimbursing and other people's parents who will be making Helpful Suggestions about how to calm you down because I am Not Zen. I am also building a giant box and I am going to lock them in there with you. I call it BabyDome.<br />
<br />
But can you please just stop the squirming, the twisting, the flailing, the arching, the tossing, the turning, the kicking, the convulsions, the seizures, the wiggling, the theatrics, for <i>one</i>. motherlovingminute. during the times listed above in point form? Thank you very much Mr. Baby. Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-48904710444748523162011-10-20T17:00:00.000-07:002011-10-20T17:04:17.864-07:00Screaming, ReduxDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
I know it must be extremely difficult to be unable to say what you want. If I had to guess which side of the gene pool your recalcitrance and Olympic-sized opinions come from, it would be.....your dad's. But I'm hoping we can have some sort of cease-fire. One like maybe where, until you can say something (I don't care how loudly right now, I really don't, I just want the <i>perpetuity </i>to end), you just accept that some stuff will not be what you want. And stop yelling. In return I shall continue to be a Perfect Mother, and try my best not to kill you. I shall now outline my argument for you:<br />
<br />
So a month ago, when you started to scream about having your pants changed, it was anybody's guess what the hell was bothering you about it, and, well, Mr. Baby, it still is anybody's guess what you find so goddam irritating about somebody removing a big gooey shit from your pants. (I'm happy to tell you what <i>I </i>find annoying about it, if you ever feel like listening to something).<br />
<br />
Also a month ago you started screaming in your high chair, and even though I walk around making stupid faces and shrugging Chaplinesquely and bellowing ''<i>What could the baby want?'' </i>in some weird cartoon voice, I'll just be honest and tell you: I know what you want. You want a delicious meal to just shoot right out of somebody's ass, steaming hot and ready to go. We all want that, Mr. Baby. But since the psychology books all say you're <i>so incredibly observant, </i>I thought maybe you would key in on a few things while you sat there screaming and watching me. Like it takes time to mash bananas, and put things in bowls, and turn frozen food into thawed food. Not much time, but <i>some</i> time. I thought you would think, "'Oh. My screaming doesn't remove time from the equations governing the laws of physics, so I could just maybe shut up because people are running around and doing it as fast as they fucking can. Look at them running frantically, like little elves. Hey, I'm being a huge dick!'' <br />
<br />
Also about a month ago, you got really pissed off about clothing, socks more than pants, and pants more than shirts. Simultaneously you began bitching because your feet are cold, and also began making these ostentatious shivering sounds with your four new little teeth. It's really over the top. The best part about this is that I get additional shit from everyone who sees you in bare feet at the grocery store. Bad mother, they are saying with their eyes. Look at the poor little frozen angel. <br />
<br />
And then it seems like things aren't really going your way. The potty won't open, the pages of your book stick together, the whole floor is not magically elevated to the height of your blocks container and so you fall down, people keep telling you you can't stick your fingers in outlets or smash clay birds repeatedly into the windowpane, Fred is a terribly unreliable source of support as you're trying to walk, etc., etc. There's also a bunch of crap I don't understand, like why you are yelling at the curtains or insist on giving a lecture to the bicycle pedals like they're half-deaf.<br />
<br />
The point is, you've been screaming about all of this for about a month now, and I just want to point out, for the sake of reason and logic - those most endangered of human faculties in these parts - that your screaming hasn't changed a goddam thing. Down is still down, glass is still not for babies, poop has to be wiped down and I'm still going to tie those booties on your feet if I have to sit on you, god damn it. And I know you aren't getting any votes for Most Logical around here, what with your whole frontal lobe basically missing for another ten years, but....I don't know, Mr. Baby? Does that suggest anything to you?<br />
<br />
And just....finally, I just want to say this on a somewhat related note: Mr. Baby, I am not responsible for gravity. There's no one I can talk to about it, no little switch I can flip, no little trick I can do. OK? So quit yelling and giving me dirty looks about it.Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-64378510057726681262011-09-06T11:35:00.000-07:002011-09-06T11:35:41.375-07:00Communication. -Ish.So before you were born, I did something I now regret, which was to shit-talk baby signing to no end. Part of this was just that <i>baby signing</i>, like <i>baby wearing </i>and <i>Baby Einstein, </i>fashionable breast pump totes, elaborate arguments about the virtues of diapering this way or that, words that end in -agaboo or -amboree, toys for infants labeled as educational, Ethan Allen crib sets, vicious trash-blogging about co-sleeping or organic baby food and $5,000 strollers are all lumped together in my world as a Hipster-Yuppy Marketing Scheme, which like most hipster-yuppy marketing schemes (PBR being an exception, because I drank that <i>well before </i>it rocketed from the circles of white trashdom to the grubby black-fingernailed paws of exquisitely mulleted men in strange vests discussing Herman Hesse on their righteously decaying porches) just prompts me to declare that it is Asinine, whether it is or it isn't. My semi-logical, if inexperienced, contribution to my own argument<i> </i>was that it seemed stupid to invest time teaching some little kid how to sign when he would learn how to talk a few months afterward anyway. <i>What's a few months? </i>I demanded. I channeled Shit My Dad Says. <i>The baby'll talk when the baby talks! He's not going to sign us a ladder to the moon. </i><br />
<br />
What is a few months? What's a few months of you screaming until the cows, off in a distant field, think that coyotes are attacking them and almost trample the house, while I juggle you here and turn you upside down there and wave things in the air, smiling and asking if <i>this</i> (finally, for the love of GOD) is it, in a falsetto of maniacal cheer? Gurgling and cooing until, by process of acrobatic elimination, it is concluded that you want to hold a toothbrush while you get your pants changed, or that the two clay birds on the shelf need to be kicked out of the house for crimes we will never comprehend, or that you were hoping to hold onto Fred's ears while chewing on your vegetable book and banging on the piano and nothing, nothing else will suffice? Yes, the baby <i>will</i> talk when the baby learns to talk, but in the meantime, Mr. Baby, I have to say, this is bullshit. <br />
<br />
You're trying, and I'll give you that. But I think you could make a little more effort to be clear. To explain my point, I've compiled a temporary dictionary for us, and I think you'll agree, after perusing it, that it's somewhat inadequate for our needs:<br />
<br />
<i>Guh</i>: I once believed this to be the final syllable of ''dog'' and therefore to be rooted in modern English, hooray! This belief was driven by the fact that ''guh'' is used incessantly in the presence of Fred, and was shouted loudly and enthusiastically while jumping up and down for several minutes when you saw a very large dog on vacation. The fact that you were using <i>dog</i> for all animals lent credence to this theory, because babies are supposedly always doing screwy stuff like that. Further observation, however, indicates that ''guh'' is a just an (unhelpful) mega-lemma used for anything that you like, from dogs to the wind to farting at the dinner table.<br />
<br />
<i>Yeah</i>: This is a false cognate. While <i>yeah</i> might mistakenly be interpreted as a sign of agreement, it's meaning is much more nuanced (this is evidenced by the fact that you simply never simply agree). I've narrowed it down to the following: ''I'm having fun waving this sock around,'' ''I want more,'' and ''I think everyone should keep singing.''<br />
<br />
<i>Mom</i>: "'I have shat myself"' or ''I hit my head on that fucking piano again.'' <br />
<br />
<i>Dadadadada</i>: Dad is soooooo great. Dad this and dad that. Love dad. Where's the funny man with the big hair? <br />
<br />
<i>A ta ta ta ta ta TA TA</i>: Either, ''I'm really getting bored'' or ''I'm planning on emptying the wastebasket for the next two hours, please put things back in it.''<br />
<br />
<i>te te te te te te</i> "'There is a small thing I am going to pretend to play with and then stick in my mouth,'' or "I really like this book.''<br />
<br />
<i>Phhhhbbbbt</i>: ''I am nine months old and making a joke. My humour is too sophisticated for you.'' But - somewhat confusingly - also, "'I hate it.''<br />
<br />
So, good buddy, I don't know...maybe you can see how things go wrong:<br />
<br />
"'Mom,'' you say. "Phhhbbbbbt guh.''<i> </i><br />
Is this, <i>Mom, you're so charming and I like you</i>? Or, <i>I have a problem. I pooped, but now that I think about it, it's nice and squishy, so never you mind? </i>Also plausible: <i>I hit my head on the fucking piano again, which I hate, but actually, is a great thing because now I'm hallucinating dogs. </i><br />
<br />
"'Guh,'' you say, ''yeah, yeah.''<i> </i><br />
<i>This chicken is delicious, I'll wave it in the air.</i> But also, <i>I like Fred's tongue. Please cover me in beets</i>. Not impossible: <i>I like that donkey. Wave a sock at him so he sings. </i> <br />
<br />
On and on. It wouldn't be a problem except that you have a tendency (genetic origin unclaimed) to get really ticked off when people aren't doing what you supposedly want. So maybe if you could add just a few more words, a few more sensible gestures? Or - and this would really be ideal - stop getting these ridiculous fucking ideas into your head. Your spoons don't need to be down my shirt, Fred doesn't want to wear a hat, and for reasons I just haven't the time to explain, Mr. Baby, toothbrushes and shit never, ever, belong in the same activity together. Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-24639669499698128222011-08-13T10:05:00.000-07:002011-08-13T10:17:01.591-07:00GravitySelma Fraiberg wrote a lovely book called <i>The Magic Years, </i>which I re-read passages of frequently because A) she offers zero advice, and B) she has a marvelous way of making babies sound like lovely little people exploring the world in magical ways instead of the demonic, dictatorial little squirts that they are. Her beautiful description of you, and other right bastards your age, as pocket-sized scientists who are testing the world out in a long and exhaustive series of experiments, has saved you more than once from Mean Mommy and Cranky Mommy (the one who sighs a lot). Because we all know Mr Baby, that I like to see sound implementation of the scientific method.<br />
<br />
However. While there is value in the reproducibility of an experiment, and I like that you are dotting your t's and crossing your i's, I <i>would</i> like to know: just how many fucking more times, Mr. Baby, are you going to drop your motherloving spoons and sippy cup on the floor before you get around to publishing the results to the rest of your brain? They fall. They all fall. <i>They always fall.</i> <br />
<br />
And so this is the thing. As they say, not much is certain in this life but death (too morbid for your tender young age) and taxes (later, my child, later. And......ssssorry for moving to Canada.) But it wouldn't hurt to add, because unless you're a super-dork physicist or an astronaut, it's true: ''and gravity.'' Death and taxes and gravity, kid, that's what life is about. Gravity is a certainty that we can all count on. You drop things, they fall. If you happen to have a preposterous sense of balance and let go of things, you fall. What goes up must come down, and don't shoot guns into the air even if it's a Mexican holiday, etc. etc.. Even Fred knows it, and he is a dog. That's why he, and his ears and his tail and his penis, are nowhere to be found all day, but he materializes under your highchair with a renewed interest in all things baby. Because he understands gravity. And that snacks are on the way because of it. <br />
<br />
You're being really rigorous in your testing of your hypothesis (spoons fall). And I admire that, I really do. But I'll just come out an say this: it's getting fucking annoying. Also, you're not on the trail of any big groundbreaking theorem here. So, my sweet little pea, gravity is there and it works like this: stuff falls. Down. Now please stop, for the love of all that is holy in this world, dropping your goddam spoons on the floor. <br />
<br />
And P.S.: Gravity also applies to things like you, your sippy cup, your head, and...oh yeah I mentioned that already. <i>EVERYTHING. </i>Okay? Okay.Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-82713929681941795692011-07-27T17:11:00.000-07:002011-07-28T05:05:25.454-07:00Let your tongue be your guideDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
For a while - and this is quite laughable to me now, but in a sinister way - I was a little concerned about your gross motor skills. Not because you were particularly behind the little charts on the Internet or I was particularly worried about it. It was mostly because you seemed to be...well, a lazy bastard. You learned how to roll, for example, and you did that like ten or twelve times, and then you just parked yourself on your side and rested your arm on your hips and lay around most of the day. This indicated to me that perhaps you lacked ambition, which was only concerning because...I mean, it's not our entire retirement plan, but it seems to me like you might want to be a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or a hockey player of international fame, one who loves his parents and all the sacrifices they made for him like not sleeping ever again and endlessly, endlessly washing millions of dishes, and so sends modest but monthly remittances to them in the tax-free, undisclosed tropical island where they reside. Instead of possessing the sort of drive these careers require, you seemed rather easily placated with having done something to its absolute minimum standards, and then taking a disproportionate furlough. (I think it may be of interest to you Mr. Baby, that this is clearly a genetic anomaly. No one is like that around here. No sir.) <br />
<br />
I said this concern was laughable, and I'm getting around to why. <br />
<br />
Yes. For a while you were pleasant and largely immobile, content to look at your crib guys and sit in the Exersaucer and hit things. People remarked that you were not inclined to move around very much, in a tone that seemed to be disapproving or passively competitive. A good friend of the family asked us, when you were about four months old, if you were keeping us on our toes. ''Not really,'' we replied nonchalantly from the couch where we were watching you and typing on our computers. Because you really weren't.<br />
<br />
Her expression haunts me now. <br />
<br />
Why? Oh just now you're insane. You're totally and completely insane. No one can get a fucking thing done around here, especially not sit down to write a complaint about it. One ill-fated day you grew tired of lying around and just started crawling. "Ooooooh, ahhhhhhh,"' we said. "Oh, that's so great!" I was ludicrous enough to film this apocalyptic event as though it were something <i>I would want to remember.</i><br />
<br />
Now what? Now the whole time you're awake I have to follow you around, redirecting you from picking up the tiny things that you see like a hawk and suck up like a crazed roaming vacuum cleaner. Enticing you away from things that shouldn't be in your mouth and which you shouldn't repeatedly bang your head on. Piano pedals, dog crates, bowls of water. The compost container.<br />
<br />
Hold you? It's like holding a seizing octopus with clamps for hands. Put you in your Gated Community? You're fine with that until you hit a wall, which takes about two seconds, and then you pull out that horrible sound you learned to make some time ago and we all thought you had forgotten, sweet merciful Christ. No, you have to be on adventures, and dangerous ones. All. day. long. And it isn't as if it really helps to follow you around, micromanaging your explorations. You possess an unearthly ability to transport things into your mouth and be chewing on them with an expression of disdain and surprise without ever having actually having put them in there. I know because I have been staring at you, watching you like the little demonic animal that you are.<br />
<br />
Thinking myself quite clever, I placed objects you can actually play with on all the shelves. I assumed that because you don't even know that the world still exists if we cover your head with say, a tea cozy, this ruse would work. But somehow you determined, with a quick swipe and the resultant clatter, that none of those things are fun, no matter how authentically I arranged them to look like danger. No, you want knives and beer bottles and pennies and electrical cords, stray threads and stinky shoes and tissues and poison and parts of the carpet where Fred recently took a shit. Fred's filthy scraggly nails. Little, tiny scraps of things that you are suddenly capable of getting directly and swiftly into your mouth, which I only find noteworthy because food of the exact same size and shape seems to utterly confound you and get smashed angrily into your highchair until Fred comes by to relieve you of it. <br />
<br />
Oh, but you take naps now you say? You take regular naps and can't I rest then?<br />
<br />
Mr. Baby do you have any goddamn idea how much time it takes to clean the floors and all the things on the floors at or below the level of your mouth so that you can go around licking them? We live. On a farm. And - and I'm just curious - aren't you <i>tired</i> of licking the floor? You've licked the <i>whole thing</i> about <i>a million</i> times. You screw your face up in an unpleasant display of unpleasantness at its very unsavory qualities every time you sample it. It's not going to turn into ice cream, good buddy. Also, Fred cannot be vacuumed - I've tried. <br />
<br />
What am I saying? I don't know, really. I want you to be happy. I want you to explore the world. Perhaps you heard your dad saying, <i>let your tongue be your guide. </i>It's a Polish expression, he says it to be funny. It's also a fucking idiom. So I don't know, I really don't, how many times you need to lick the piano pedals in order to understand them. How many times you have to lick the dog and have it all end in cranky, furry spitballs of fury. But I do know that I am tired, a little bit bored, and my back hurts. So maybe, since you've licked the whole house, you can say to yourself - okay. It tastes like a house. I will now just pat it, like a good friend. <i> </i><br />
Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-60950690174422558742011-06-12T13:14:00.000-07:002011-06-24T06:28:07.321-07:00Notes on your regimeDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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: <br />
<br />
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: <i>you </i>cannot actually stand so <i>someone </i>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. <br />
<br />
2) You also cannot walk. See above, because it's pretty much the same set of complaints.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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 <i>not </i>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. <br />
<br />
6) The world is not a drum, good buddy. And all the objects in it are not drumsticks. And you are no Joey Kramer.Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-32124525573888042992011-05-18T17:44:00.000-07:002011-05-18T17:44:48.083-07:00TMASTFPDear Mr. Baby:<br />
<br />
Lately you've been a generally fun guy to hang around with. Forgotten are what I now refer to as the Dark Times - the days of whistling the repetitive chords of the Mexican Hat Dance and lunging deeply, painfully, training-for-Olympian-feats-of-strength-ly so that you would sleep - attached to me like a soft, easily irritated leech - for just twenty minutes for the love of God. Gone are the bleary nights and mornings and who knows if it's day or night-ings, staring emptily at the cheese grater and considering the pros and cons of rubbing it against my unfathomably itchy eyeball. No, since you rounded the big four months, we've been relaxing, taking naps, petting the dog, removing fistfulls of his hair from your incredibly strong little baby fists, reading Goodnight Moon over and over and over again to your ever-renewed interest and surprise. Sure, you have been a bit drooly, and you still don't contribute much the household economy or clean anything up, but your soft fuzzy baldness and effervescent bum, your spontaneous, toothless grinning and genuine, charming appreciation of the well-loved children's song, Wheels on The Bus (provided that you actually go up-and-down and swish-swish-swish) more than make up for your apathy toward cleanliness and order. What a lovely baby, I have been thinking, as you gently gum my nose and make tiny, stinky farts while compiling one of your accidental pseudo-phrases, like <i>aaaaaay nooooo </i>or <i>daaahg pyooo</i> or my personal favourite, <i>ooooooo shhhhhhhhht. </i><br />
<br />
Then, one night, as we were all sleeping soundly in the placid tranquility of this peaceful dynasty, you awoke as you often do to babble incoherently but adorably into the air with soft little gurgles and round coos before drifting predictably back to sleep. <br />
<br />
And then for for no apparent, logical, imaginable, or justifiable reason, instead of going back to sleep, you began to emit The Most Annoying Sound on The Fucking Planet. <br />
<br />
What's so annoying about The Most Annoying Sound on The Fucking Planet? Oh, Mr. Baby, I don't know, really. It's the frequency, in part, up there in that provoking, exasperating octave reserved for smoke detectors and Mariah Carey's ego. It's the boundless, operatic lung capacity you apparently possess that allows you to sustain The Most Annoying Sound on The Fucking Planet for minutes that seem like tiny days - tiny, grating, irritating days. It's definitely something about the <i>ridiculous, </i>physically impossible<i> </i>volume you're cranked up to. It's the way you are so expressively panicked- or distressed- or angry-sounding in your articulation of this sound, sending everyone scurrying around the house searching for the source of your discomfort or excruciating pain or existential torment only to discover, again and again, that you have no problem, no problem whatsoever. There's nothing you want, there's nothing we can do, legally or ethically, to shut you up. You're just shrieking, delightedly. Just emitting this sound - this horrible, horrible sound Mr. Baby - for absolutely no fucking reason at all. <br />
<br />
You're new on the scene and haven't, as such, had time to sort this out for yourself. But when people begin moving their lips in the shapes of the numbers one through ten, or quietly whispering things like, "<i>My patience is a delicate white flower in a garden, and I am watering it with a can, in a quiet garden...'' </i>with noticeable frequency around you, you have, Mr. Baby, probably stepped over the line. And so it's nice that you can make The Most Annoying Sound on The Fucking Planet, and I promise to put it to good use someday. Maybe I'll need a window broken or want to interrogate someone or just be really mean to some bats. Maybe someday I'll look back fondly at this time, and your dad and I will say to each other, <i>hey remember when Mr. Baby started making The Most Annoying Sound on The Fucking Planet for five minutes at a time for no reason and there was nothing you could do to turn it off and we started to have migraines from it because the capillaries in our brains were actually bursting? I wish we could hear that again.</i> <br />
<br />
But for now, little dude, let's just turn it off. Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148754020385676123.post-15349831481860448902011-05-04T11:59:00.000-07:002011-05-04T12:15:45.911-07:00Causes. Effects.Dear Mr. Baby: <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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 ''<i>aw, fuck, kid</i>,'' 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. <br />
<br />
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 <i>me</i> 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.<br />
<br />
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 <i>just do it</i>. 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 <i>maybe</i> 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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 <i>wearing</i> them. If you could understand that food must travel through <i>your</i> mouth and into <i>your</i> 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...<br />
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Chimera, fantasy, delusion...indeed. Still. Give it some thought, Mr. Baby. It would really shed some light on things.Karen Vogelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18146520833627352118noreply@blogger.com6