Dear Mr. Baby:
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 shi-ta ta, Fred, the inexplicably Jersey-accented bear, and socks (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.
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 intent to possibly veto something, if they should possibly decide to do so.
And when you read the book, you picture this adorable little bobble-head toddling around, saying no but still doing what you ask him to, in a sunny kitchen full of smiling people. And possibly those bluebirds from Snow White.
Whatever. You, Mr. Baby, do not only intend to possibly veto it, you do 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 not not 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.
So what are we doing, Mr. Baby? Who. the. fuck. knows?
And then there is.... The Tone. You are as dismissive as any high-powered Wall Street executive. No, 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 half-no, like you can't even dignify the suggestion with a reply. You can't afford the time to pronounce the entire vowel, the idea is so absurd and draining of your time.
It's a bit flippant, Mr. Baby.
And so here we are, a typical day:
Uh-oh, you dropped your milk on the floor.
No.
Do you want me to pick it up?
No.
Okay fine.
No.
So you want it?
No.
Do you want to get down?
No.
Do you want some more snacks?
No.
What do you want?
No.
Nothing?
No.
Okay then.
No.
I've had more realistic conversations with a chatbot, A.
No.
(Silence)
(Stare)
(Silence)
No.
Want to play-
No.
You're shoving a book in my hand-
No.
You want me to read it?
No.
(Silence)
(Shoving book in hand) No.
Okay fine. "Five little ducks-''
(Taking book and throwing it on the floor) No.
Okay, no book.
No.
Are you agreeing with me?
No. (Shoving book in hand).
Read -
No.
(Opening book)
(Taking book and shaking head)No.
So no-
No.
So I-
No.
(Silence)
No.
Sigh.
(Throwing book at head)No.
And don't think, Mr. Baby, that any of this is more charming just because you call your bathtub Babycakes.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Milestones
According 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:
Uses two words skillfully
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 this until you realize no one is getting it for you, and then yelling that 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.
Throws objects overhand
...directly at people's faces and into the toilet.
Discovers the joy of climbing
Ahead of schedule! How fantastic. Let's talk about gravity 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 all objects. 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. You are a really, really mean, bad mommy, they say.
I've said it once, and I'll say it again - I'm telling you, Mr. Baby, just to save everyone some time and aggravation - gravity applies to everything on the fucking planet. 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)?
May throw temper tantrums.
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 The Most Annoying Sound on The Fucking Planet), it is not a temper tantrum. I know this now, Mr. Baby. Now I know.
Initiates games
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.
May get finicky about food.
Judging by your dual-performance capacity as both vacuum cleaner and garbage disposal,*
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.
May switch from 2 naps to 1
Don't you dare, Mr. Baby. Don't. You. Dare.
*Canadians, for reasons they cannot, much like their legal system, explain, use the word garburator 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.
Uses two words skillfully
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 this until you realize no one is getting it for you, and then yelling that 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.
Throws objects overhand
...directly at people's faces and into the toilet.
Discovers the joy of climbing
Ahead of schedule! How fantastic. Let's talk about gravity 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 all objects. 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. You are a really, really mean, bad mommy, they say.
I've said it once, and I'll say it again - I'm telling you, Mr. Baby, just to save everyone some time and aggravation - gravity applies to everything on the fucking planet. 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)?
May throw temper tantrums.
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 The Most Annoying Sound on The Fucking Planet), it is not a temper tantrum. I know this now, Mr. Baby. Now I know.
Initiates games
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.
May get finicky about food.
Judging by your dual-performance capacity as both vacuum cleaner and garbage disposal,*
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.
May switch from 2 naps to 1
Don't you dare, Mr. Baby. Don't. You. Dare.
*Canadians, for reasons they cannot, much like their legal system, explain, use the word garburator 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.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Full Steam
Dear Mr. Baby:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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 some 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?
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.
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 one. motherlovingminute. during the times listed above in point form? Thank you very much Mr. Baby.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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 some 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?
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.
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 one. motherlovingminute. during the times listed above in point form? Thank you very much Mr. Baby.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Screaming, Redux
Dear Mr. Baby:
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 perpetuity 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:
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 find annoying about it, if you ever feel like listening to something).
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 ''What could the baby want?'' 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 so incredibly observant, 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 some 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!''
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 perpetuity 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:
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 find annoying about it, if you ever feel like listening to something).
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 ''What could the baby want?'' 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 so incredibly observant, 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 some 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!''
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.
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.
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?
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.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Communication. -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 baby signing, like baby wearing and Baby Einstein, 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 well before 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 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. What's a few months? I demanded. I channeled Shit My Dad Says. The baby'll talk when the baby talks! He's not going to sign us a ladder to the moon.
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 this (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 will talk when the baby learns to talk, but in the meantime, Mr. Baby, I have to say, this is bullshit.
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:
Guh: 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 dog 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.
Yeah: This is a false cognate. While yeah 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.''
Mom: "'I have shat myself"' or ''I hit my head on that fucking piano again.''
Dadadadada: Dad is soooooo great. Dad this and dad that. Love dad. Where's the funny man with the big hair?
A ta ta ta ta ta TA TA: 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.''
te te te te te te "'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.''
Phhhhbbbbt: ''I am nine months old and making a joke. My humour is too sophisticated for you.'' But - somewhat confusingly - also, "'I hate it.''
So, good buddy, I don't know...maybe you can see how things go wrong:
"'Mom,'' you say. "Phhhbbbbbt guh.''
Is this, Mom, you're so charming and I like you? Or, I have a problem. I pooped, but now that I think about it, it's nice and squishy, so never you mind? Also plausible: I hit my head on the fucking piano again, which I hate, but actually, is a great thing because now I'm hallucinating dogs.
"'Guh,'' you say, ''yeah, yeah.''
This chicken is delicious, I'll wave it in the air. But also, I like Fred's tongue. Please cover me in beets. Not impossible: I like that donkey. Wave a sock at him so he sings.
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.
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 this (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 will talk when the baby learns to talk, but in the meantime, Mr. Baby, I have to say, this is bullshit.
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:
Guh: 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 dog 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.
Yeah: This is a false cognate. While yeah 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.''
Mom: "'I have shat myself"' or ''I hit my head on that fucking piano again.''
Dadadadada: Dad is soooooo great. Dad this and dad that. Love dad. Where's the funny man with the big hair?
A ta ta ta ta ta TA TA: 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.''
te te te te te te "'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.''
Phhhhbbbbt: ''I am nine months old and making a joke. My humour is too sophisticated for you.'' But - somewhat confusingly - also, "'I hate it.''
So, good buddy, I don't know...maybe you can see how things go wrong:
"'Mom,'' you say. "Phhhbbbbbt guh.''
Is this, Mom, you're so charming and I like you? Or, I have a problem. I pooped, but now that I think about it, it's nice and squishy, so never you mind? Also plausible: I hit my head on the fucking piano again, which I hate, but actually, is a great thing because now I'm hallucinating dogs.
"'Guh,'' you say, ''yeah, yeah.''
This chicken is delicious, I'll wave it in the air. But also, I like Fred's tongue. Please cover me in beets. Not impossible: I like that donkey. Wave a sock at him so he sings.
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.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Gravity
Selma Fraiberg wrote a lovely book called The Magic Years, 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.
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 would 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. They always fall.
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.
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.
And P.S.: Gravity also applies to things like you, your sippy cup, your head, and...oh yeah I mentioned that already. EVERYTHING. Okay? Okay.
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 would 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. They always fall.
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.
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.
And P.S.: Gravity also applies to things like you, your sippy cup, your head, and...oh yeah I mentioned that already. EVERYTHING. Okay? Okay.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Let your tongue be your guide
Dear Mr. Baby:
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.)
I said this concern was laughable, and I'm getting around to why.
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.
Her expression haunts me now.
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 would want to remember.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, but you take naps now you say? You take regular naps and can't I rest then?
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 tired of licking the floor? You've licked the whole thing about a million 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.
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, let your tongue be your guide. 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.
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.)
I said this concern was laughable, and I'm getting around to why.
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.
Her expression haunts me now.
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 would want to remember.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, but you take naps now you say? You take regular naps and can't I rest then?
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 tired of licking the floor? You've licked the whole thing about a million 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.
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, let your tongue be your guide. 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.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Notes on your regime
Dear Mr. Baby:
People may be wondering where we have been, you and I, and why there have been very few tales from the kingdom over which you reign, dictating affairs with the wave of your sippy cup, slouched slightly in your Bumbo chair on the dining room table or proudly surveying your domain from your ExerSaucer - which, quite appropriately, is castle-themed. And I have been down in the ranks of middle management, making it all work. Yes, we're running things here, running them better than most governments, mostly because you are despotic but comical, and there is little paperwork of any kind, and if there is, you promptly eat it. Disorganized and demanding, myopic as regards to long-term planning and logistics, egocentric, and (pardon the pun) infantile, you're very much like a dictator in every way. All you are missing is a mustachio.
Like many modern dictators, you have chosen to surround yourself with flamboyant decor and fluttery yes-men, and there are a great many things afoot in your kingdom that you are informed about in only the most soothing of tones, lest you hand down some unintelligible edict with the pounding of your rattle. There are many things that you believe to have commanded into action but have actually bungled impossibly, and are mere illusions which have required creative and indefatigable efforts on the part of your servants in order to maintain. As is the way, I suspect, of most accidental sycophants, they are just really trying to keep you from having a fit.
However, I think it's important for all people of importance to to have an occasional voice of reason to tether them somewhat to reality, or next thing you know they're invading the neighbors or wearing funny hats and insulting Condoleezza Rice. So, just a few notes on your new clothes:
1) You cannot actually stand. Standing is a miraculous thing, a marvel that kineisiologists, if you are ever unfortunate enough to meet a chatty one, will go on and on and on about for hours. The upright posture of a human is an incredibly delicate and precarious balancing act. You (well, admittedly, we, because our complicity in this illusion cannot be denied) have given yourself the impression that you can and are standing around. Standing around at all hours of the day and night with a magnificently impressed expression on your face. You never, ever want to sit down, and God forbid you find yourself doing the only thing you can do on your own, which is lie around. But you see, Mr. Baby, that there is a wee problem and that is this: you cannot actually stand so someone has to sit around with you. Furthermore, this someone has to do next to nothing, because this someone must keep you from falling over without pulling or tugging or pushing to hard (leading you to believe that they are somehow interfering with your standing), but also without drifting off into the pages of a book or a TV show and missing the lightening quick disintegration of your half-balance and your subsequent downfall. This is quite boring Mr. Baby. Under other circumstances it is called loitering and there are laws against it.
2) You also cannot walk. See above, because it's pretty much the same set of complaints.
3) For a number of reasons, (again, in the interest of being fair, we admit our complicity in this affair) you have the following impression: when you are done with spoons, fling them behind and to the right of you. A new one will appear shortly, with more food on it. This is a delusion, the result of the machinations of your minions, rather than some magical quality of the world. Also, though you seem oblivious to the charms of a house that is not covered in three-week old zucchini and carrot mush, I'll have you know that these things do not magically remove themselves from the walls and the table and your Bumbo and the ceiling.
4) No one is actually happy to see anyone at three in the morning. That is also a big lie, and I apologize for dragging it out with my mildly hysterical pre-dawn cheer. What everyone wants to do at that time, little buddy, is sleep, and while your monologues about blengabadphst and thwastpffftapsht are fascinating, their integrity would be completely preserved if delivered after the sun rises.
5) You cannot just eat pureed green beans for the rest of your life. Food has flavor and food has lumps. There are occasionally foods which you must reject on the basis of them being distasteful, but the appropriate course of action in these cases is not to gag and roll your eyes and throw yourself around and continue gagging and generally act as though someone has placed a fried baby head in your mouth and asked you to chew. You could simply refuse, with a more dignified expression, by closing your mouth.
6) The world is not a drum, good buddy. And all the objects in it are not drumsticks. And you are no Joey Kramer.
People may be wondering where we have been, you and I, and why there have been very few tales from the kingdom over which you reign, dictating affairs with the wave of your sippy cup, slouched slightly in your Bumbo chair on the dining room table or proudly surveying your domain from your ExerSaucer - which, quite appropriately, is castle-themed. And I have been down in the ranks of middle management, making it all work. Yes, we're running things here, running them better than most governments, mostly because you are despotic but comical, and there is little paperwork of any kind, and if there is, you promptly eat it. Disorganized and demanding, myopic as regards to long-term planning and logistics, egocentric, and (pardon the pun) infantile, you're very much like a dictator in every way. All you are missing is a mustachio.
Like many modern dictators, you have chosen to surround yourself with flamboyant decor and fluttery yes-men, and there are a great many things afoot in your kingdom that you are informed about in only the most soothing of tones, lest you hand down some unintelligible edict with the pounding of your rattle. There are many things that you believe to have commanded into action but have actually bungled impossibly, and are mere illusions which have required creative and indefatigable efforts on the part of your servants in order to maintain. As is the way, I suspect, of most accidental sycophants, they are just really trying to keep you from having a fit.
However, I think it's important for all people of importance to to have an occasional voice of reason to tether them somewhat to reality, or next thing you know they're invading the neighbors or wearing funny hats and insulting Condoleezza Rice. So, just a few notes on your new clothes:
1) You cannot actually stand. Standing is a miraculous thing, a marvel that kineisiologists, if you are ever unfortunate enough to meet a chatty one, will go on and on and on about for hours. The upright posture of a human is an incredibly delicate and precarious balancing act. You (well, admittedly, we, because our complicity in this illusion cannot be denied) have given yourself the impression that you can and are standing around. Standing around at all hours of the day and night with a magnificently impressed expression on your face. You never, ever want to sit down, and God forbid you find yourself doing the only thing you can do on your own, which is lie around. But you see, Mr. Baby, that there is a wee problem and that is this: you cannot actually stand so someone has to sit around with you. Furthermore, this someone has to do next to nothing, because this someone must keep you from falling over without pulling or tugging or pushing to hard (leading you to believe that they are somehow interfering with your standing), but also without drifting off into the pages of a book or a TV show and missing the lightening quick disintegration of your half-balance and your subsequent downfall. This is quite boring Mr. Baby. Under other circumstances it is called loitering and there are laws against it.
2) You also cannot walk. See above, because it's pretty much the same set of complaints.
3) For a number of reasons, (again, in the interest of being fair, we admit our complicity in this affair) you have the following impression: when you are done with spoons, fling them behind and to the right of you. A new one will appear shortly, with more food on it. This is a delusion, the result of the machinations of your minions, rather than some magical quality of the world. Also, though you seem oblivious to the charms of a house that is not covered in three-week old zucchini and carrot mush, I'll have you know that these things do not magically remove themselves from the walls and the table and your Bumbo and the ceiling.
4) No one is actually happy to see anyone at three in the morning. That is also a big lie, and I apologize for dragging it out with my mildly hysterical pre-dawn cheer. What everyone wants to do at that time, little buddy, is sleep, and while your monologues about blengabadphst and thwastpffftapsht are fascinating, their integrity would be completely preserved if delivered after the sun rises.
5) You cannot just eat pureed green beans for the rest of your life. Food has flavor and food has lumps. There are occasionally foods which you must reject on the basis of them being distasteful, but the appropriate course of action in these cases is not to gag and roll your eyes and throw yourself around and continue gagging and generally act as though someone has placed a fried baby head in your mouth and asked you to chew. You could simply refuse, with a more dignified expression, by closing your mouth.
6) The world is not a drum, good buddy. And all the objects in it are not drumsticks. And you are no Joey Kramer.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
TMASTFP
Dear Mr. Baby:
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 aaaaaay nooooo or daaahg pyooo or my personal favourite, ooooooo shhhhhhhhht.
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.
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.
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 ridiculous, physically impossible 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.
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, "My patience is a delicate white flower in a garden, and I am watering it with a can, in a quiet garden...'' 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, 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.
But for now, little dude, let's just turn it off.
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 aaaaaay nooooo or daaahg pyooo or my personal favourite, ooooooo shhhhhhhhht.
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.
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.
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 ridiculous, physically impossible 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.
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, "My patience is a delicate white flower in a garden, and I am watering it with a can, in a quiet garden...'' 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, 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.
But for now, little dude, let's just turn it off.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Causes. Effects.
Dear Mr. Baby:
All the books say you're too young for this, but I say what the hell, let's give it a shot. Because it would be really really nice, Mr. Baby, if you understood these two concepts and their relation to each other. I'm talking about our friends Cause, and his not-so-distantly related cousin, Effect. These concepts would probably illuminate, to your great surprise and delight, some currently shadowy and blurred parts of your day.
You might wonder, for example, why you are sometimes lounging about in mid-air, enjoying the lyrical tales of Mr. Microwave and Mr. Basket in the tender and soothing tones of your mother's voice, receiving raspberry kisses and giggling mirthfully, and then suddenly being jostled to the harsh cries of ''aw, fuck, kid,'' bouncing jaggedly and swerving unceremoniously through several rooms to land, not at all gently, in your cold and lonely crib without so much as a farewell. This perplexing change of demeanor and location, this sudden withdrawal of motherly affection, would be infinitely more explicable if you could connect somewhere in that head of yours the aforementioned events, and the squishy feeling of your fingers coming into contact with a retina - to wit, your mother's - at high speed.
You could, as another example, more accurately deflect the accusatory expression on your face when your throat feels painful and itchy and your eyes begin to water and you are looking around the room for sympathy or the disposal of your disdain. If you knew about Cause and Effect, you would know that it is senseless to look at me then, because the plastic spoon repeatedly impacting and scraping your tonsils is not intertwined by any physics-defying magic to me, but rather held by your own hand, and therefore it would behoove you to cast your dour expression upon a mirror. You would also know that I am not to blame for you holding this object, because you reached out with your little claw hands and snatched it from me every time. Every time.
If you knew about Cause and Effect, Mr. Baby, you could perhaps link the sensations of angst and bitterness, and your desire to throw things at your mommy and yell hoarsely and unhappily for what must be very long amounts of time, percentage-wise speaking, of your life, with the idea of sleeping, which causes those feelings to subside if you just do it. It's a bit of a stretch, but you might also be able to associate Mean Mommy (you know who that is) with the nights you ''have a party'' in your crib. And then maybe you could come full circle in a web of enlightenment, and conjecture that most problems in your world are caused by a dearth of sleep, and maybe - I know these are vain and absurd vagaries, Mr. Baby - but maybe you could even accommodate the cognizance of your own, singular culpability in this intifada of insomnia and take it upon yourself to bring peace by just closing your eyes, and your mouth. Perhaps you could conjoin these closings with the pacific breeze that floats through the house, and the return of Nice Mommy.
When you begin to feel a slight headache, you begin to feel as though the world is a maraca and you are trapped inside of it, the close and claustrophobic swishing sounds begin to suffocate you and your temple becomes increasingly tender - you could look to your left, and see the repetitive motion of your limbs, and realize that it will all be quiet, if only you stop hitting yourself in the head with a rattle.
Oh, the places we could go Mr. Baby! In the morning, rather than waiting for the slow, wet stench of realization to ooze from your pants to your mind, you could instead think to yourself, ''oh hey, I'm about to take a crap again,'' and let someone know before it's all smashed into your bum. Probably you've wondered why it takes so long, in the cold, cold morning, to become warm again... if you just understood that it is almost impossible to put clothing on a simultaneously frantic and limp human being who is also pinching you like a crab and laughing like an evil doll, if you knew that the clothes are the thing, the thing that makes you warm, but only if you are wearing them. If you could understand that food must travel through your mouth and into your stomach to diminish your gnawing hunger and gnawing, annoying little protests about it...that smearing it on the dog and your face do not cause this journey to your stomach to happen....oh, the things we could economize, the filth and gunk and disgusting mire we could avoid, the body fluids we could quarantine, Mr. Baby. The racket we could attenuate....the pandemonium we could diminish...
Chimera, fantasy, delusion...indeed. Still. Give it some thought, Mr. Baby. It would really shed some light on things.
All the books say you're too young for this, but I say what the hell, let's give it a shot. Because it would be really really nice, Mr. Baby, if you understood these two concepts and their relation to each other. I'm talking about our friends Cause, and his not-so-distantly related cousin, Effect. These concepts would probably illuminate, to your great surprise and delight, some currently shadowy and blurred parts of your day.
You might wonder, for example, why you are sometimes lounging about in mid-air, enjoying the lyrical tales of Mr. Microwave and Mr. Basket in the tender and soothing tones of your mother's voice, receiving raspberry kisses and giggling mirthfully, and then suddenly being jostled to the harsh cries of ''aw, fuck, kid,'' bouncing jaggedly and swerving unceremoniously through several rooms to land, not at all gently, in your cold and lonely crib without so much as a farewell. This perplexing change of demeanor and location, this sudden withdrawal of motherly affection, would be infinitely more explicable if you could connect somewhere in that head of yours the aforementioned events, and the squishy feeling of your fingers coming into contact with a retina - to wit, your mother's - at high speed.
You could, as another example, more accurately deflect the accusatory expression on your face when your throat feels painful and itchy and your eyes begin to water and you are looking around the room for sympathy or the disposal of your disdain. If you knew about Cause and Effect, you would know that it is senseless to look at me then, because the plastic spoon repeatedly impacting and scraping your tonsils is not intertwined by any physics-defying magic to me, but rather held by your own hand, and therefore it would behoove you to cast your dour expression upon a mirror. You would also know that I am not to blame for you holding this object, because you reached out with your little claw hands and snatched it from me every time. Every time.
If you knew about Cause and Effect, Mr. Baby, you could perhaps link the sensations of angst and bitterness, and your desire to throw things at your mommy and yell hoarsely and unhappily for what must be very long amounts of time, percentage-wise speaking, of your life, with the idea of sleeping, which causes those feelings to subside if you just do it. It's a bit of a stretch, but you might also be able to associate Mean Mommy (you know who that is) with the nights you ''have a party'' in your crib. And then maybe you could come full circle in a web of enlightenment, and conjecture that most problems in your world are caused by a dearth of sleep, and maybe - I know these are vain and absurd vagaries, Mr. Baby - but maybe you could even accommodate the cognizance of your own, singular culpability in this intifada of insomnia and take it upon yourself to bring peace by just closing your eyes, and your mouth. Perhaps you could conjoin these closings with the pacific breeze that floats through the house, and the return of Nice Mommy.
When you begin to feel a slight headache, you begin to feel as though the world is a maraca and you are trapped inside of it, the close and claustrophobic swishing sounds begin to suffocate you and your temple becomes increasingly tender - you could look to your left, and see the repetitive motion of your limbs, and realize that it will all be quiet, if only you stop hitting yourself in the head with a rattle.
Oh, the places we could go Mr. Baby! In the morning, rather than waiting for the slow, wet stench of realization to ooze from your pants to your mind, you could instead think to yourself, ''oh hey, I'm about to take a crap again,'' and let someone know before it's all smashed into your bum. Probably you've wondered why it takes so long, in the cold, cold morning, to become warm again... if you just understood that it is almost impossible to put clothing on a simultaneously frantic and limp human being who is also pinching you like a crab and laughing like an evil doll, if you knew that the clothes are the thing, the thing that makes you warm, but only if you are wearing them. If you could understand that food must travel through your mouth and into your stomach to diminish your gnawing hunger and gnawing, annoying little protests about it...that smearing it on the dog and your face do not cause this journey to your stomach to happen....oh, the things we could economize, the filth and gunk and disgusting mire we could avoid, the body fluids we could quarantine, Mr. Baby. The racket we could attenuate....the pandemonium we could diminish...
Chimera, fantasy, delusion...indeed. Still. Give it some thought, Mr. Baby. It would really shed some light on things.
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