Tag Archives: babies

It’s a loose interpretation

You can’t be around a baby for any length of time without wondering if the baby’s cries have a specific meaning. If there is a language of babyhood, it would be gold to parents to understand it.

“Why can’t you people understand me? I’m crying in the plainest language possible!” (via Wikipedia)

At some point in every young life, a divide is crossed, between baby consciousness and the consciousness we carry for the rest of our lives. There is a strict no-reentry policy within the arena of baby consciousness. Once you leave, you’re out for good, so try not to leave anything you need inside the fence.

Our baby cries a lot when Daddy is in charge of him. Naturally, I am keen to know the cause of his displeasure. Since my wife, the cat, and I are all too old to still have a foot planted inside the baby consciousness compound, I pinned my hopes to my three-year-old son. Maybe he still remembers some of the lingo.

For a while, every time the baby cried, I pushed the three-year-old at him. “What’s he saying?” I asked, as if I were Lewis or Clark, the boy were Sacagawea, and the baby were some random Shoshone we ran across on the trail west.

My son couldn’t translate a single wail. This shouldn’t have surprised me; the boy can’t identify the problem half the time when he, himself, is crying. Besides that, he clearly no longer understands Babyish. And why should he? As he has often pointed out, there are no two things on earth more different than a baby and a big boy.

Having given into his prideful instinct to culturally distance himself from the baby, the boy has discovered that he has burned a bridge that might have been useful to him. Only too late did he realize the influence held over communication by the interpreter.

The boy has backtracked, now pretending that he does indeed understand the baby’s tearful messages. “He wants some milk,” the boy once explained of the baby’s cry. “And he wants you to get me some ice cream.”

“He says they’re debating whether to kill you all or let you go in peace. Also, he would like you to go get me a cupcake and some fruit punch.” (Artist: Charles Marion Russell)

This fraudulent translation would be transparent under any circumstances. Yet, I think the boy attributes my disbelief to the fact that he has already disavowed any knowledge of baby-speak. I can see him thinking that he would get away with it, if only he had pretended to understand the baby from the start.

Still, there’s no harm in trying. When the baby begins wailing, the boy will interpose himself and his useful services. “He says he wants to be with Mommy so you can build a track for my train on the floor.”

And if I have a good reason not to do what the baby asked: “It’s too late to get out the train set. It’s almost bed time.”

Well, the baby covered that, too. “He said he’d be so happy if you let me stay up late tonight.”

I can tell the boy is mentally kicking himself for giving me reason to doubt the faithfulness of his translations — he’s kicking himself all the way upstairs to bed.

Cleanup on aisle two

This has gone beyond the point of coincidence. It’s beginning to feel like a conspiracy.

As soon as I finish making something to eat, one of the boys needs my assistance with a poop event. It doesn’t matter if it’s lunch, dinner, a snack, dessert, whatever. I’ve got my hands all washed up; I’ve got my food, hot and tempting, on the plate; and I’ve got a kid who can’t hold it for 10 minutes.

I use the broad term event because the poop assistance needs of a three-year-old and an infant are very different. The older boy can do most of it by himself, but it really isn’t going to matter until he can do all of it by himself. Until then, a hot lunch will have to always be a dream deferred.

In many ways, the three-year-old’s events are more disruptive to my meal plans. He really only needs me at the very end (unless he forgets his toddler potty seat), which means I’m on call for however long it takes him to speak those three little words that stir every parent’s heart: “Daddy, I’m done!”

Dinner is ready. Now who’s been waiting all day for this moment to go potty?

I really don’t want to start eating, knowing what I am likely to be called away to do halfway through the meal. I could just make him sit there and wait, but that seems like a cruel and unusual form of time out. It’s better to just delay eating, or maybe forget about it altogether.

If Big Brother doesn’t put me on standby, the baby is sure to pick up the slack. He announces his event by starting up his motorcycle. We call it that because it sounds like he’s revving up a Harley when he lets it rip. Big Brother thinks it’s hilarious. I think it means the salad dressing is going to make my lettuce get all soggy before I can taste it.

The baby’s poop events can be dealt with more quickly, unless he decides to enjoy an open-air pee in that free and wild moment between diapers, or he holds something back with which to christen the fresh diaper. Whenever he needs to quake out an aftershock, he always has the courtesy to wait until I’ve washed my hands once more before he hops back onto that motorcycle.

“Uh, excuse me, Daddy. You might want to put your fork down for this one. I’m gonna try to hit the high note here.”

These boys are so reliable in upsetting my meal plans that I begin to think I must be cursed. I’ve tried to comb through my past, searching for any incident that might have resulted in my insulting some sort of boom-boom gypsy. What offensive act might I have committed to inspire the potty time wizard to open up his book and cast spell number two? Did I cut in front of some sorcerer in the line for a porta-potty in my untamed youth? I don’t remember.

If you are out there, offended one who put this hex on me, please accept my humblest apology for whatever my crime, and let me once eat a hot meal with fresh air in my nostrils.

 

Put your head on my shoulder, dammit!

Is it unmanly to admit that I’m a touch jealous of the way the baby snuggles up so happily on Mommy’s chest and rests his contented little head on her shoulder? Luckily, I have some wood to split out back, so if an admission like this siphons some of my manliness, I’ll just pick up my splitting maul and go pump it back up to the fill line.

The baby settles in so easily when Mommy holds him close. He looks like he fits the spot perfectly and would rather be nowhere else. Whenever I try to rest his little noggin on my shoulder, he swipes his face from side to side, unable to find a comfy spot for it. He never settles down and eventually becomes so disgusted with the arrangement that he tries to thrust himself off of me like a backstroke swimmer at the start of a race.

The baby seems to have some difficulty with my clavicle. As he fidgets around my shoulder area, you can tell he is wondering to himself, “What’s this raggedy bone doing here? It’s all in my face no matter how I squirm. I can’t rest here. I’m gonna backstroke my way right out of this mess.” Then he kicks off.

“Oh no! Here comes Daddy. I hope he isn’t thinking about trying to hold me on his chest.”

I’ve never considered myself to be the bearer of an overly prominent collar bone. My clavicle seems to protrude no more profoundly than my wife’s does. So why is the baby not bothered by hers? Do mothers have a retractable clavicle that hops out of the way when Baby is near?

“Get those broken glass shoulders of yours away from here, Daddy. I mean it!”

Or maybe my torso is too long. Maybe I need to heft him up higher so he can hook his chin over my collar bone. I wish we had kept the instruction manual so I could look at the diagram and see how to align Chin-A with Clavicle-B. I try to lift him up high so he can find a good spot, but he always acts like my shoulder is as cozy as a pile of rocks.

“Help, Mommy! Don’t let him scrape me on those pricker bushes he’s got growing out of the sides of his neck!”

When he’s snuggled in good on Mommy’s shoulder, his button nose burrowed into her neck, he spreads his contented gaze over the whole world. His baby eyes say to me, “Mommy is so warm and soft,” without needing to finish the comparison they are implying.

At times like this, I am tempted to point my bony finger into his face and say, “Listen you! I know Mommy is warm is soft. I knew that before you were even born. And if I hadn’t discovered how warm and soft Mommy is, you wouldn’t be here. Lucky for you, Mommy doesn’t get all bent out of shape just because I happen to have a clavicle. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

“Phew! He’s just taking pictures. Sure, I’ll smile. Keep that bed of nails away from me and I’ll smile all night long.”

I don’t actually say these things. How could I when he is so damned adorable, nestled on Mommy’s shoulder? I could never raise my voice to his happy little face, even telepathically. Besides, is it his fault that I have a mondo-monstrous clavicle that starts arguments by poking innocent bystanders in the eye?

“You’ve got the best shoulders in the world, Mommy. Good enough to eat. You just keep snapping the pictures, Pops.”

It’s my party and I’ll nap where I want to

There is an art form to putting a sleeping baby into his cradle without waking him up. Unfortunately, it is an impressionist art form, so it is hard to see it the same way twice. Not only is it different for every baby, it is different for a single baby each time you try to put him down.

In many ways, art exists solely in the mind of the beholder, and so does the belief that you have any say over whether Baby keeps sleeping. This is not within your sphere of control – unless you dropped the baby head-first into the cradle – then it might have been under your control, and chances are you blew it. But if you are relatively gentle in depositing the baby into his bed, you’ve done all you can do. The baby will decide your success, and he will do it on a whim.

There are two places where our babies have preferred to fall asleep: in the car seat and in our arms. There is one general category of places where they preferred not to sleep; that category includes any cradle, crib, or other bed specifically designated as the baby’s sleeping area.

Getting a well-deserved nap and driving Mommy and Daddy crazy with the old rubber neck. You can’t get nearly that much accomplished in a bed.

Removing the baby from the car seat involves some unharnessing. Unharnessing is the type of act that is meant to wake up sleeping creatures. I believe unharnessing was invented for no other reason than to annoy people out of peaceful slumber.

What makes it worse is that we have a pacifier clipped to the harness. I can’t tell how many times I thought I’d liberated the baby from his car seat fetters, only to be thwarted by the pacifier strap wrapped around his wrist. The first indication of this little snag is the car seat hovering off the ground when I lift the baby. The second indication is the baby screaming at me for waking him so rudely.

It’s hard to resist rocking the baby to sleep in my arms. It is a nice moment, until it becomes a long afternoon. I adore the child, but I really can’t be without the use of my arms for hours on end. At some point, we need to find a new arrangement.

Getting up from a rocking chair with a sleeping baby is a singular feat of agility. It’s kind of like a limbo dance that culminates in a vault as you slide yourself to the edge of the seat before hurling your torso forward as you try to stick the landing. It’s something to be proud of for sure, if you are the type to take pride in tasks half done.

You’ve still got to get the baby away from your warm, snuggly body and lower him into his bed. Here are a few popular strategies to accomplish that.

  • The Spine Snap: you try to double yourself up and lower your chest right down into the cradle with him.
  • The Forklift: you separate the child from your body first and then lower him with only your hands.
  • The Roll the Dice: you put the baby down in one swift motion and let the chips fall where they may.

The forklift. Notice that the baby’s eyes are open. This attempt failed as soon as it began. I’d like to have shown a successful cradle landing, but the odds of capturing such an event are infinitesimal.

Try whatever method you like; they are all destined to fail. Once in a blue moon, you might be tricked into believing you were successful. This is the rare occasion when the baby would rather sleep than mock Daddy’s feeble efforts. It almost never happens.