Tag Archives: babies

It’s a long story

Lately, whenever I ask my son a question like, “How did the [busted item of the day] get broken?” he heaves a big sigh and replies, “It’s a long story.”

He does not attempt to relate that long story, because it is clear that a father with such a short attention span would not be interested in the burdensome details.

“It’s a long story,” is not at all an introduction to an informative tale. Rather, it is the boy’s way of telling me that a lot of unnecessary information will not fix [busted item of the day]. It is his counsel to not cry over spilled milk and just get on with the business of living life. What’s done is done.

I could not figure out where the boy picked up such an evasive strategy, until I recalled a conversation we had at a restaurant a while ago.

Out of the blue, and just as I was about to shovel the first forkful into my mouth, the boy asked me, “When I was a baby, how did I get into Mommy’s belly?”

Why do they always pounce when I’m weak from hunger?

Put on the spot, my panicked mind bounced between two options. “You see, son, when a man loves a woman . . .” was the option from which my mind ran screaming.

“It’s a long story,” was the defense mechanism for which my mind leapt. It worked, or so I thought at the time.

Before the boy could renew his assault, a man wearing an Air Force uniform was seated nearby. My son, who is going through a period of fascination with all things military, forgot about the origins of his species. “Is that man in the Army?” he asked.

I explained that he was in the Air Force, which was like the Army, but with jets. My son soaked it all in. “Why don’t you go in the Army, Daddy?” he asked.

“I’m not so good at following orders,” I replied.

“You could be the boss of the Army. Then you could give all the orders.”

“But I’m too old. They wouldn’t even take me.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have to be in the battle,” he assured me, as if the Army has a row of rocking chairs ringing the combat area for its aged recruits.

Old soldiers

Maybe I could join up with this outfit of old soldiers. We’d play cards, listen to the battle on the wireless, and, time permitting, argue about where babies come from.

We then went on to discuss related topics. The subject of where babies come from was forgotten. I congratulated myself for dodging a bullet, for the time being anyway.

Well, maybe he forgot about the topic of the conversation, but he did not forget about the device Daddy used to steer the conversation elsewhere. He remembered that all too well. Now I have a house full of broken stuff and a child full of long stories that are too cumbersome for Daddy’s simple mind.

You reap what you sow.

And that baby question will come up again anyway. How will I handle it next time? Well, that’s a long story.

Your jokes are stale and your nipples are useless

The baby has discovered separation anxiety – not at being separated from me – people all over the world rejoice daily that they are separated from me. The baby has developed a deep dislike for being separated from his mother. This includes separations of as little as a few feet.

Separation anxiety takes its toll on everyone. The mother is exhausted; everyone, except perhaps anxious babies and opossums, needs to be separated from everyone else for a little while every day. Otherwise, a fraying of the nerves sets in. This fraying is manifested in desperate pleas in the nature of: “Somebody please pull this baby’s tentacles off me!”

It is difficult for the father not to feel rejected. It’s as if the baby has contracted amnesia and has forgotten all the wonderful times we’ve shared. The baby and I have spent many good times on our own, from which we’ve built a certain bond. Suddenly, our games only inspire the baby to make that frown that says: “They say I used to like this show. I must have been very unsophisticated in my youth.” The frown is followed by the wail for Mommy: “Mommy, help! I’m trapped in the arms of a balding man who aspires to drollness and claims to be a relative.”

The baby is stressed out because he is living a nightmare where he can’t find Mommy and he is being stalked by a sad clown who thinks he’s a funny clown. And he can’t heckle me enough to make me stop.

Come to Daddy!

Who needs a tickle?

There are moments of light, in which the baby seems to recall that I am a loved one rather than a bad comic sent to annoy him. For a fleeting moment, he might coo sweetly to me. If I am extra lucky, he might even lean in and give me one of those kisses babies give, with their mouths wide open. If anyone but a baby kissed that way, it would be disgusting. In the next instant, the frown is back, as though I’m the one who gives disgusting type kisses. The wailing for Mommy is sure to follow.

I’m sure he’ll grow through this phase and retrieve his memory of me as a guy who did actually make him chuckle once or twice. Meanwhile, he’s Mommy’s ball and chain. If that sounds unsympathetic to you it only means that you have not been punched and kicked by him in his efforts to get away from you so he could crawl to Mommy.

“When will he reach that age when he only wants to be with you?” my wife asks me with a callow hopefulness. I don’t have the heart to tell her the truth: never. Even when his older brother spends the whole day eagerly lengthening the duration of my chores by helping me with them, he is always a single stern word away from running to Mommy. Mommy is the only one who can overrule Daddy. As such, she will always be needed.

This tail was made for pulling

face-off with cat

“The thing I love best about you is that you’re so unpredictable.”

Our baby and our cat are best friends. This is an unexpected development. When the big boy was a baby, he and the cat had an awkward relationship. The thing they had most in common was a wariness of the other. They might have been reality TV show contestants.

Since the big boy was the first baby, it is possible that the cat resented the way he stole the limelight. In a childless house, the cat was a pet. After baby-number-one arrived, the cat became more like a mobile piece of décor. The squeaky, helpless, crying wheel got the grease, and the cat got to make adjustments in his expectations. This may have soured the cat on the idea of human babies. The baby’s herky-jerky, heavy-handed flailing may have played a role as well. We’ll never know for sure.

Baby-number-one and the cat had their rare, sweet moments, but these were mostly when the baby was very drowsy or already asleep. The two of them were never best buddies.

Baby-number-two has taught the cat a lesson in demographics. Mr. Cat is outnumbered now, and since he hasn’t had all of his man parts in more than a decade, and there are no eligible bachelorette cats in our house anyway, he’s not likely to roll back the tide. Facts are facts.

To his credit, the cat has adjusted to his changing world. He has reached out to this new baby in an effort to mend fences with baby-kind. He flops down beside the baby and allows himself to be petted, if petted means having little fistfuls of his fur grabbed, his tail tugged, and his ears pulled. All of this is a form of attention, and the cat has come to appreciate that.

The cat also understands that this baby means no harm. He has a lighter touch than his brother did and that probably helps. If his grabby style of petting hurt the cat, the cat likely would not keep eagerly subjecting himself to it. But it doesn’t hurt, or at least it hurts better than nothing.

Their relationship is not all sunshine and lollipops, though. They’ve had their spats. One time the baby must have tugged upon the wrong piece of cat, because the cat had to yell at him. “Stop it! That hurts!” the cat said. That’s what I think he said, anyway. It was in cat language. It sounded mostly like “Rrrairrrlw!” but I think my translation is pretty close.

The baby cried after the cat scolded him. His feelings were hurt. He was only trying to play with his friend.

Another time I warned the baby in a stern voice not to tug the cat’s leg like he was. I was hoping to avoid another cat-yelling incident. I did avoid it, but the baby cried at my warning anyway. He’s very sensitive about his cat.

It’s tough when all you want to do is play with your best buddy and all it does is get you yelled at.

Pride and baby gates goeth before a fall

My wife and I know it’s in everyone’s best interests for the baby to learn to walk. We know this, but we ignore it.

We ignore this tried and true fact of life for a single reason. That reason can be explained in two words: baby gates.

Nobody likes baby gates. They are a pain to put up, a pain to negotiate, and a physical pain when you foolishly try to step over one because your hands are full. You almost make it cleanly, except for that foot that has grown older and fatter than you recall it. You go down hard and take the baby gate with you. Now you get to go through the pain of putting it up all over again.

Baby gates are especially hard to think about once you’ve suffered through them, put them away, and enjoyed living in a free-flowing home for a few years.

baby with walker

Mere days away from turning our home into a compartmentalized federation of rooms.

Our first child became a walker almost exactly on his first birthday. We were foolish, novice parents then. We got caught up in the competition of child development. We fell over ourselves helping that boy learn to walk. We were playing Beat the Clock against a clock that didn’t exist. It turns out that the age at which a child first walks is not recorded on his permanent record.

We beamed with pride when he took those first steps. Then we scowled with annoyance as we put up, and fell over, the baby gates designed to keep our happy little walker from walking anywhere except in circles.

The second baby wants to walk. We also want him to walk. Philosophically, we want him to walk. In practical terms, we’d be fine if he took a few more months to become an Olympic caliber crawler before he took on any new projects.

Every time I forget myself and hold the baby’s hands so he can practice, my wife mouths the words baby gate at me and I sheepishly set the boy down and pretend I have some other pressing business that needs my attention. My wife hates baby gates even more than I do, possibly because she carries more baskets of laundry around the house than I do.

We understand that it could be inconvenient to have a fourth grader who hasn’t yet learned to walk. Maybe we’ll target first or second grade, when the child is skilled enough at reading so that we can post warning signs around the stairs instead of using baby gates.

Yes, I know that’s just a pipe dream. This boy will be strolling around the most dangerous sections of the house before we can wring those last few drops of comfort from duty-free passage between rooms. In spite of our hard-earned wisdom, we’ll help him walk. Then we will attempt foolish hurdles for which we are too old and round. We will tumble down; most likely, a safe, happy, footloose toddler will laugh at our clumsiness.