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Having a baby around makes it much harder to manage the voices in my head. I mean, before, they just told me to do horrible things to myself and my wife. But my wife knows Tae Kwon Do and could kick my ass, and I cant do anything painful to myself because Im a big pussy. So that was all right.But now I spend all of my time having internal conversations like:
Me: Oh, hell. Did I remember to put out the diapers so the service can pick them up?
Inner voice: Boil the baby.Or,
Me: Phew. Shes finally asleep. I can get some work done.
Inner voice: Boil the baby.Or,
Me: Im hungry. I sure could use a ham sandwich.
Inner voice: Boil the .... wait. Did you say ham?
Me: Mmmmm. Sandwich.
Inner voice: Mmmmm. Sandwich.
Me: Better clean this plate.
Inner voice: Put the baby in the dishwasher.But the voice in my head didnt get its way. I wasnt able to fit the baby in the dishwasher rack.
Fortunately, my wife is understanding. She put Post-It notes on all of our large cooking vessels. Each says, in large, clear letters, Dont boil the baby. It confused my parents when they came over, so, when they asked about it, I said What? Are you saying its a good idea to boil the baby? Then they changed the subject really quickly, so I think everything is going to work out OK.
[ 12-17-2003: Message edited by: Faelynn LeAndris ]
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Speaking of random twisting of the facial muscles, Cordelia is smiling frequently now. There's no real rhyme or reason to it. She smiles when she sees daddy. She smiles when she's about to poo. She smiles when she's about to start screaming.I feel I should be doing something to communicate to her that she should smile when she is happy. So, whenever she smiles, I lurch forward, rub her belly, and say in a loud, happy voice, "Is that a smile? Is THAT at SMIIIIILE? You're such a good girl! A GOOOOOOD GIIIIIRRRRLLLLL!"
I strongly suspect that this scares the shit out of her. She smiles a lot less now. I think I am training her to never smile. I'm learning the error of my ways, though. The next time she smiles, I'm going to put her down and run out of the room.
and referring to her brain as a "blank, gooey brainwad" just made me spit my soda all over the place..
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How Evolution Fucks Up My LifeOur child spends several hours in the middle of the night screaming. Every night. I do not say this because it is in any way exceptional. It isnt. I just mention it for purposes of background.
Now that I have a kid and talk to parents about it, I find that EVERYONES kid does this. Why didnt anyone tell me? What was the big secret? And when I saw my friends kids, why were they so quiet and adorable? And why is my kid only adorable when other people are around so that they go Oh, what an adorable child. and its hard not to say Want her? Shes priced to move.
Why is that?
At first I thought it was because shes just a little suck-up. I suspected she would end up the sort of kid who reminds teacher that she forgot to give homework.
Then I realized that it must be evolution. It makes sense. Babies being quiet when non-parents are around has two obvious selective advantages:
i. It makes people who havent bred yet think that babies are actually (snicker) cute and (chuckle) nice, fooling them into breeding themselves. Thus the genome is spread. Suckers.
ii. In caveman days, when we were much less restrained than we are now, it was a good idea to be quiet around a stranger, since, if you were noisy and annoying, it made it that much more likely that that particular stranger would squish you with a rock.
The squeaky wheel gets greased.
"Boil the baby."
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We got clothes at the baby shower too. A hippie couple we know made Cordelia a lovely pair of tie-dyed undergarments. It was, I admit, a noble effort to turn our fresh new daughter into some scumfucking Naderite granola person.My wife and I soon observed that, whenever we put her into her tie dyed outfit, she would, within hours, without fail, urinate on it.
She is her father's daughter.
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Horrifying Introduction To Children's TVI can't remember where I read this, but I'm pretty sure one of our parenting books says that it's OK to distract your child by showing it lots of TV. Considering how much of an intestine jarring pain it is to watch a tiny sprog every goddamn minute of every day, this only makes sense. So probably all the parenting books say this.
Of course, Cordelia is hypnotized by TV. Anything, I suppose, to distract her from daddy's awkward and pathetic attempts to entertain her. And, surprisingly, her attention is held most strongly by children's TV. TeleTubbies. Sesame Street. That sort of thing. I would have guessed that, for an eight month old, any TV show would be just about the same, but it turns out that, while there may be an outer limit to what I don't know about children, we aren't anywhere near reaching it yet.
So, to learn and be enlightened, I watched some kiddie TV. TeleTubbies, mainly, and some nightmare show where biplanes with computer animated faces say supportive things to each other. And I can't get over how disturbing these shows are. They're perfect for the wee ones, but fifteen seconds of TeleTubbies makes me feel like my skin is crawling off my body.
With some thought, I figured out why.
In these shows, everyone is nice to each other. Perfectly nice. Perfectly supportive. Everyone forgives each other. Everyone laughs at each others jokes. Males can be hugged by females and not try to parlay that hug into a fuck later.
If I met someone in real life who was so perfectly nice, I would worry. Two nice people, and I'd fear that I'd fallen into the sinister clutch of Mormons. A half dozen, and I'd grab my wallet and start screaming. While this behavior is great and comforting for kids, to adults, it's just Wrong. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!
Sure, on one hand, you might say, this means I've lost my childish spirit. You might say that I've been consumed by cynicism, and that I could, with effort, recapture some of the naive joy of youth. But, on the other hand, fuck you.
omg... someone else has seen the light.
