a story and conversation repository (est. 2000)

The First Six Months
as noted by an obvious incompetent

When the floodgates open
A baby's first week is parental bliss. They sit and look. They sit and sleep. They sit and eat. That's about it. Then once they come out of their vaginal joyride stupor and realize they are no longer floating around in the warm and cozy confines that is the magical stomach muck, they set to wailing. Inconsolable, non-stop, ear splitting wailing. But, this is tolerable for two reasons. First, it is finite, meaning it only last 5-9 weeks. Second, there are somehow no tears involved, which means it's not really crying but more a state of being audibly annoyed. Now eventually, you will be holding your upset child, see the eye well with moisture and then watch as a single shiny drop rolls down her (his) chubby cheek disappearing into her (his) neck folds. Wet crying is way more taxing than dry crying no matter how you assess or assuage it.

But, Letterman's coming on
The majority of scholars agree that unless you want to spend 30-60 minutes a night coaxing your 17 year old to go to sleep, you need to teach your child early how to put themselves down. One may inquire how another teaches a five-month old human that it's ok for them to enter slumber at a prescribed time even though they may not be all that tired? Well I can vouch for the fact that it is not through lengthy and concise explanation. What does supposedly work though is chucking the kid in a room and walking off. Will they cry? Yes. Will it be painful? Incredibly. Will they go to sleep? Eventually. Of course, sleep only comes after they scream bloody neglect for two plus hours, but they will go to sleep. Granted this leaves your infant (and you) in an exhausted and quivering mass while you and your spouse stand at the front door waiting for child services to show up.

Look where you're going much
Pre-Bella I was told that as a parent you get to know the different cries of your child. There is the 'I'm tired' cry. There is the 'I'm hungry' cry as well as the 'I'm in this room all alone and it sucks' cry. Now a reserved cry that you don't hear until you make some bonehead move like bouncing the baby's head off the doorjamb as you're passing through it brings about a whole new caliber of crying that stands all alone; the 'I'm in pain' cry. As noted, this unique tantrum reaches drastically new intensities and does not subside with the same rapidity as an 'I'm lonely' cry. And, when coupled with the above wet-cry it's ever more special to witness. It's called paying all the way to the bank and it blows.

Unhand me you simple dolt
As your child grows and their mobility improves and motor skills sharpen they begin their 100-yard dash to independence. This behavior initially shows itself the first time your cuddly little soldier sits up in your arms, looks behind them and attempts to spin away from you in quest for the glass on the table or the gum wrapper on the ground. What once only wriggled and squirmed in attempt to firmly implant themselves in your shoulder now flails in your arms in attempt to distance themselves from your bondage in lieu of the vast and unexplored world that has unwittingly been to their back this whole time. The path to parental obsolescence begins here and it's what I'm sure will be a long and arduous track.

You cannot be properly prepared or equipped for this
One of the greatest wonders I've observed regarding child rearing is how gradual and regimented the evolution is. Your tiny new infant starts out with a very simple set of rules. These rules gain complexity as the child does. Man's best friend through these initial phases is a baby's stool. While on boob juice at least, this by-product could most accurately be described as mustard gravy, odorless mustard gravy. Once you get accustomed to the surprising appearance the rest is really not that bad, because again it is odorless and therefore your friend. Two days before her six-month birthday and three weeks after Marty started feeding her rice cereal, I sauntered into my first solid diaper present. And, let me attest, with form comes consistency, and with consistency comes smell and with smell comes blueberry pop-tart to the crest of my esophagus only to be choked and hard-swallowed back down to its appropriate resting place. Oh my God! To put this into a non-parental perspective, imagine if you will, plucking an adult turd from the toilet with a pair of salad tongs, placing it on the bathroom counter and smashing it flat with a threadbare t-shirt. The visual is rough, being in the same room with it ill contained is excruciating, but to have it's form creamed and mashed ensuring that every possible molecule hits the air stream is physically overwhelming. This at best is a modest description of what a baby does in a diaper and there is nothing at all simple about it.

There's nothing I hate more than a pessimist
Now, please reader, do not get me wrong, new kid is gigantic, tall humor. The above truly represents the only evil sagas to date, which proportionally speaking would barely register as a blip, and this is truly a testament of how little trouble kids are by documenting how little trouble kids are. Honestly, the limitation is mine. I'm unable to poke fun at my serious and introspective thoughts regarding my child so in lieu of that I present the more challenging moments, which I must view comically or they may best me mentally. But, thanks for listening and know that it is still the singular event I mentioned the day she was born and I still hope that all who aspire to such an endeavor get the benefit of experiencing it. See you in another six.



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