Short Stories

It's too bad my son wasn't born in Germany 2,000 years ago. Watching him run through a wedding reception, screeching gibberish at the top of his lungs, all I could think was, "He would have been a wonderful Berserker."

Is it wrong that I just loaded Khan's high chair tray with Jell-O so I could have five minutes to look at Facebook?

I saw my brother's girlfriend give their 1-year-old son SODA. Bad for the teeth, and also that much concentrated sugar would turn Khan into a Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil.

Speaking of Looney Tunes, I put a bunch on our Netflix instant stream. I want Khan to see cartoons that don't teach some moral or educational lesson. Mindless violence, stupid jokes and no preaching. REAL cartoons.

I've lost ten pounds in 2 months. My secret? I have a 15-month-old boy.

A Severe Case of the Curlies

Khan was born with straight, dark hair. But as the months passed, his dark hair fell out, leaving behind soft blondish-brown hair. Then, at nine months or so, Khan suddenly contracted an extreme case of Curly Head.

It's like he woke up one day and his head was covered with soft, blonde Slinkys, corkscrew-porcelain doll curls. It's uncombable, so I don't even try. And it's long, falling over his ears and collar. It's almost foppish in its luxuriance. It's also a pain in the butt. I'm constantly pushing it out of his eyes, have to wash it almost every day, and Heaven help us if a handful of oatmeal finds its way into the mop. And dirt...and leaves. Not to mention the confusion it causes: at least three times a week, someone mistakes Khan for a girl. I don't like gender stereotypes, but it always seems to happen when he's wearing camo pants and a shirt with something terribly masculine on it, like a bulldog or Spider-man, or when he's oohing and ahhing over some big trucks, or throwing a ball. It has to be the hair.

But it's worth it, all the washing and brushing it away and the gender mistakes. Because it's hella cute, and it makes him stand out. Some people say curly hair is a waste on a boy. I don't think so. They're just jealous their girls have straight hair. Even better, his curls have given us the idea for the most geek-tastic family Halloween costumes ever: Tiny Tom Baker will be the 4th Doctor from Doctor Who, I will break out the vintage clothes for Sarah Jane (good thing I just got my straight hair cut), and The Scientist will grow a goatee for the Master. None of the other parents will get it, but people on the Internet will. Geeks.

In a few years he'll probably hate it and want a mohawk or to shave his head. Whatever, it's his hair. But until then I will bask in the reflected attention, and spend long minutes picking leaves out of it.

License to Look Like Crap

One of the great things about parenthood is that you lose all sense of shame.

It begins right away. I mean, a small group of people just saw you push a baby out of your vagina (or, in my case, saw a baby extracted from your abdomen). And since I was breastfeeding, there was also a steady stream of lactation consultants and nurses coming into my hospital room and grabbing my breasts to show me the right way to do it. By the time my six-week postpartum exam rolled around, I was like, "Sure, everyone else has had a peek, go right ahead."

The other thing is that you will do anything, and I mean anything, to make your kid smile (or at least make them stop crying), even in public. Before Khan, I might have belted out Cheap Trick's "The Flame" in the privacy of my driver's seat. Now I will happily sing it in front of anyone, because he likes it (he is only one who likes it- he hasn't been around long enough to be able to differentiate between good and bad singing).

I also sing "Old MacDonald" and "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" in checkout lanes, and I've done This Little Piggy and Criss, Cross, Applesauce in restaurants. I've come close to exposing myself to everyone at the pool when Khan nearly yanked my bathing suit down.

But who cares? My kid is happy. That's all that matters.

This laissez-faire attitude extends to my appearance. So what if I haven't shaved my legs in a week? Maybe my hair has cottage cheese in it, and my toenail polish is chipped, and there's crusty dried oatmeal on my sleeve. Maybe I still need to lose twenty pounds of baby weight. I have a one year old. What's your excuse? My kid looks cute, and as long as he looks cute no one will be paying attention to me anyway.

I haven't felt this free to act silly in public since I was in high school. And I haven't cared so little about how I look since I was Khan's age. So maybe having strange women squeeze my breasts was worth it.

Water Wars

Khan has a love/hate relationship with water. To be specific, he loves swimming, and hates baths.

I'm not sure what his deal is. Isn't a bath just swimming with bubbles, and really shallow water, and scrubbing...and...um...

The kid is a swimming fiend. At first he was content to sit on my lap on the steps and splash. That lasted all of 4 minutes before he wanted to get out into the deep water. If I hold his hands, he even kicks and flails his arms like he's actually swimming. He cries when we get out. I see Olympic gold and a possible marijuana bust in his future.

But baths...he's always hated baths. He screamed through his first-ever bath at the hospital, his second-ever bath at the hospital, his third-ever bath at home, and every bath since then. It's like water is acid, or dirt is some kind of armor against disease (thanks, dark ages). It was bearable for a while, but now he's no longer a baby, but a little boy. Being a little boy involves being as dirty as humanly possible and having snot on your face 24/7, so he definitely needs a bath.

At a yard sale, my mom found the solution: an inflatable duck bath by a company called Munchkin. Squeeze its inflatable beak, and it makes obnoxious quacking sounds. Blow it up, pop it in the tub, fill it with water, deposit baby in water, and he'll splash happily through hair washing and even bottom-scrubbing. It's amazing. We went to the pond today and I had to restrain him from climbing out of his stroller and over to a group of unsuspecting ducks; I envisioned him trying to climb on the poor birds and squeeze their beaks.

Lately he's started drinking the water, in both pool and bath. I figure, chlorine kills anything, and baby bath soap is sure not toxic, so whatever makes him happy (and gives me a few minutes' peace to sit on the toilet and read a book).

Thanks, Munchkin duck bath!

Creation Myths

We are fully aware that someday, Khan is going to ask where he came from. The Scientist and I plan to prepare a detailed explanation, with charts and graphs and diagrams. We just need help deciding which explanation to prepare for him.

1. Mommy and Daddy decided they wanted a baby. They placed some chew toys and some snacks in the backyard. Then they used a stick to prop a box up over the treats, and tied a string to the stick. After a while you crawled under the box and we trapped you.

2. Mommy and Daddy were in a restaurant when the waiter brought over a baby. Neither if us had ordered a baby; the kitchen must have made a mistake. The waiter said we could have the baby; he wouldn't charge us for it and if we didn't take it they would have to throw it out. We figured, hey- free baby! and brought you home.

3. Mommy and Daddy had the house sprayed for all kinds of pests. But one day Mommy accidentally left some sweet potatoes on the kitchen counter. The spray kept all the other babies out, but you must have had a really strong constitution (and love for sweet potatoes) because you got in and set up shop in the kitchen. You ate all the sweet potatoes. We finally set up some glue traps, and when we caught you, you were just too cute to release into the wild.

So readers- which should we choose?

Wal-Mart Baby

My friend calls then White Trash Babies. My husband calls them Wal-Mart Babies. I even composed a song in their honor:

It's Naked Baby Time
It's Naked Baby Time
Time to Be
A Naked Baby
It's Naked Baby Time!

...what? I never said I was Burt Bacharach.

Little babies in nothing but a diaper are probably the happiest babies in the world, whether they're at Wal-Mart or in my backyard. I think Khan agrees with RuPaul's famous quote, "You're born naked, and the rest is drag." (I probably misquoted that...)

Naked babies don't bother me, as long as they're wearing a diaper and the weather is warm. But I always dress Khan when we go out in public. I want to get it into his head that we get dressed when we see other people, BEFORE he learns to undress himself.

But at home, on our own property...I let him roam. All summer it's been 90 degrees or hotter. Perfect Wal-Mart baby weather. Khan naked = Khan happy = Mommy happy.

Ao glory in the naked babies and their exposed fat tummies and soft skin and all their unclothed chub. Love the naked babies. And maybe envy them a little, too.

Poopie Particulars

Before I became a parent, I used to wonder why everyone who had a baby was totally obsessed with its fecal material. Now that I have a kid, I understand. Poopie is vitally important in monitoring your baby's health (and it provides you with great gross-out stories to embarrass them with when they're teenagers).

I've discovered that what people told me before Khan was born is true: you don't care how disgusting your own child is. And it's a good thing, because they WILL get urine, spit-up, and/or poopie on every available surface in your home. There, now no one will ever want to visit me again.

I breastfed Khan from birth to nine months. There's a lot of advantages to breastfeeding; you pass on immunities, it encourages bonding and (my main reason for doing it), it's free. One of the other great things about breastfeeding is that, as long as your kid is exclusively breastfed, their poopie doesn't smell bad. As The Scientist put it, it kind of smells like 'weird popcorn'(I thought 'buttermilk'). Of course, it's also almost completely liquid and will sometimes leak out of the diaper, but hey, everything's a trade-off.

At four months we had to begin supplementing Khan with formula- don't judge me, he's a big kid and my breasts couldn't take it- and around the same time we started giving him real food. Out with the weird popcorn smell, in with the nasty poopie smell. On the up side, his cloth diapers were easier to clean; solid poopie is simple to scrape off, as opposed to liquid poopie.

Solid food also introduced a whole new range of...colors. Well, really only orange and green (and, once, hot pink, when I caught him gnawing on a chunk of sidewalk chalk). It also introduced constipation. Khan seems prone to it. We keep a supply of prunes on hand for this reason. It's pretty pitiful to see the little grunt and strain until he's red in the face. It's probably also pretty pitiful to see The Scientist and I cheering him on. "You can do it! Push! Out, bad poopies! Out!"

I never thought a smelly, disgusting diaper could make me so very happy.

Everything about your kid is fascinating, even their poopie. And that's totally OK so long as you don't go sharing it with everyone else.

Oh, oops.

Overeard at the Pool

Mother: "Wow, you swam really well!"

Kid (obviously disappointed with her aquatic prowess): "No I didn't!"

Mother: "You held your breath a long time!"

Kid: "NO I DIDN'T!"

Mother: "Well, you didn't drown. That's the main thing."

Co-Sleep = No Sleep

Whether or not to co-sleep is a choice every sert of parents has to make for themselves. Before my son was even born, I decided we were definitely not going to co-sleep. I don;t even let the cat sleep with us; sometimes I'd even like to kick The Scientist out of bed. It's not him, it's me. Really. I tend to sleep spread-eagled on the bed, sprwled out like I was thrown through the windshield in a bad car wreck (The Scientist, on the other hand, sleeps like a mummy: on his back, arms crossed over his chest. He has woken once or twice to find me hunched over him, holding a mirror under his nose).

Tempting as it sometimes is to snuggle up under the covers with the little guy (and when he was little we sometimes did for naps), we can't give in. Because, unfortunately for his future bed partner(s), he's inherited my sleeping habits. As soon as he could roll over, it began. You can hear him through the baby monitor, thrashing around like an octopus in distress. We've named his sleeping positions, like a list of somnolent yoga poses: Bottoms-Up Froggie, Stunned Monkey, Curled-Up Autumn Leaf, and of course, Ejected From the Car During the Collision. Depiste his active and creative slumber, Khan rarely wakes himself (until his pacfier falls out of his mouth, and then he snapos awake and wails like a Hollywood starlet who just found out she'd getting 90 days in jail- bazinga!). I live in terror of the impending toddler bed; I just assume he's going to flail himself off the bed to the floor fifty times a night.

My brother and his girlfriend chose to co-sleep with their son since the beginning. Sure, he slept through the night from birth, but these days he's the only one who's sleeping. It seems little Napoleon(that's his codename) thrashes just as much as Khan, keeping his parents awake all night. At this point, their choices seem to be keeping him in bed with them (and not sleeping) or putting him in his crib cold turkey and letting him scream (and not sleeping). I admit my pity for them is mixed with a healthy dose of schadenfreude. Years of little-brother torment finally beinf repaid?

This doesn't necessarily mean that my way is right. But we made our choise, and we're happy with it.

Surviving Childhood

I remember the first time Khan fell off the couch (note I said the FIRST time). He was four months old. I'd propped him up next to me while I folded laundry (and maaaaaaaybe I was also watching "Divorce Court"). All I know is I looked up at Judge Lynn Toler for one second and BAM, Khan was on the floor. He cried for about forty seconds; I cried for fifteen minutes. Cue a panicked call to the doctor and a hurried office visit-where Khan was pronounced perfectly fine-and a weeks-long wallow in guilt.

Now, eight months later, every time Khan falls, hits his head, faceplants in the carpet, walks into a wall or pinches his fingers in a door, I pat his head and say distractedly, "There, there. Walk it off."

The more mobile he becomes, the more accident-prone he seems to be. The kid is covered in scratches, bruises and tiny cuts, and I have no idea where most of them came from. My day consists of: crawlcrawlcrawlBAMwaaaaaaaahtheretherewalkitoffwashrinserepeat.

In fact, the other day The Scientist confessed that Khan had fallen and cracked his head on a rocking chair while in The Scientist's care. It was obvious he felt terrible...and I laughed in his face. Since he works all the time and I stay home, Khan is on my watch almost all the time. Feeling bad about the baby getting hurt is just SO eight months ago. I'm not going to let him fling himself down the stairs or anything, but I've learned that lumps and scrapes are par for the course with any baby, especially an adventurous boy with no fear or concept of the laws or physics or gravity. And if all the mothers of boys whom I know are right, I have broken bones and stitches to look forward to.

Eventually he'll learn. Just today he discovered that if you torment Hellbeast long enough, she'll scratch you. Of course, he had to do it approximately seventy times before it sank in, and by tomorrow he'll have forgotten and will have to do it seventy more times, but I'm confident he'll get a clue. Someday.

Hey, Mother Nature knows what she's doing. Babies have soft skulls and heal like Wolverine. You can swaddle them in bubble wrap and feel lousy every time they go bump, but then you'll perpetually feel like crap. Give 'em a kiss and turn 'em loose. It's better for everyone that way.

Khan has already learned the meaning of "No.". I've said it- sometimes shouted it- pretty much constantly since he achieved mobility. Fingers in a socket: "No." Lamp cord: "No." Dumping out cat's food bowl: "No." Rolling over during diaper change: "No no no no no!".

One magical day, Khan went for the Nintendo Wii. I snapped, "No!"

And...he stopped. He froze, turned, and looked at me.

Then he grinned and lunged for it.

(Wiis are surprisingly hardy despite their small size, if you want to know.)

So he knows what "No." means, he just...chooses not to obey it. It's a start. I guess.

But from the way he giggles when I snatch him away from whatever mortal danger he's approaching, I think we still have a long way to go.

Khan vs. Hellbeast: A Story From Two Points of View

HELLBEAST:

Poor Hellbeast. Her life was going pretty well: she had a place to sleep, rent-free, bowls of food and water that magically refilled themselves, and two humans who would pet her or leave her alone, depending on her desires.

Then IT came.

IT was a miniature human with a huge head. IT lacked the ability to give Hellbeast treats or play with her. So she ignored IT. But sometimes, IT was really loud, and for some reason the humans gave all their attention to IT instead of her. Hellbeast occasionally approached IT with a quizzical look, but the humans would shoo her away.

One day, IT began to sit up. The humans seemed excited by this, though Hellbeast didn't think it was all that special. Then, ITS ravenous gaze fell upon her. IT bared ITS teeth, and from ITS mouth issued a horrible squealing noise, high-pitched and full of...glee.

After that, ITS eyes followed her everywhere she went. IT watched her all the time. Sure, it was unsettling, but at least IT was immobile.

Until one day IT wasn't.

Suddenly Hellbeast found herself in a constant race to stay ahead of ITS grasping, yanking hands. She became very familiar with the underside of the human's bed. Worse, IT began to interfere with her stuff. IT played with her toys, threw her food out of the magic bowl, and splashed her water everywhere. IT even tried to dig into her litter box. Hellbeast was living in a nightmare.

And that is where things stand today.

KHAN:

Hey kitty I like you I live you kitty you're cool let me pull your tail just once okay kitty hey let me chew on your ears come on kitty be a sport I love you and you won't feel a thing I promise just for a second kitty come on one second I love you kitty come here to me KITTY KITTY KITTY where are you going kitty? Why are you running away?

We're working on 'be gentle with animals', but until then I'm afraid Hellbeast will remain a creature of the night, venturing out only when IT sleeps.

How to Change a Diaper

Sorry I've been MIA; we ended up moving to our new house a week early (because The Scientist's friends were available to help then, and $70 for pizza and beer beats $400 for professional movers any day).

How to Change the Diaper of a 3-Month-Old

1. Lay baby on his back.
2. Take off his pants.
3. Remove soiled diaper.
4. Wipe bottom.
5. Apply diaper rash cream.
6. Put on clean diaper.
7. Put on baby's pants.

How to Change the Diaper of an 11-Month-Old

1. Lay baby on his back.
2. Grab arm of escaping baby, flip him over.
3. Repeat.
4. Remove baby's pants, dodging flailing legs.
5. Begin removing soiled diaper.
6. Grab escaping baby, flip him over.
7. Hand him a toy to distract him.
8. Remove soiled diaper.
9. Dodge toy as baby flings it at your head.
10. Grab escaping baby's ankle, drag him back, flip him over.
11. Wipe bottom, carpet, baby's legs, your hands, baby's hands, toy, and the cat.
12. Pin baby's windmilling arms with one hand and his thrashing legs with your knees.
14. Apply diaper cream.
15. Wipe excess diaper cream on your pants.
16. Begin putting on clean diaper.
17. Grab escaping baby's torso, flip him over.
18. Dodge well-aimed peepee.
19. Put on clean diaper.
20. Release howling, sobbing baby.
21. Consider putting on baby's pants. Decide it is best for everyone if you don't.

Writing Mommy

I’m an author. And a blogger. And a housewife. And a mommy. And a payroll specialist (I work from home). And a vigilante who dispenses justice when the legal system’s hands are tied. No wait, that last one is The Punisher. I get me and him mixed up all the time.

There’s only 24 hours in a day. I kind of have to take care of Khan, since he’s my kid and all. And dog payroll provides me with money. And I also kind of have to wash laundry and scrub the toilets, or the place would start to look like a frat house.
And trust me, that’s really gross.

So what suffers? Yeah, my writing.

Before the baby, I wrote every day for at least an hour. Now I’m lucky to find fifteen minutes, and this is usually broken up into one-or two-minute increments scattered throughout the day. It’s frustrating, to the point that I’ve considered giving up writing altogether, at least until Khan is in school. Finding time to write and worrying over my writing career- such as it is- is just more stress I don’t need.

But for me, like it is for most writers, writing equals breathing. Quitting is tantamount to suicide. And I’m not ready to kill myself just yet.
So I struggle on, writing what I can, when I can. It’s not easy, but neither is childrearing. And in the end, they’re probably both worth it.

Have a Happy...C-Section

I’ve heard stories about women who choose to have a voluntary c-section, either for aesthetic reasons (so baby’s first picture doesn’t look like a hot pink version of Mr. Conehead) or so the kid will be born on a certain date (because if baby shares a birthday with Great-Aunt Clara, maybe she’ll leave you some of her loot when she dies). I’m pretty sure these stories are lies. I had a necessary c-section, and it sucked pretty hard. I don’t think anyone would ever want to have their baby this way.

I had this whole plan for giving birth to Khan. Hang out at home as long as possible, get to hospital, bravely refuse drugs and pop him out, go home within 48 hours. Oh, yeah.

All of that went down the toilet four days before my due date. I went to my midwife for a routine appointment on Friday morning at 8 a.m. My blood pressure had shot up. Like, way up. Zombie movie arterial spurting-up. So the midwife shipped my cetacean butt off to the hospital right away. The hospital couldn’t get it down either, so they parked me in a room to be induced.

After being induced (which sucks), I went through 14 hours of labor (which sucks). Khan was nearly out when he abruptly turned his head sideways, necessitating an emergency c-section (which really sucks).

Luckily, I’d caved a while back and gotten the epidural, so Dan the epidural man (probably the most beloved employee in the entire hospital) just pumped more drugs into the tube. And here’s the really great thing about c-sections: they give you a ton of drugs so that you can’t feel anything. Kathy Bates could take a sledgehammer to your feet and you would never feel it. Then they give you more drugs that make it so even though you’re having major abdominal surgery, you don’t care. When the doctor held up my naked, howling child for inspection, the first thing I said was, “Wow, his scrotum is huge.” That’s how high I was (and for the record, his scrotum was huge).

So the actual c-section is okay, it’s afterward that sucks. You can’t get out of bed for 24 hours. Everything hurts. Hurts to sit, hurts to stand, hurts to walk. And this is despite the righteous numbers of painkillers the nurses dish out. When you finally head home (4 or so days later), it’s a little better, but it still hurts for weeks. And you still bleed for weeks; the bleeding is due to blood vessels broken when the placenta comes out, not vaginal trauma, so you don’t get out of that. And it hurts to have sex (not that you’ll want to for at least a year). And you have a scar, but that’s actually kind of cool. And you’ll be terribly constipated, you can’t drive for 2 weeks, and you might have a giant numb spot on your abdomen that may or may not go away. And pain in your shoulder blades. I have no idea what that’s about.

And here’s the absolute worst part of my whole experience: for 24 hours after your c-section, you can’t eat.

And when you’re being induced, you can’t eat.

And when you’re in labor, you can’t eat.

Between 7:30 a.m. on Friday morning and 6 p.m. on Sunday, all the nurses could give me was chicken broth, Jell-o and Sprite, and that ended at 5 a.m. Saturday morning. After that all I got was water and ice chips. By Sunday, I would have bitten the head off a live bat if one had flown into the hospital room. At 6 p.m. on Sunday, my brother-in-law brought me a Wendy’s bag and a large Frosty cup. I hope The Scientist never learns how much I loved his brother at that moment.

Now, unless you end up with the same unfortunate set of circumstances (watch your blood pressure, pregnant ladies), you probably won’t have to go almost 3 days without eating. But 24 hours is bad enough.

I know all this sounds really depressing, but Khan was worth every minute of it, even if I was ready to eat him, hamster-style, by Sunday afternoon. And if you have to have a necessary c-section, your kid will be worth it too. Because, well, the alternative is that you both die.

But if you’re thinking a voluntary c-section sounds like a good time, think again. Do you really want your child to grow up knowing his mother’s first observation about him concerned his disproportionately large genitalia?

Babies'R'Gross

By the time Khan was born, we’d amassed enough baby clothes to outfit an army. An army of babies. Which would actually be pretty useless, if you think about it.
I was aghast. It was too much; they didn’t fit in his dresser, or his closet. So many onesies and tiny pants and socks and little hats, all for one baby? Ridiculous.
He’d never wear them all!

What I didn’t count on was the fact that babies are completely and totally disgusting. I learned quickly that if Khan didn’t puke on it, he peed on it, and if he didn’t puke or pee on it, he pooped on it. This kid has an amazing ability to pee around his diaper, no matter the brand or size, cloth or disposable. And when he was really little, he made that very liquid-y breast milk poopie that managed to leak out of every diaper we tried (we were warned, after a fashion; The Scientist claims the first time he changed Khan’s diaper in the hospital, the kid peed all the way across the room. I was, unfortunately, higher than a hippie at Woodstock, so I missed it).

Combined with the diaper problem, Khan had a serious spitting up thing the first few months of his life. Not projectile vomiting or anything, but he threw up a lot. His day wasn’t complete until he puked in my hair at least once.
So Khan changed clothes more often than Lady Gaga at the Grammys. Three times a day, on average.

Finally the spit up abated a bit, to be replaced by long strings of clear, teething-related drool. Around the same time we began giving him pureed baby food, so the liquid poopie began to solidify a little.

Then he started to mobilize. With all the rolling and twisting and tumbling, Khan began puking again. Only this time, it wasn’t white milk-vomit. It was orange (sweet potatoes), greenish (peas) or yellow (squash). And with the introduction of real food, his poopie started to smell. A lot.

The spit up tide has ebbed a bit, but now Khan eats solid food, it’s more interesting. Today’s was blackberry-purple with tiny chunks of mandarin oranges. At least now he’s puking in complimentary colors.

Now he’s reached the grand stage of feeding himself, more or less, things are grosser than ever. Watching him eat pasta is enough to make me lose my appetite (I’m not complaining; maybe I can finally lose some of this baby weight). I’ve cleaned chunks of bananas off the wall, cereal out of the carpet, and applesauce off the cat. Since Khan discovered food, he’s come to believe that everything solid is food. I’ve removed from his mouth rocks, cat food, paper, and other kids’ toes. And these days, he only wants to hug me if he’s been eating (and smearing) something incredibly sticky and staining.

I know it won’t end once he’s mastered utensils. Khan is a boy. There will be ice cream drips and skinned knees and crushed worms in his pockets and mud in his hair. And someday he’s going to throw up a half-eaten hot dog in my lap.

But hey, it’s true what people say: you don’t care how gross a kid is, as long as it’s your kid. You know he smells, but it doesn’t matter. Most stains will come out (except breast milk poopie stains. Those are lethal). Oatmeal crusted in your arm hair will eventually wash out. Someday Khan will learn to wipe his own bottom and wash his own hands. Maybe I’ll even miss having puke in my hair.

Maybe.

Not Without My Nose

One day, before Khan could really sit up, he was lying on his back. I leaned over to talk to him, and he reached up and grabbed my face, pulling it down to his. Aw, I thought. He's going to give Mommy a kiss.

And then his mouth closed around my nose.

Khan has a thing about chomping on noses. A while back, he and a little girl at Story Time leaned toward each other. Khan's mouth opened into the predatory O I had come to know so well.

"Aw," The girl's mom said. "He wants to give her a kiss."

She probably thought I was a snob for sweeping him up and removing him before contact could be made. But at least it saved her daughter's nose.

The Sacrifices We Make

As soon as I realized I was pregnant, I told The Scientist, “Oh #&$@! I have to stop swearing.”

This is harder than it sounds. Somewhere in the first thirty years of my life, I developed the mouth of a sailor. A pissed-off, creative sailor. It just came naturally. There’s a rhythm in long strings of swear words that irresistible; the syllables roll off your tongue like sweet, sweet grape Kool-Aid.

I swore quite a bit in casual conversation, but it got really impressive when I played video games. There’s something about mushrooms with feet and pastel ghosts that just makes me want to insult them in the worst language possible. It helps that they’re little two-dimensional dudes and they can’t turn around and punch you in the face when you tell them to go %!@* themselves.

My favorite targets were the hapless half-demons of Mortal Kombat. One day, twelve weeks pregnant and beating the living crap out of Johnny Cage, I had a sudden premonition of my kid’s preschool years.

Teacher: “Sweetie, why did you call Billy a donkey-punching, pig-%$#@ing piece of *(&^$ &$#%sucker?”

My Kid: “My mom called Subzero that when she was playing Mortal Kombat.”

And that was when I became determined to quit for good.

I’m doing okay so far. I manage to confine the majority of my profanity to times when Khan is asleep and to e-mail (I can’t swear in my Facebook status updates because I am Facebook friends with both my mom and my mother-in-law; yeah, I knew that would come back to bite me someday).

Then, the other night, The Scientist made a comment that led me to realize I have a lot more work ahead of me. He said, astutely, that someday we’d see Lindsay Lohan ‘spit out by the bottom of the porn industry.”

Oh crap. We make a lot of comments that, while not overtly profane, refer to activities of a salacious nature. Things Khan won’t know about until he’s at least ten: sex, drugs, and Inside Edition. We have to cut the allusions to South Park and Mitch Hedburg. At least until Khan is old enough to sneak around and watch these videos behind our backs.

Man, being a parent is rougher than I ever expected. $%@#.

Overthinking Clifford

Khan isn’t allowed a lot of T.V. But he does get to watch half an hour a day, long enough for me to check my e-mail and wash the dishes (except on Saturdays, when he watches an entire hour of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Daddy). We don’t have cable, so he’s stuck with public broadcasting. At this point I’ve seen a bunch of PBS shows: Word Girl, Anne of Green Gables: The Animated Series (actually, I watch that one sometimes when the baby is asleep…nothing like nostalgia!), Dinosaur Train, Dragon Tales, Zooboomafoo, Curious George, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Khan’s favorite, Sid the Science Kid.

And I have some questions.

How much food does Clifford consume? Even the cheapest dog food will add up when your dog is two stories tall. Where do his owners store all that food? And most importantly, who cleans up after him when they take him for a walk?

And then there’s Word Girl. Does her family really not realize their daughter/sister is a literate superhero? Or are they humoring her (for what it’s worth, I’m also skeptical that it took Aunt May forty years to realize her nephew is Spider-man…I always suspected she knew more than she let on).

And as for Curious George…he’s a criminal. Vandalism, breaking and entering, trespassing, burglary, breaking health code regulations…yet at the end, everyone laughs and shakes their heads. Silly monkey. Silly, silly, delinquent monkey. How much collateral damage do you think the Man in the Yellow Hat has to pay for, every episode? What kind of job does he have that he can afford it? Is he in the mob?

Sid the Science Kid. Sid attends a school with only four students, including him. And they only learn whatever he wants to study, which is always, of course, science. Now, maybe he attends a Montessori school. But then why don’t the other kids ever get to choose a subject to study? Don’t the other children resent him for obviously being Teacher Suzie’s favorite?

I’m probably overthinking this. They’re kids’ shows, after all. Khan certainly doesn’t care who cleans up after Clifford. But I do. I lie awake nights, wondering. I even discuss it with The Scientist (he thinks they hire a service to scoop and dispose of it).

Also, I am still waiting for that very special episode of Dinosaur Train where the pterodactyls see a meteor plunge to the Earth. So maybe they’re dinosaurs who ride a train…but that doesn’t mean the show can’t be somewhat scientifically accurate, right?

Yeah, I probably need a hobby.

How We Ruined the Wedding

To set the tone of this blog, here is a story about how Khan ruined someone's wedding.

Last month we attended the wedding of two of The Scientist’s friends. This was the first time several of his buddies had seen Khan, so we were anxious to show everyone what a Perfect Angel he was, and thus what Superior Parents we are.

Since The Scientist was a groomsman, keeping Khan corralled was all on me. I did pretty well during the rehearsal and the dinner, if I do say so myself. He spent most of the rehearsal attempting to electrocute himself at an unsecured outlet in the back of the church; I spent most of the rehearsal retrieving him with a firm-but-loving “No.”. Excellent, I thought. Surely everyone was impressed with my Supernanny-like patience and tenacity. The weekend was off to a good start.

At the wedding, Khan played quietly on the floor during the processional. I was getting his bottle out of the diaper bag just as the bride reached the groom at the front of the church. And at that moment, Khan lost his balance, tumbled over, and banged his head on the pew.

Now, Khan bumps his head on various surfaces approximately 2, 639 times a day. Usually he gets back up, blinks a couple times, and crawls off to wreak havoc elsewhere.

Not this time. No, this time, in front of 200 people, in a large church with awesome acoustics, during the most important moment in the lives of two people we care about, Khan screamed.

I’d never heard him scream like this before. I’d never heard anyone scream like this before. It was like every tortured soul in Hell joined forced with every teenage slut from every slasher movie ever made, and they all cried out with one voice.

I didn’t wait for the horrified glares. I grabbed Khan in one hand, the bottle in the other, and bolted. Not easy to do in strappy sandals and a floor-length dress.
In the vestibule I crammed the nipple into his mouth and sat on the floor. He sucked down the bottle, and then I made a doubly horrifying discovery: it was pouring rain, so I couldn’t take him outside, and I’d left his pacifier in the church. When the formula was gone, I resorted to let him chew on my fingers to keep him quiet (Khan was teething, and still is teething, and has been teething pretty much constantly since he was 4 months old).

After the ceremony, everyone streamed out of the church. And, to my surprise, no one glowered at me. No one chastised me for being a bad mom or accused me of ruining the couple’s chance at happiness. They were probably just too shocked by my fingers, which looked like they’d been chewed by a rabid shrew.

With shrunken ego and a throbbing hand, I navigated the reception (which consisted of three hours of me pulling Khan away from an unsecured electrical outlet…). And you know what? The wedding wasn’t ruined. Everyone who was supposed to get married that day, got married. And we all got cake, except for Khan because he was too little.

Your kids are going to surprise you, usually at the worst possible time. It’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t make you a bad parent. Just be prepared to sacrifice your dignity- and your fingers- at a moment’s notice.

Dramatis Personae

As you might expect, this blog is a chronicle of the exciting adventures of a first-time mother and her rather fabulous son, codenamed Khan. At the time of this writing, Khan is 11 months old. His mother is significantly older.


The Cast

Khan: baby, genius

Ana_Khouri: mother to Khan, wife of The Scientist, perpetually baffled

The Scientist: father to Khan, husband of Ana_Khouri, perpetually working

Hellbeast: Cat, overweight and righteously cranky

Assorted grandparents, relatives, friends, other people's children.