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.