Babyhood (9780062098788) Page 10

  “No . . .”

  “So what are you telling me?”

  “Um, nothing . . . just that they jingle . . . and they exist . . . and I have them right here.”

  “What do they have to do with my stomach ache?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “Then get out of here with that. Bring me a malted.”

  But they don’t say that. They’re willing to seriously consider whatever you have to offer.

  Singing is also popular. Since the arrival of our child, I’ve been singing everything. Simple sentences like “I’m going to make your bottle now” become operatic arias, half spoken, half sung, and usually nasal, with randomly elongated vowels. Basically, everything sounds like Jerry Lewis. So, “Who’s crying?” becomes “Whoooooo’s cryyyyyy—iiiinngggga fuuyymn?”

  If a baby is on the verge of tears, sudden and emphatic singing directed right in their face will, nine out of ten times, do the trick.

  “Twinkle, twinkle, liiit-tle star . . . how I wonder what you are . . .”

  If they don’t actually stop crying, they’ll at least simmer down enough to see if you’re any good. They’ll listen to a few bars, and if you’re not good, they’ll resume crying. I mean, they may be easy, but they’re not that easy.

  Still, the fact that they even give you a chance is remarkable. That they have a legitimate grievance, and are willing to forgo complaining about it in exchange for a song, is, to me, darn decent of them.

  This is something, again, that would not work at all with taller people. Try it. Next time your wife is upset about something, see what happens if you break into song.

  “I can’t believe you invited people over now. There is nothing in the house to eat . . .”

  “Yes, but, honey, shh shhh, shhh, honey—look: Seventy-six trom-bones led the big pa-rade . . .”

  “The place is a mess . . .”

  “. . . with a hun-dred-and-ten cornets right behind . . .”

  Beat.

  “Oh, I guess it’s okay . . .”

  It’d never work. But babies, fortunately, are more easily sidetracked.

  Infants are also, I’ve discovered, quite fond of the “peekaboo” game. The game is simply: Show them your face, then take it away. It’s essentially two components: “I’m here,” and “then I’m not.” “I’m suddenly right in front of you, then mysteriously, not-so-much.” It’s the change they like. The alternation of being there and then not being there. And while you’re not there, they enjoy the anticipation of you coming right back in two seconds. (The first four hundred times you do it gives them a sense of the pattern.)

  Ironically, while my son seems to love the “faces coming at him” more than the “faces going away,” I seem to recall that I was just the opposite. When I was a baby, I preferred the part of “peekaboo” where they went away. I didn’t like the “peek” as much as the “aboo.” I was a big fan of the “aboo,” the “stop sneaking up on me and just sit over there” aspect of the game. But that may very well be just me.

  There are times, however, that as easily as kids can be amused, the sheer burden of being the one doing the amusing can be overwhelming. Especially if you’re doing the amusing all by yourself.

  One time, my precious little tax deduction and I were having great fun playing. But after an hour or so, I realized there’s only so much playing I’m capable of doing. I’m not that inventive, that enthusiastic, that naturally playful. I mean, I can indicate the inventory of toys available, demonstrate how the sliding things slide and the bouncy things bounce, all of which he will either try himself or put in his mouth until the toy is so dense with saliva absorption that it falls to the floor and the game is over. But then what? No matter how much you worship and adore your child, there are times that you hit your limit. You look at your watch, calculate the astonishingly large block of time left to fill, and realize, “I’m not going to make it.”

  This, I discovered, is what they mean when they say you have a child. You literally have him. There is no other verb operating. You’re not “doing,” you’re not “being,” you’re not “interacting,” you’re not in any way benefitting from each other—you simply “have” the child. Much in the same way that you have a blue blazer.

  “You have kids?”

  “Yup, we have two kids. One in high school, one a freshman in college.”

  “Do you have a blue blazer?”

  “Yes, upstairs, in the closet, on the right.”

  You may not be wearing the blazer, or in any way entertaining the blazer, but that blue blazer is nonetheless yours. The main difference, of course, is that not every baby goes with gray slacks.

  Hey, There’s Milk

  in There

  “You’re scared of my breasts, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not scared . . .”

  “Then why are you skittish around them?”

  “Who’s skittish? No one’s being skittish . . .”

  Here’s the truth: That milk can flow from a breast is, no question about it, a miraculous miracle. Breasts that heretofore had no experience in this area suddenly, upon the birth of a child, start serving up the one item this particular child likes to eat. Talk about packing your own lunch—this guy not only sees to it that he’ll have what he needs when he lands, he’s arranged for someone else’s body to dispense it upon request.

  But as miraculous and moving as this is, I can’t get past the fact that food is coming out of my wife’s breasts. What was once essentially an entertainment center has now become a juice bar. This takes some getting used to. It’s like if bread were suddenly coming out of a person’s neck. Wouldn’t that be unsettling? Let’s say you’re a woman. If you were nibbling your husband’s ear and came away with a piece of toast, wouldn’t you be a tad skittish? That’s all I’m saying.

  My son never had this concern. He and my wife developed a terrifically fine-tuned routine. Whenever he felt like nursing, he would look up at her and shoot her a very seductive little Marcello Mastroianni glance, and in response, she would put a breast in his mouth.

  It was that simple. He knew what he wanted, she knew what he wanted, no words need be exchanged. And it’s amazing to witness how swiftly and inconspicuously nursing mamas can lift their shirts, slide open their bras, and maneuver both baby and breast into full operating mode in a matter of seconds.

  My wife and child got so good at it, there were times we were in mid-conversation, and I didn’t even know it was going on. I’d be talking to my wife, looking at her, she’s looking at me, absolutely involved in the discussion, when I’d suddenly hear a slurping noise from inside her shirt.

  “Man, you guys are good. I didn’t even know the baby was in the room.”

  And it’s not the easiest thing in the world to conceal. I know if it were me and I had, for example, a raccoon licking molasses off my stomach, I don’t know that I could sit on a couch and look you in the eyes like nothing was going on.

  When your wife nurses your child several times a day, it’s perfectly understandable to overlook the intimacy of the act and behave as if indeed nothing was going on. However, when you’re in the presence of a woman not your wife nursing a child not your own, the protocol can get murky. Plenty of times we’ll have friends over who have a new baby, and the mom will slap that baby onto her breast, and to be quite honest with you, I’m never sure exactly where to look. You don’t want to make her self-conscious and run out of the room in the name of discretion, but you also don’t want to be so blasé that you stand there chatting about how many channels you think you get with a satellite dish, while someone you frequently have dinner with has her breast out and about in your living room.

  Here’s what I’ve decided: You can stay in the room as long as you keep yourself busy and moving around, so your eyes never fall directly onto the nursing mom and child. If they do land there, you may look only at her neck, or any point north. You start looking below her neck, you’re looking for trouble.

  Furt
hermore (and this may be way more information than you need), even if you catch a glimpse of the woman’s breast, you’re still potentially okay as long as it’s the fleshy part of the breast. The Bosom at Large, as it were. If the baby jerks away suddenly to reveal the actual working mechanics of the nursing distribution setup, you must, out of sheer decency, get out of there. Start scratching your eyes like you’re having a violent hay-fever attack or something. Turn around and pretend the back of your pants are itching, and tug at your belt for a while until she has time to gather herself properly. And then pretend like nothing happened.

  Now That’s Funny

  I’ll never forget the day I got the first real, genuine laugh out of my son. I don’t remember anything in my life feeling that good. It was just so intoxicating and heart-warming that I’d like to have that laugh bottled and put into an I.V. that drips into me endlessly.

  When he hadn’t laughed for the first few months, I just decided I wasn’t funny. It must be my fault; I’m trying to make him laugh, he’s not laughing, it’s me. It never dawned on me that he just wasn’t ready.

  For the first few months, you get nothing. Then you get smiles. Actually, not “smiles” per se, but little cheek spasms that look like smiles and in fact are him wincing as a pocket of gas rockets through his torso. Sometimes it’s not even that; they’re just arbitrary, uncontrolled twitches that, when you’re hoping for a smile, you decide are “close enough.”

  Then, after a while, you start to get actual smiles, and you learn the difference. You get a real smile and you can’t believe your good fortune. I’m not sure why it’s such a big deal. I’d hate to think I’m really that desperate for approval. What it is, I’ve decided, is the first sign that you’re actually getting through; that this is not just two interplanetary beings staring at each other. With that smile, you know that they know you’re out there.

  But it becomes addictive. In no time, that smile is no longer enough. You need more. You need—the Laugh. And you’ll do anything to get it. You make faces, funny noises. You animate dolls and produce entire one-act plays around them. You talk high, you talk low. You mock the child’s mother in her presence, hoping to parlay one laugh into two. There is nothing you won’t try.

  Ironically, the first laugh I got came from doing something that I had been doing for months: a simple raspberry on the belly. This has different names in different families: Slurpies, Bloweys, Churtles, Normans—all basically an intense compression of air from the lips-of-an-adult against the stomach-of-a-child, resulting in the amusingly loud, disruptive, faux-fart effect.

  At first, I didn’t know for sure I was getting the laugh. I was holding the kid up in the air, showing off for company, my face implanted deep into his rib cage to make sure the raspberry was registering. The noise was so loud and forceful that to my ears, it was drowning out the laugh. Everyone else in the room had a clear view and was having a ball. I would hear them laugh in response to his laugh, pull my head up to see, but by the time I got there, the laugh was over. It was a little unfair, actually, seeing as how I was the one doing all the work. I would “raspberry” faster and shorter, trying to get back up in time to catch the laugh. But I kept missing it. Sort of like standing up to get a good look at your lap: It’s gone before you get there.

  But then, it happened—the monumental and glorious breakthrough. I coaxed from my son a sustained laugh, saw it and heard it with my own eyes and ears, and—I just wanted to dive in and spend my entire lifetime in the fluffy cloud of that moment.

  And I couldn’t help wondering why this wasn’t funny to him the first few thousand times I did it. Why now? Why wasn’t it amusing January through May? I decided that in the beginning, it doesn’t matter how amusing anything is; if you’re three days old, you’re just not in the mood to laugh. The machinery is there. The wiring that will let you laugh is installed at birth, but it’s sort of like cable; someone has to turn it on. It needs to be initialized and activated and then, hopefully, it should keep working forever.

  Of course some people grow up and stop laughing, and it’s entirely possible that if you lift up their shirts and give them a raspberry, they’ll start laughing, too. However, I don’t know these people, and I don’t really feel it’s my place to blow on their bellies.

  Make Room for Daddy

  If I’m not mistaken, there was a time, not long ago, when I actually had a name. When you become a daddy, “Daddy” becomes your name.

  “Daddy’s going to make you breakfast.”

  “Daddy wants to give you a kiss.”

  “No, don’t put that in your mouth—give the dead bird to Daddy.”

  I was never crazy about people who talk about themselves in the third person. To me, it’s an affection reserved for superstar athletes (“Dennis Rodman’s not happy with how Dennis Rodman played tonight”) or dim-witted nutcases in bad movies (“Johnny no like to strangle puppies, but Johnny confused”).

  With babies, however, I can understand that their brains may not be ready to distinguish among so many pronouns, names, and nicknames, so it’s best to just give everyone one name and then stick with that.

  “Mommy loves you.”

  “Mommy has to go now.”

  “Mommy is so tired, Mommy could literally cry at any given second.”

  Where it starts to sour is when Mommy and Daddy use these names to refer to each other and start talking through the child.

  “Tell Mommy that Daddy’s going to go out and be back in half an hour.”

  “Could you ask Daddy where he’s going?”

  “Tell Mommy Daddy’s going to pick up a paper and a Snickers bar.”

  “Ask Daddy why he doesn’t take you with him so Mommy can take a shower.”

  “Tell Mommy that maybe Daddy was going to say that, but Mommy just didn’t give Daddy a chance.”

  After several months of being “Daddy” and “Mommy,” we found that we couldn’t shake the habit. We referred to ourselves in the third person even when the baby wasn’t around.

  “What was the name of that Chinese restaurant Daddy and Mommy loved downtown?”

  “Szechuan Garden?”

  “Yeah. Mommy wants to get some fried rice from Szechuan Garden.”

  Creepier still is when you start talking to yourself about yourself in the third person. I was home alone one morning, walked into the bathroom, and announced to no one, “Daddy’s going to brush his teeth.”

  It’s impossible to stop. I walked into my office and actually said, “Hold all Daddy’s calls, please.”

  People look at you like you’re nuts.

  There was a point, though, where I started to enjoy it. It did have a bit of a sense of grandeur. I walked around like Burl Ives in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

  “Big Daddy’s gone down in the basement . . . Nobody bother Big Daddy.”

  Because, when you think about it, being a “Daddy” is not just a name; it’s a title. Like “Duke” or “Baron.” And like any self-respecting title, it comes with certain privileges.

  “Daddy knows best.”

  “Why? Because Daddy said so.”

  “Daddy has had a really rough day, so all in the Kingdom shall be still, as Daddy has to lie down for a little nap.”

  Stepping Out with

  My Baby

  When you have a brand-new child, your world shrinks. With the exception of going to get food and more diapers, you don’t step out of the house. In time, of course, the three of you do venture out. Or Mommy and baby venture out. And finally, Daddy has to go out with baby—alone.

  In terms of responsibility and potential for error, this is light-years beyond taking care of the very same kid at home, comfortably ensconced within the confines of your familiar, relatively safe walls. It’s yet another next step.

  I didn’t even realize I hadn’t gone out until a new-dad friend of mine and I started comparing notes.

  “You been alone with the kid yet?”

  “Of course. Lots of times.”
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  “You gone outside?”

  I said, “Sure.”

  “With the kid?”

  “Yeah, with the kid. What’s the big deal?”

  “You’re telling me you’ve been outside with the kid, on the street, around strangers, in the world?”

  And it hit me.

  “Oh, outside outside. I thought you meant like in the backyard . . . Out in the world? Oh, no. I’m not ready for anything like that.”

  I did know the day was coming; you can’t put off something like that forever. Not surprisingly, the push came from my wife.

  “I’d really love to take a nap.”

  “By all means,” I said. “Go ahead. I got the baby. We’ll watch a video or something.”

  “It’s a beautiful day out . . .”

  “Oh, it sure is,” I countered, grabbing the nearest video, fearing where this was headed.

  “Why don’t you take him out for a stroll?”

  I got a little sweaty.

  “In the stroller?”

  “Yes, in the stroller. Take him for a stroll, in the stroller.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “Why don’t you take him down to the mailbox?” my wife suggested perkily.

  “The mailbox?”

  “Yeah, there’s three envelopes by the door that have to go out today. You guys could mail them together. It’ll be like an adventure.”

  Okay, here’s another way to know you have a baby: Going to the mailbox is now an “adventure.” With no baby, “the mailbox” is not a destination. It’s not even a somewhere. It’s a twenty-second pause on the way to somewhere. But with a child, you need to always be going somewhere, doing something. Every mundane chore gets elevated to adventure status. And not just because of the sheer amount of preparation—the aforementioned Baby Time. It’s because you need to believe you’re on an adventure. You need that veneer of excitement. The illusion of purpose. The grand sense of accomplishment. After all, if you thought all you were doing was “watching the baby,” you might feel a bit unchallenged. Or—and you never heard it from me—bored. If, however, you take this responsibility and dress it up with a little goal, a tiny task, a splash of destination, why—now you’ve got something. Now you’ve got yourself an Adventure.