Conference oass::babynames

239.0. "Dave Barry on Babies and Sex" by REGENT::GALLANT (An angel's face, a devil's grin...) Thu Jun 09 1988 12:42

	As I was perusing through the Dave Barry NOTESfile, I found
    	this particular article and figured I would put it in here for
    	all those expectant or have been expectant parents.
    
    	Moderator, if you feel this article should not go in this 
    	conference, please delete it.
    
    	Perhaps someone could put this in Parenting, too.  I would,
    	but I'm not sure of the node it's on since I a not a parent!
    
    	It's long, yes.  But every screen has got humor in it!  
    	Enjoy!!!
    
    	/kim


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           <<< HYDRA::DISK$NOTES$LIBRARY:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DAVE_BARRY.NOTE;1 >>>
                       -<  Dave Barry - Noted humorist  >-
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Note 429.0               Babies and Other Hazards of Sex              No replies
LOIOSH::GOUN "TPU Developer"                        744 lines   8-JUN-1988 15:26
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    [This longish article from the dave-barry newsgroup does not appear to
    have been posted here before.  It is not a direct ripoff of Dave's book
    _Babies and Other Hazards of Sex_.  Rather, it appears to be either a
    precursor or condensation of the material in the book, with additional
    (very) funny bits. -- Roger]
    
    
			BABIES AND OTHER HAZARDS OF SEX
 
	  How to make a tiny person in only 9 months, with tools you
			probably have around the home.
 
				 by Dave Barry
 
SHOULD YOU HAVE A BABY?  SHOULD ANYBODY? 
 
    --  Some Important Pompous Advice to Couples About to Get Pregnant  --
 
Getting pregnant is an extremely major thing to do, especially for the woman,
because she has to become huge and bloated and wear garments the size of cafe
awnings.  This is the woman's job, and it is a tradition dating back thousands
of years to a time when men were not available for having babies because the
had to stand outside the cave night and day to fend off mastodons.
 
Of course, there is very little mastodon-fending to be done these days, but men
still manage to keep themselves busy, what with buying tires and all.  So it is
still pretty much the traditional role of the woman to get pregnant, go through
labor, have the baby and feed it and nurture it until it is old enough to throw
a football with reasonable accuracy.
 
In recent years, however, men have become more involved in childbirth and
childrearing as part of a federally mandated national trend.  Under the terms
of this trend, men are beginning to see that they can free themselves from the
restrictions of their self-made macho prisons and allow themselves to show
their emotions openly -- to laugh, to cry, to love, to just generally behave
like certified wimps.  What this means to you males is that if you get a female
pregnant, you are now expected to behave in an extremely sensitive manner and
watch the baby come out.  I will explain how to do this later.
 
My point here, young couples, is that baby-having is extremely serious
business, and you probably don't have the vaguest idea what you're doing, as is
evidenced by the fact that you're reading a very sloppy and poorly researched
article.  So I think we should start you off with a quiz to test your knowledge
of important baby facts.
 
--  Quiz for Young Couples Who Want to Have a Baby and Who Clearly Have No
    Idea What They're Getting Into  --
 
1.  How many times do you estimate that a baby's diaper must be changed
    before the baby becomes toilet-trained?
 
  a.  One million billion jillion.
  b.  One skillion hillion drillion gazillion.
  c.  Man babies never become toilet trained.
 
2.  What is the most disgusting thing you can imagine that a baby might
    deliberately put into its mouth?
 
  a.  A slime-covered slug.
  b.  A slime-covered slug that has just thrown up all over itself.
  c.  A slime-covered slug that has just thrown up all over itself
      because it has fallen into a vat of toxic sewage.
 
3.  What do you do if your 2-month-old baby is screaming in an airplane
    and refuses to shut up and is clearly disturbing the other passengers?
 
  a.  Summon the stewardess and say: "Stewardess, whose baby is this?"
  b.  Summon the stewardess and say: "Stewardess, this baby is very
      interested in aviation.   Please take it up and show it around
      the cockpit for the duration of the flight."
  c.  Summon the stewardess and say: "Stewardess, please inform the
      captain that this infant has just handed me a note in which
      it threatens to continue crying unless it is taken to Havana
      immediately."
 
  SCORING:
 
  Give yourself one point for each question you answered.  If you scored
  3, you are very serious about this, and you might as well go ahead and
  have a baby.  If you got 2 or less, you either aren't really interested
  in having a baby, or you have the IQ of a tree stump.
 
-- How Much Does It Cost to Have a Baby? --
 
In primitive times, having a baby was very inexpensive.  When women were ready
to give birth, they simply went off and squatted in a field; this cost nothing
except for a nominal field-rental charge.  Today, of course, the medical
profession prefers that you have your baby in a hospital, because only there
can doctors, thanks to the many advances in medical equipment and techniques,
receive large sums of money.
 
It is difficult to predict what the doctor's bill will be, because every
situation is different.  If your doctor's Mercedes-Benz is running well, he may
charge you as little as $2,000; if there are complications, such as that he has
been hearing a little ticking sound in the transmission, he may be forced to
charge you much more.  It is a good idea to shop around before you settle on a
doctor.  Ask about the condition of his Mercedes.  Don't be shy!  After all,
you're paying for it.
 
--  The Cost of Everything After the Baby Is Born Right Up Until It Goes to
    College or, God Help You, Graduate School  --
 
Again, it is very hard to be specific here, largely because I haven't done any
research.  In my own case, I estimate that the cost of raising our son, Robert,
to age 3, which is where he is at the moment, breaks down as follows:
 
	Little metal cars:  $13,000
	Everything else:    $ 4,000
 
If we extrapolate this out for the next 18 years, assuming that inflation
continues, and that we don't have a nuclear war, which would pretty much render
the point moot, we can conclude that in the long term, a child can cost scads
of money.
 
PREGNANCY
 
--  The Female Reproductive System  --
 
The female reproductive system is extremely complicated, because females
contain a great many organs, with new ones being discovered every day.
Connecting these organs is an elaborate network of more than seven statue miles
of tubes and canals. Nobody really understands this system. Burly male doctors
called "gynecologists" are always groping around in there with rubber gloves,
trying to figure out what's going on.  Or so they claim.
 
--  Fertilization  --
 
The fertilization process starts in the ovaries, which each month produce an
egg.  After a hearty breakfast, this egg treks down the Fallo- pian tubes,
where it is propositioned by millions of sperm, totally insincere one-celled
animals.  Often, to attract the egg, the sperm will engage in ritual behavior,
such as ruffling their neck feathers.  No, wait, I'm thinking of birds.
 
Anyway, the egg, a fat and globular kind of cell with very little self-esteem,
finds itself in this dimly lit Fallopian tube surrounded by all these sleek,
well-traveled sperm, and sooner or later one of them manages to penetrate.
Then the sperm all saunter off, winking and nudging each other toward the bile
duct, while the fertilized egg slinks down to the uterus, an organ shaped like
Webster Groves, Missouri.  The egg attaches itself to the uterine wall, and
thus begins an incredibly subtle and complex chain of hormonal secretions that
signal to the woman's body that it is time to start shopping around for fluffy
little baby garments.  Pregnancy has begun.
 
--  Pregnancy and Diet  --
 
You must remember that when you are pregnant, you are eating for two.  But you
must also remember that the other one of you is about the size of a golf ball,
so let's not go overboard.  I mean, a lot of pregnant women eat as thought the
other person they're eating for is Orson Welles.  The instant they find out
they're pregnant they rush right out and buy a case of Mallo-mars, and within
days they've expanded to the size of barrage balloons.
 
Keep in mind that it's a BABY you're eating for.  If you're going to eat for
it, don't eat like an adult; eat like a BABY.  This doesn't mean you can't have
Mallo-mars; it means you must hold them in your hands until the chocolate melts
and then rub it into your hair and on the sofa.  If you eat at a restaurant,
feel free to order that steak you crave, but have the waiter cut it into
650,000 tiny pieces and then refuse to touch them, preferring instead to chew
and swallow the cocktail napkin and then throw up a little bit on your dress.
 
--  Important Advice for Husbands  --
 
The key here is to be sensitive.  You must not let your wife think you find her
unattractive just because she's tremendously fat.  Go out of your way to
reassure her on this point.  From time to time, say to her: "I certainly don't
find you unattractive just because you're getting tremendously fat." If you go
to a party where every woman in the room is slinky and lithe except your wife,
who is wearing a maternity outfit that make her look like a convertible sofa,
be sure to remark from time to time, in a strident voice, that you can't judge
a book by its cover.  Your wife is bound to remember this sensitive gesture.
 
During her pregnancy your wife will have many emotional moods caused by the
fact that there are gallons of hormones racing around inside her.  The two of
you will be sitting in your living room, watching the evening news on
television, when all of a sudden she'll run into the bedroom in tears because
of a report about a monsoon wiping out a distant Asian village.  Follow her.
Comfort her.  Tell her: "They're just distant Asians, for God's sake."
 
--  Teaching Your Child in the Uterus  --
 
Can you teach your child while it's still in the uterus?  The answer is yes, at
least according to this couple I saw on the "Phil Donahue Show" once, and I
don't see why they would lie about it.  Their kids all came out of the womb
with a deep appreciation for classical music.  Frankly, I don't understand why
parents think this is so important, because as I recall my youth, children who
appreciated classical music were infinitely more likely to get beat up on the
playground.  The smart move, if you want your child to have respect and
admiration of its peers, would be to teach it how to spit convincingly or lead
cheers.
 
But never mind what you teach the child while it's in the uterus; the important
thing is that you CAN teach it, and you'd better, if you want it to get into
Harvard Medical School.  Of course the teaching method has to be very simple.
I mean, you can't go in there with slide projectors or anything.  Where would
you plug them in?  So you'll pretty much have to content yourself with yelling
at the stomach.  This is the man's job, because the woman would look pretty
stupid yelling at her own stomach.
 
So whenever the two of you have a spare moment together, such as when you're
waiting to cash a check at the bank, the man should lean over and yell, in the
general direction of the woman's uterus, something like, "The capital of North
Dakota is Pierre." Or maybe that's South Dakota.  I can never keep the state
capitals straight, because when I was in the uterus, back in 1946, Phil Donahue
hadn't been invented yet.
 
PREPARING FOR BIRTH
 
--  An Important Message About Professional Childbirth-Preparation 
    Terminology  --
	
Before you have your baby, you're going to be dealing with a number of
professional childbirth experts, so you ought to know that they all have this
very strict rule: When they talk about childbirth, they never use the word
"pain." Granted, this is like talking about the Pacific Ocean without using the
word "water," but the way they see it, if they were to tell you women in clear
language what is really involved in getting this largish object out of your
body, none of you would have babies, and the professional childbirth experts
would have to find another source of income.
 
So they use the International Childbirth Professional Code Word for pain, which
is "contraction."  To the non-expert, a "contraction" sounds like, at worst,
maybe a mild muscle cramp, but it actually describes a sensation similar to
that of having professional football players smash their fists into your
uterine wall.  In a "strong contraction," the players are also wearing skis.
 
It's quite natural for you to be apprehensive about the pain of childbirth.  I
was terrified of it myself, until I did a little research and learned there was
no way I would ever have to go through it.
 
--  How Your Mother Had Babies, and Why We Now Feel It Was All Wrong  --
 
Here is the system that was used for having babies during the Eisenhower
Administration: At the first sign of labor, the husband would rush the wife to
the hospital, where she would be given modern medical drugs that would keep her
from feeling contractions or anything else, including a volcanic eruption in
the delivery room.  This way the woman felt very little pain.  Often she didn't
regain consciousness until her child was entering the fourth grade.
 
One big problem with this system was that drugs can have adverse effects on the
baby, as is evidenced by the fact that every single person born during the
'40s, '50s or '60s is really screwed up.  Another problem was that the father
had very little to do with the birth.  His job was to sit in the waiting room
with the other fathers and smoke cigarettes and read old copies of "Field and
Stream" and wonder what the hell was taking so long.  When the baby was born,
the nurses would clean it up as best as they could and show it to the father,
then he'd go home to bumble around and have humorous kitchen episodes until his
wife got back on her feet and could resume cooking.  This system deprived the
husband of the chance to witness the glorious moment when his child came into
the world, not to mention all the other various solids and fluids that come
into the world with the child.
 
So today we have a much better childbirth system.  Federal law now requires the
man to watch the woman have the baby, and the woman is not allowed to have any
drugs unless she agrees, in writing, to feel guilty.  In some ways, we're back
to the old prairie method of baby-having, only we do it in modern hospitals, so
the man doesn't have to boil water.  All the water-boiling is now done by
trained health-care professionals for about $65 a gallon.
 
THE ACTUAL BLESSED EVENT
 
Childbirth is like vampires.  It never strikes before sundown.  If you feel
something that seems like contractions during the day, you're actually having
what is called "false labor."  Sometimes false labor can be very realistic, in
which case you may have to go to the hospital, where you will be examined by a
false doctor, who may even deliver an anatomically correct doll.
 
But real labor always begins at 3:15 a.m.  Eastern Standard Time, because that
is when every obstetrician in the country is in deepest sleep.  As soon as
contractions start, you should call your obstetrician, who will answer the
phone and, without even waking up, say: "How far apart are the contractions?"
You can give any answer you want ("About two feet," for example), and then the
obstetrician will say, "You'd better come on in to the hospital." Then he'll
roll over onto his side, still completely unconscious, and resume snoring.
 
At this time, you should gather up the things you'll need in the hospital
(don't forget your passport!) and set off.  Husbands, here is how you should
drive.  Sit on the edge of the driver's seat with your face one inch from the
windshield and grip the steering wheel so firmly that little pieces of it keep
breaking off in your hands.  Every eight or nine seconds, jerk your head down
violently to look at the gas gauge, then give your wife's knee a firm clench
for one-tenth of a second and grimace at her and say, "Everything's going to be
fine."
 
--  The Big Moment  --
 
And what is it like?  That, of course, is what you want to know.  What is it
really like?
 
I don't have the vaguest idea, of course.  But I do remember what it sounded
like when my wife had our son.  I was at one end of my wife, shouting words of
encouragement to her head; the doctor and nurse were shouting to the other end
of her body.  It sounded like a group of extremely sincere people trying to
help an elephant dislodge a Volkswagen from its throat.
 
	DOCTOR: You're doing just great, Beth!  Just great!  Really!
		Isn't she doing great?
 
	NURSE: She sure is!  She's doing just great!
 
	ME: You're really doing great, honey!  Really!
 
	BETH: AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRUUNNNNNNNGGGGGGGHHH.
 
	DOCTOR: That was just great!  Really!
 
Finally Robert came out and immediately demanded to be put back in.  My wife
and I were very happy.  I remember hugging her head.
 
--  What to Do Immediately After Birth  --
 
Close your eyes tightly.  This is in case the doctor takes it into his head to
show you the placenta, which is a highly unattractive object that comes out
close on the heels of the baby.  In the old days, when people were decent, the
placenta was disposed of quickly and was never talked about in polite society.
But now people bandy it about openly in public, as if it were a prize-winning
bass.
 
THE HOSPITAL STAY
 
--  A Reassuring Word About Baby-Identification Procedures  --
 
A common fear among new parents is that, as a result of a mix-up in the
nursery, some terrible mistake will be made, such as that they'll wind up
taking home Yasser Arafat's baby.  This fear is groundless.  When a baby is
born, a hospital person immediately puts a little tag around its wrist with the
words "Not Yasser Arafat's Baby" printed on it in indelible ink.
 
--  Naming Your Baby  --
 
A good way to pass the time is to argue loudly with your husband about what to
name the baby.  You should get started on this as soon as possible, because
both of you are likely to have strong views.  He may want to name the baby
"John," after a favorite uncle, while you may hate "John" because it reminds
you of a former boyfriend, not to mention that the baby is a girl.
 
There are some names new parents should avoid altogether.  You shouldn't name a
boy "Cyril" or "Percy," because the other boys will want to punch him
repeatedly in the mouth, and I can't say as I blame them.  And you shouldn't
give a girl's name a cute spelling, such as "Cyndi," because no matter how many
graduate degrees she gets she will never advance further than clerk-typist.
 
In recent years, it has become fashionable to give children extremely British-
sounding names, such as "Jessica."  I think this is an excellent idea.  Despite
the fact that Great Britain has been unable to produce a car that can be driven
all the way across a shopping mall parking lot without major engine failure,
Americans think that anything British is really terrific.  So I recommend you
give your baby the most British name you can think up, such as "Queen
Elizabeth" or "Big Ben" or "Crumpet Scone-Hayes."
 
MAINTENANCE OF A NEW BABY
 
Finally, the big day will come when the hospital authorities order the wife to
leave, and the two of you take your new baby home.  There is nothing quite like
the moment when a young couple leaves the hospital, walking with that
characteristic new-parent gait that indicates an obsessive fear of dropping the
baby on its head.  Finally! It's just the three of you, on your own!
 
This independence will last until you get maybe eight feet from the hospital
door, where you'll be assaulted by grandmothers offering advice.  The U.S.
Constitution empowers grandmothers to stop any young person on the street with
a baby and offer advice, and they take this responsibility very seriously.  If
they see your baby without a little woolen hat, they will advise you that your
baby is cold.  If your baby has a hat, they will advise you that your baby is
too warm.  Always they will offer this advice in a tone of voice that makes it
clear they do not expect your baby to survive the afternoon in the care of such
incompetents as yourselves.
 
--  The Basic Baby Mood Cycle  --
 
This is the Basic Baby Mood Cycle, which all babies settle into once they get
over being born:
 
	Mood One: Just about to cry
	Mood Two: Crying
	Mood Three: Just finished crying
 
Your major job is to keep your baby in Mood Three as much as possible.  Here is
the traditional way to do this.  When the baby starts to cry, the two of you
should pass it back and forth repeatedly and recite these words in unison: "Do
you suppose he's hungry?  He can't be hungry.  He just ate.  Maybe he needs to
be burped.  No, that's not it.  Maybe his diaper need to be changed.  No, it's
dry.  What could be wrong?  Do you think maybe he's hungry?"  And so on, until
the baby can't stand it any more and decides to go to sleep.
 
When your baby is awake and not crying, it will follow specific air molecules
around the room with its eyes.  For years scientists thought the reason newborn
babies waved their eyes around in such seemingly random ways was that they
couldn't really focus on anything, but we now know that, thanks to the fact
that they have such small eyes, they can actually see molecules whooshing
around, which is a much more interesting thing to watch than a bunch of parents
and relatives waving stupid rattles in their faces.
 
--  Should You Breast-Feed or Bottle-Feed Your Baby  --
 
I'm surprised you even have to ask.  All of us modern childbirth experts feel
very strongly that you should breast-feed your child.  There are two major
reasons:
 
   1.  Your mother DIDN'T breast-feed, and we now know that everything
       your mother did was wrong.
 
   2.  Breast-feeding is better for the baby.  Much has been written on
       this subject, reams and reams of information in hundreds of
       excellent books and articles which I frankly have been unable to
       read because I would never get this article finished on time.
 
--  What Is Colic?  --
 
Colic is when your baby cries all the time, and people keep telling you how
their kid had the colic for 71 straight months.  If your baby gets colic, you
should take it to the pediatrician so he can say, "There's nothing to worry
about," which is of course absolutely true from his perspective, since he lives
in a colic-free home many miles from your baby.
 
--  Changing Your Baby's Diapers  --
 
First of all, you must understand that as far as your baby is concerned, you
never have to change its diapers.  There is no creature on earth so content as
a baby with a full diaper.  Pooping is one of the few useful skills that very
small babies have mastered, and they take tremendous pride in it, especially
when they have an audience, such as grandparents or the assembled guests at the
christening.  They'll wrinkle their little faces up into determined frowns, and
they'll really WORK at it, with appropriate loudish grunting noises that will
at times drown out the clergyman.  After all that effort, they want some time
to enjoy their achievement, to wriggle and squirm until poop has oozed into
every wrinkle and crevice of the cute little $45 designer baby outfit you
bought especially for the christening. So when you change a diaper, don't think
you're doing your baby any great favor.  As far as your baby is concerned,
you're taking away the fruits of its labor.
 
THE FIRST SIX MONTHS
 
The first six months is a time of incredibly rapid development of your baby.
It will learn to smile, to lift its head, to sit, to play the cello and to
repair automatic transmissions.
 
Ha ha.  Just kidding here, poking a little fun at parents who watch like hawks
for their babies to pass the Major Milestones of Infant Development, when the
truth is that during the first six months babies mainly just lie around and
poop.  They haven't even developed brains at this point.  If you were to open
up a baby's head -- and I am not for a moment suggesting that you should -- you
would find nothing but an enormous drool gland.
 
Nevertheless, this is definitely the time to buy your baby its first computer.
It's never too soon to start learning about computers, as you know if you have
been watching those television commercials wherein children whose parents
didn't buy them computers at an early age wind up as ragpickers with open sores
all over their bodies.
 
--  Baby Sitters  --
 
The best baby sitters, of course, are the baby's grandparents.  You feel
completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is
why most grandparents flee to Florida at the earliest opportunity.
 
If no grandparents are available, you will have to rent a teen-ager.  You don't
want a modern teen-ager, the kind that hangs around the video-game arcade
smoking Marlboros and contracting herpes.  No, you want an old-fashioned,
responsible teen-ager, the kind who attends Our Lady of Maximum Discomfort High
School and belongs to the 4-H Club and wants to be a nun.  Even then you don't
want to take any chances.  The first time she takes care of your baby, you
should never actually leave the house.  Drive your car until it's out of sight,
then sneak back and crouch in the basement, listening for signs of trouble.  In
later visits, as you gain confidence in the sitter, you should feel free to eat
sandwiches in the basement, and maybe even listen to the radio quietly.  After
all, this is your night out!
 
--  Baby Albums  --
 
Baby albums are probably the single biggest cause of violent death in America
today.  The reason is that when people have their first baby, they record
everything that happens:
 
    	January 5 - Today Rupert is exactly one and a half weeks
	old!  He weighs 8 pounds, 3.587 ounces, up 2.392 ounces
	from yesterday!  He had two poopy diapers today, but
	definitely not as runny as the ones he had January 3!
	Also not quite so greenish!
 
And so on.  By the time these people have their SECOND baby, they're sick of
albums.  Oh, they try to slap something together, but it's obvious that their
hearts aren't really in it:
 
	1966-74 - Byron was born and is now in the second grade.
 
So Byron grows up, seemingly normal on the outside, but knowing on the inside
he has this pathetic scrawny album while his brother's looks like the Manhattan
telephone directory, and eventually he runs amok in a dentist's office with a
Thompson submachine gun.  So if you want to do a baby album, fine, go ahead,
but have the common decency to notify the police first.
 
SIX MONTHS TO A YEAR
 
--  Baby's First Solid Food  --
 
We're using the term "food" loosely here.  What we're talking about are those
nine zillion little jars on the supermarket shelf with the smiling baby on the
label and names like "Prunes with Mixed Leeks."  Babies hate this stuff.  Who
wouldn't?  It looks like frog waste.
 
Babies are people, too; they want to eat what YOU want to eat.  They want
cheeseburgers and beer.  If we simply fed them normal diets, they'd eat like
crazy.  They'd weigh 150 pounds at the end of the first year.  This is exactly
why we don't feed them normal diets: The last thing we need is a lot of
150-pound people with no control over their bowel movements.  We have enough
trouble with Congress.
 
--  Traveling with Baby  --
 
By now you're probably thinking how nice it would be to take a trip somewhere
and stay in a place where there isn't a hardened yellowish glaze consisting of
bananas mixed with baby spit smeared into every surface below a height of two
feet.  Great idea!  My wife and I took many trips with Robert when he was less
than a year old, and we found them all to be surprisingly carefree experiences
right up until approximately four hours after we left home, which is when his
temperature would reach 106 degrees.  Often we didn't even have to take his
temperature, because we could see that his pacifier was melting.
 
Almost all babies contain a virus that activates itself automatically when the
baby is 200 miles or more from its pediatrician.  The first time this happened
to Robert, we wound up in a pediatric clinic where the doctor got his degree
from the University of Kuala Lumpur Medical School and Textile College.  He
said, "Baby very hot!  Bad hot!  Could have seezah!"  Then we said, "Oh no!  My
God!  Not seezah!"  Then we said, "What's seezah?"  We were afraid it was some
kind of horrible Asian disease.  Then the doctor rolled his eyes back in his
head and went "Aaarrgh," and we said, "Oh!  Seizure!"
 
The lesson to be learned from this is that when you travel with a baby, you
must be prepared for emergencies.  Let's say you're planning a trip to the
seashore.  Besides baby's usual food, formula, bottles, sterilizer, medicine,
clothing, diapers, reams of moist towelettes, ointments, lotions, powders,
pacifier, toys, portable crib, blankets, rectal thermometer, car seat,
stroller, backpack, playpen and walker, don't forget to take:
 
  o  One of those things that look like miniature turkey basters that you to
     clear out babies' noses, for when your baby develops a major travel cold
     and sounds like a little cauldron of mucus gurgling away in the motel
     room six feet away from you all night long.
 
  o  A potent infant-formula anti-cholera drug, for when you're lying on the
     beach and look up to discover that baby has become intimately involved
     with an enormous buried dog dropping.
 
  o  Something to read while you're sitting in the emergency ward waiting room.
 
  o  Plenty of film, to record these and many other hilarious adventures
     you're bound to have traveling with a baby.   You might also take a
     camera.
 
--  Teething  --
 
Teething usually begins on March 11 at 3:25 a.m., although some babies are off
by as much as 20 minutes.  The major symptom of teething is that your baby
becomes irritable and cries a lot.  Of course, this is also the major symptom
of everything else, so you might try the old teething test, which is to stick
your finger in baby's mouth and see whether baby bites all the way through to
your bone, indicating the presence of teeth.
 
THE SECOND YEAR
 
Your baby will learn to walk and talk, but that's nothing.  The major
development is that is will learn how to scream for no good reason in shopping
malls.
 
--  Walking  --
 
Most babies learn to walk at about twelve months, but nobody has figured out
why they bother, because for the next twelve months all they do is stagger off
in random directions until they trip over dust molecules and fall on their
butts.  You cannot catch them; they fall so quickly, the naked adult eye cannot
see them.  This is why diapers are made so thick.
 
During this phase, your job, as parent, is to trail along behind your child
everywhere, holding your arms out in the Standard Toddler-Following Posture
made popular by Boris Karloff in the excellent parent-education film "The
Mummy", only with a degree of hunch approaching that of Neanderthal Man so
you'll be able to pick your child up quickly after it falls, because the longer
it stays on the ground the more likely it is to find something to put in its
mouth.
 
--  Talking  --
 
There are two distinct phases in the baby's language development.  The second
phase is when the baby actually starts talking, which is about eighteen months.
The first phase is when the parents imagine that the baby is talking, which is
somewhere around twelve months, or even earlier if it's their first baby.
 
What happens is that one day the baby is holding a little plastic car, trying
to get it all the way in his mouth, and makes some typical random baby sound
such as "gawanoo," and the parents, their brains softened from inhaling baby
oil fumes, say to each other: "Did you hear that?  Teddy said CAR!!"  If you've
ever been around young parents going through this kind of self-delusion, you
know how deranged they can get.
 
--  Potty Training  --
 
Child psychologists all agree that bodily functions are a source of great
anxiety for children, so we can safely assume this isn't true.  It certainly
wasn't true for our son.  He was never happier than when he had a full diaper.
We once took him to a department store photographer for baby pictures, and just
before we went into the studio, when it was too late to change his diaper, he
eliminated an immense quantity of waste, far more than could be explained by
any of the known laws of physics.  The photographer kept remarking on what a
happy baby we had, which was easy for him to say, because he was standing
fifteen feet away.  The pictures all came out swell.  In every one, Robert is
grinning the insanely happy grin of a baby emitting aroma that would stun a
buffalo at 15 feet.  So much for the child's anxiety.
 
I'll tell you who gets anxious.  The parents, that's who.  Young parents spend
much of their time thinking and talking about their children's bodily
functions.  You can take an educated, sophisticated couple who, before their
child was born, talked about great literature and the true meaning of life, and
for the first two years after they become parents, their conversations will
center on the consistency of their child's stool, to the point where nobody
invites them over for dinner.
 
Around the child's second birthday, the parents get tired of waiting for the
child to become anxious about his bodily functions, and they decide to give him
some anxiety in the form of potty training.  This is probably a good thing.  A
child can only go so far in life without potty training.  It is not mere
coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty trained.
 
THE THIRD YEAR
 
--  Fears  --
	
All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears -- of falling, of the dark,
of lobsters, of falling on a lobster in the dark, of speaking before the Rotary
Club and of the words "Some Assembly Required."  These fears help protect your
child from real danger, and you should encourage them.  ("Run!" you should
shout.  "Lobsters are coming!")
 
But many 2-year-olds also develop seemingly irrational fears.  They get these
from Mister Rogers.
 
He tries to reassure his young viewers about standard childhood fears, but the
children would never have thought of them if Mister Rogers hadn't brought them
up.  My son and I once watched Mister Rogers sing this song in which he said
over and over, in the most cheerful voice imaginable, that "You can never go
down the drain."  By the time he finished, we were both very concerned about
going down the drain.  And this came at a time when I had just gotten over the
fear of being stabbed to death in the shower, which I got from "Psycho."
 
Recently, my son became convinced that a horse was coming into his bedroom at
night to get him.  The way to cope with this kind of fear is to allow the child
to confront it openly.  We took Robert to visit some real horses, so he could
see for himself that they are nothing more than huge creatures with weird
eyeballs and long teeth and hard feet that could stomp him to the consistence
of grits in seconds.  Aided by this kind of understanding and support from us,
Robert eventually stopped imagining his horse, which was good because it was
ruining the carpet.
 
--  Fears Your Mother Teaches You During Childhood  --
 
You needed these fears to become a responsible adult, and now it's time to
start passing them on to your child:
 
  o  The fear that if you cross your eyes, they'll get stuck that way.
 
  o  The fear that if you go in the water less than an hour after eating,
     you will get a cramp and sink to the bottom, helpless, and possibly
     catch cold.
 
  o  The fear that if you wear old underwear, a plane will crash on you and
     rip your clothes off and your underwear will be broadcast nationally on
     the evening news.  ("The victim shown here wearing the underwear with all
     the holes and stains has been identified as....")
 
  o  The fear that if you get into trouble at school, it will go on your
     Permanent Record and follow you for the rest of your life.  "Your
     qualifications are excellent, Mr. Barry, but I see here in your Permanent
     Record that in the eighth grade you and Joseph DiGiacinto flushed a lit
     cherry bomb down the boy's room toilet at Harold C. Crittenden Junior High
     School.  Frankly, Mr.  Barry, we're looking for people with more respect
     for plumbing than that.")
 
--  Toys for 2-Year-Olds  --
 
Pay no attention to the little statements on the boxed that say things like
"For ages 1 to 3."  If you heed these statements, all you'll buy for the first
few years are little plastic shapes that the child is supposed to put in
corresponding little holes, which is so exceedingly boring that after five
minutes the child will develop an ear infection just for a change of pace.  The
best toys for a child aged 0-3 is a toy that says "For ages 10 to 14." The best
toy for a child aged 10 to 14 is cash, or its own apartment.
 
You should also buy Fisher-Price toys.  Not for your child.  For your own
protection.  Every Fisher-Price toy has been approved by a panel consisting of
dozens of child psychologists and pediatricians and Ralph Nader and Mister
Rogers, and in most states failure to own at least a half-dozen of these toys
is considered legal proof of child abuse.
 
Another reason why you should buy Fisher-Price toys is that they are built
better than any other products you can buy, even in Japan.  They're made out of
some plastic-like substance that Fisher-Price imports from another planet, and
nothing can harm it.  If Fisher-Price had any marketing sense, it would make
its cars much bigger and put real engines in them and change the seats so that
real people could sit in them.  Right now, the seats are designed for little
toy ball-headed Fisher-Price people, which have no arms or legs (the Fisher-
Price factory employees whack off the arms and legs with little machetes just
before shipment).  Consumers would snork these cars up like hotcakes.  We'd
forget all about Toyota.
 
EPILOGUE: SHOULD YOU HAVE ANOTHER?
 
Well!  So here we are!  We've taken your baby from a little gourdlike object
with virtually no marketable skills to a real little human being, capable of
putting the cat in the dryer and turning it on by his or her self!
 
Sure it's been a lot of work for you.  Sure, you would have like to have had a
few more quiet evenings alone, just the two of you sipping wine and talking,
instead of sitting in the hospital X-ray department, waiting to find out
whether your child had, in fact, swallowed the bullets that it snatched out of
the belt of the policeman who was writing a traffic ticket because you smashed
into the furniture store when your child threw your glasses out the car window.
But take a minute to look at the positive side of parenthood.
 
	(Pause)
 
Give it time.  You'll come up with something.  And when you do, think about how
much fun it would be to do the whole thing over again.  Only this time around
you'll have a chance to avoid the mistakes you made last time, such as labor. I
understand from reading the publications sold at supermarket checkout counters
that you can now have a baby in a test tube!  I don't know the details, but it
sounds much less painful that the usual route, although you'd have to balance
that against the fact that the baby would be extremely small and cylindrical.
It would look like those little Fisher-Price people.
 
But whether you have another child or not, the important thing is that you've
experienced the fulfillment that comes with being a parent.  And I guarantee
you that there will come a time, years from now, when your child--now an adult
with children of his or her own--will come to you, and, in a voice quaking with
emotion, ask for a loan for a down payment on a house much nicer than yours.
 
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               That Was hilarious.
                    I enjoyed reading it.
    
     Thanks for putting it in.

    Not just funny, but sweet.  And entirel accurate.
    
    Ben's Ma