Babyhood (9780062098788) (9 page)

Whose Idea Was This?

W
alking into the house for the very first time with the child felt a bit like a honeymoon. The big difference, of course, is that when you carry a baby across a threshold, they're significantly lighter than the average adult bride, and also, we didn't immediately jump into a Jacuzzi and bad-mouth the band at the wedding.

Like the previous nine months, my wife did the actual carrying. I supervised.

“Careful, don't drop him . . . Honey, you almost dropped him there . . .”

The short journey from the front door to the baby's room took an inordinately long time, because though he weighed significantly less than a wheel of cheese, we choreographed the move like he was a piano.

“Okay . . . swing him around, now bring your end over . . . watch out for the umbrella stand . . . you know what, let me move the sofa out of the way . . .”

Halfway to his room, I remembered.

“Oh, damn.”

“What's the matter?”

“I forgot to get this on tape.”

All that time during the pregnancy when I was supposed to be reading baby books and taking baby classes and learning baby CPR didn't go totally to waste because I did use the time to shop for the perfect
video camera.

“Look, honey, this one has the screen that flips open, plus we can digitize the baby's face like they do on those cop shows.”

Given all the time I put into getting the camera—not to mention all the time my wife put into making the baby—I thought it was well worth our while to make my wife repeat anything I failed to record for posterity.

“Hold it, I think I forgot to hit a button or something . . . Why can't I see his face?”

“Sweetie, I'd like to get the baby inside.”

“Wait . . . how come . . . oh, okay. I had the lens cap on. Now, come in again.”

“I'm not coming in again.”

“Just go back a little bit.”

“How far—the hospital?”

“No, just out the door. Can you make him wave?”

“He's a day old.”

“I'm telling you, years from now, you'll thank me.”

The thing they don't tell you in the video instruction manual is that babies don't make great subjects for moving pictures—what with them not
moving
a whole lot. And if you train your camera on the new mom, given what they feel is their less than sparkly appearance, you're likely to get their hand shoved into your lens, like a tobacco executive on
60 Minutes.
So you end up shooting the one member of the family who is willing to go before the camera—the dog.

“Here's
King
destroying a pair of knitted booties.”

T
he arrival of children can be exhausting not only for people but also for
machines.
Our answering machine almost packed up and quit those first few days, because everyone you
know
calls, and never just once. We came home from the hospital, hit the button, and heard a mechanical voice on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

“You have one hundred and thirty-seven calls. The tape is now full . . . plus there's another nine I scribbled down by hand . . . and I know it's not my business, but there was a package at the door which I signed for because it said ‘perishable.' ” Which, you have to admit, for a little machine, is remarkably conscientious.

We, of course, saved the tape as a memento of the day. So years from now, our child can hear everyone who wished him well, along with a wrong number who kept calling looking for
Rita.

Most of the messages from family and friends were addressed directly to the baby. Which is another one of those things that's too cute and yucky, and yet, invariably, something everyone does.

“Yes, this is a message for Baby
Schuyler
. . . welcome to town. And tell your parents Uncle Bisque and Aunt Cutlet called. They'll know who we are.”

Or a popular variation—the “bypass-the-parents-and-bond-with-the-kid” calls.

“Tell your mommy and daddy that if they won't buy you a car when you get older, your Uncle Rudy'll take care of you . . .”

Some proud new parents will announce everything on the
outgoing
machine tape, so anyone who calls gets all the vital information.

“Please leave a message for Steve, Julie, and
Spartacus,
who was born Tuesday night, weighs seven pounds three ounces, is eighteen and a half inches tall, enjoys long baths and romantic walks in the woods, and currently smells like a combination of pineapple and potato gnocchi.”

While this is certainly an
efficient
way of disseminating information, it doesn't make the caller feel particularly special. The implication is “If you've got access to a phone, you're all of equal importance to us. Telemarketers, wrong numbers, prowlers casing the house . . . everyone—come share our joy.”

And share they did. No sooner did we transcribe all our families' and friends' messages than we found ourselves inundated with the real thing.

A
new child in the house is a huge tourist attraction. It's like Disneyland, except there the lines are longer and no one brings casseroles. Everybody has to come, everybody has to see.

And everybody has to
hold
the baby. I remember being naturally protective of our infant son. During those first few days, regulations were firmly established.

“Okay, you have to wash your hands before you handle the baby . . . You have to remove any sharp objects to be found on your person or clothing . . . If you've had a cold in the last eighteen months you must sit in the den until spring.”

Even though we had only been parents for less than forty-eight hours, we felt perfectly justified in giving expert instructions to everyone. Like a newly founded country, we already had our laws, bylaws, and traditions.

“Um, Mom, that's not how he likes to be held . . . We always support his neck . . . like
this
. . .”

“Always?”

“Well, since yesterday.”

Boy, nothing endears you to your parents more than telling them how to deal with babies.

“Do you remember me dropping you a lot when
you
were a baby?”

“Um, no, not really, but . . .”

“Did your
father
drop you a lot, that you recall?”

“No, but you don't . . .”

“So why don't you calm down and get your wife a sandwich?”

When everybody oohs and aahs over the baby, they're not just being nice; they're angling to see who the kid looks like. Up till then, I had no idea how explosive this issue is. I always assumed that everybody looks at least a little like one of their parents, and usually it changes. You may look like your father as an infant, but your mother as a toddler. What I didn't know is that when grandparents first hold their newborn grandchildren, family resemblance isn't just an interesting coincidence—it's a matter of utmost pride. Failure to look like the right side of the family is an insult and a dishonor.

When it was quite apparent to everyone that my son looked like his beautiful mother, my mother actually said to me, “So, you'll have another kid,
that
one'll look like us.”

E
verybody wants to talk to babies, but no one knows what to say. “Hello” is very popular. You can't
not
say it. You pick up a baby, you just start saying “Hello.” Over and over. “Hello . . . hello . . . helllll-ooooo . . .” Like you're on the phone and the baby's just not picking up. In reality, they hear you fine—they're just waiting to hear what you say next.

Usually what comes next is a question. The inevitable high-pitched, dopey-voiced, grown-ups-talking-to-babies voice.

“Who's the cutest baby?”

“Who's got an itty-bitty nose?”

“Who's got a poopy diaper? You? Do you have a poopy diaper and an itty-bitty nose?”

First of all, these questions are way too easy. The reason babies don't answer is because they're insulted. They don't like being patronized.

“You
know
who the cutest baby is, so why ask? Give me a tough one.”

“Who's that in the driveway? Is that Grandma pulling up in the driveway?”

But not
that
tough. That makes them angry.

“How the hell should I know who's in the driveway? I can barely see over this giant stuffed frog.”

Plus, I think they resent questioning in general. It's like an interrogation.

“Who's that? What's that in your nose? Why are you crying? What did you do? And how do you explain your juice ending up on
his
bib?”

And they start sweating.

“Hey, I'm innocent, I tell ya. I've only been alive three and a half weeks . . . I just learned how to breathe, for crying out loud . . . I also, incidentally, just learned how to cry out loud . . .”

Observing my relatives with the baby, I realized they fall into a few different categories of adult-to-infant communication:

There's
The Greeter:

“Who's that? That's your mommy. Who's that? That's your daddy . . .”

Who often works hand in hand with
The Tour Guide:

“This is the living room, can you say living room? And this is the foyer! You don't want to spill anything in the foyer . . .”

Who's not quite as annoying as
The Embarrasser:

“Did you make a stinky? I think you made a stinky. I'm going to tell everyone you made a stinky, even though we're not a hundred percent sure . . .”

Or
The Entertainer:

They just lean over the baby and make amusing noises.

“Ha-cha-cha—cha . . . Ha-cha-cha-cha . . . Boo-ta-boo-ta . . . chook-chook-chook-chook . . .”

These, of course, are all derivatives of the quintessential and official baby-speak noise—“Coochie coochie coo.” I'm not sure how that became the industry standard, but it is. I imagine that at some point there must have been a meeting. “Coochie coochie coo” beat out perennial favorite “goo-goo-gah-gah” and the straightforward but too-literal “Greetings, Small Bald Round One.”

A
s we said our good-byes to friends and family, I noticed I anointed every male who attended this inaugural gathering with the title of “Uncle.” Related or not, pretty much any male adult who spends more than ten minutes in the company of your child becomes an uncle.

“Uncle Mark was my college roommate . . . say good-bye to Uncle Mark . . .”

“Say hello to Uncle Cable Guy . . . Uncle Cable Guy was supposed to be here between eight and twelve . . .”

“Please don't stare at Uncle Car-Jacker. It makes him nervous.”

Women, naturally enough, are automatically disqualified from being an Uncle. But the good news is that the qualifications for “Aunt” are just as negligible. Even if a friend comes over with a date that everyone
knows
he's never going to see again, you still say, “Say good-bye to Uncle Tommy and Aunt, uh, I'm sorry, what is it?
Barbie.
Right. Aunt
Barbie.
”

Why are the requirements for these jobs so lax? And, more importantly, who wants more
relatives
?

A
fter the last of the coffee was served and the hugs and kisses were distributed, the crowds did go home, and the exciting momentum that carried us through pregnancy, and then through all the drama and elation of the birth, started to subside. In its place, staring us in the face, was a vast unknown called “The Rest of Our Lives.”

We went upstairs, took the baby to the room we had set up, stocked, and decorated to within an inch of its life, looked at him, then at each other, and realized, “Now what?”

We had no idea how one starts the process of actually
being
parents.

The first impulse is to fall into “host” mode.

“Would you like a drink or something? Diet Coke? A beer? Oh, no, of course . . . I forgot—your people don't drink . . . You want to freshen up? There's a bathroom down the hall—Oh, your people do it right in their pants, don't you? . . . You want to watch TV? Video? I got the
Godfather
trilogy . . . Tell you what, we're going to probably eat in an hour or so . . . so why don't you just, uh . . . sit there, and we'll watch you. Okay? Okay.”

Just a Few Things
to Worry About

W
hen you first have your baby home, your brain is seized with a plethora of potential dangers.

“I could drop him. I could drop something on him. I could roll on top of him in my sleep . . .”

These are big fears you can instantly envision. But there are plenty of ways you can harm a baby that you don't even see coming.

I'm changing my son's pajamas, and he starts screaming. I panic. “What? What could it be? I've done everything right. I'm blocking him so he can't roll off, I cleared away everything in a two-mile radius that he could pull down on top of him, I dimmed the light so as to not damage his little retinas, I put on soothing music for his listening and dancing pleasure . . .”

I even did the little thing where you gather up the sleeve at the cuff, so you can pull him through in one shot, as opposed to the go-in-the-sleeve-with-him and snake his arm through inch by inch, like a little arthroscopic camera. So why's he screaming at me?

Apparently, when you pull a baby's fist through a sleeve, some of his fingers don't always make it. Halfway through the process, a pinky can jump out into the middle of the road. So while you're singing a catchy melody from
Peter Pan
to his face, you're quietly breaking off a good one-fifth of his favorite hand. You can't see that coming.